Leslie H. Martinson, RIP.

Leslie Herbert “Les” Martinson
(January 16, 1915 – September 3, 2016)

Leslie H. Martinson, who began his career as a director with The Roy Rogers Show, and who’s known for bringing the Batman TV show to the big screen in 1966, has died at 101.

You name a classic TV show, and there’s a good chance he directed an episode of it. He also did a pretty cool 60s spy spoof with Raquel Welch, Fathom (1967). Well worth seeking out.

Blu-ray News #75: One Million Years B.C. (1966).

Directed by Don Chaffey
Starring Raquel Welch, John Richardson, Percy Herbert, Robert Brown, Martine Breswick

When your movie boasts Raquel Welch in a fur bikini and dinosaurs from the great Ray Harryhausen, you don’t really have to worry about things like dialogue. And they didn’t, letting the actors recite fake caveman lingo. “This is the way it was,” claimed posters in the U.S.

Filmed on the Canary Islands, One Million Years B.C. (1966) made Welch an international sex symbol and launched a series of dinosaur/cavemen pictures from Hammer Films.

Kino Lorber will bring it to Blu-ray in November. British prints were nine minutes longer than what we saw in the States — and they got real Technicolor instead of crappy-looking DeLuxe. Let’s hope KL gets hold of the UK version.