Mistress of the Apes (1979) tells the harrowing tale of Susan, an anthropologist who lost her pregnancy and learned of her husband’s murder in Congo Kenya in the same week. But she remained strong, without showing any visible signs of emotion whatsoever, until she learned to love again, in the arms of a Homo habilis her husband had discovered prior to his death (his murder was unrelated).
Curious George (2006) tells the tail of the beloved eponymous monkey (sic) and re-envisions (and sanitizes) The Man in the Yellow Hat as an archaeologist. This movie sets up a thoughtful and nuanced take on archaeological ethics and neocolonialism, and then says “Fuck it, it belongs in museum after all.” But George is soooo cuuuute!
Today we’re reviewing two films from a brutal, primitive time in humanity’s past, when both politics and romance were conducted through violence: the early 20th Century! His Prehistoric Past (1914) and Clubs are Trump (1917) follow suspiciously similar plots in which Silent Era stars Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Snub Pollard dream of a simpler time when they could commit violent assaults unimpeded and sexually harass women.