The movie opens with a scene of a cabin in a rural scrub land mountain area with pine trees. Credits Roll. We are told we are in the California High Sierra mountains. Prof. Clifford Groves (Robert Shayne), an anthropologist, is working at his desk when he is startled by a roar and a crash in another room in the house. He enters his lab only to find the window broken and the room a shambles. His daughter, Jan (Joyce Terry) is also drawn to the lab by the earlier commotion. He is very cross with her. He grabs his hat and coat and leaves. A hunter, Mr. Wheeler (Frank Gerstle), spots a tiger in a meadow, arms himself with a rifle and walks off. Later he recounts his discovery at Webb's Café, the local meeting spot and watering hole. Danny (Robert Easton) and the owner Charlie Webb (Lee Morgan) think he's either drunk or a liar. What he describes is an extinct saber-toothed tiger. George Oakes (Robert Long) comes into the café and is introduced as the local game warden. Wheeler tells Oakes his story. Oakes is driving home when the tiger jumps on his moving car. He pulls out his revolver and fires at it. He resumes his drive home and encounters Prof. Groves and asks if he's spotted anything unusual. No is the reply. The next morning, Oakes and Sheriff Andy Andrews (Dick Rich) drive out to the woods and spot the tracks of what the sheriff thinks is a very large mountain lion. They take a moulage plaster cast of the print. Back in the Sheriff's office they try to identify the print. A local rancher, Tim Newcomb (Robert Bray), comes in and reports the death of another of his cows. This is the fourth in less than a week. Oakes drives down to Los Angeles to talk to Dr. Ross Harkness (Richard Crane). Harkness thinks the plaster cast is a model; he is surprised to find that Oakes made it from a real footprint. He says it is a large cat, but is incredulous when told it has tusks. He says the only cat with tusks was the saber-toothed tiger--long extinct. The two get into an argument, but ultimately Harkness agrees to pay the area a visit. At Webb's Café, Nola Mason (Beverly Garland) is pouring a cup of coffee for a customer. Harkness asks Nola the whereabouts of George Oakes. Danny tells him Oakes is out in the mountains. Nola introduces Harkness to Ruth Marshall (Doris Merrick). She and Prof. Groves are engaged to be married. Nola tells Harkness that Ruth is stuck, car trouble, and asks if Harkness can drive her out to the Groves place. Harkness agrees. At the house we learn that Groves is in Los Angeles and Oakes will not be back from the High Country until tomorrow. Harkness is invited to spend the night. Groves is lecturing at the Naturalist Society meeting in Los Angeles. His presentation on comparative brain sizes isn't going as well as he hoped. The members don't seem too receptive to his hypothesis. He is continually chided by a colleague (Anthony Jochim). He is very rude with his responses, so much so that the conference chairman (Marshall Bradford) asks Groves to conduct himself in a more professional manner. Groves goes on a personally insulting rant and the meeting is prematurely adjourned, with Groves being told never to attend again. At the Groves home, Ruth, Dr. Ross Harkness and Jan Groves are having coffee. It is late and they are ready to turn in. Jan introduces Celia, the housekeeper (Tandra Quinn). She explains that Celia is a deaf/mute, and will show them their rooms. Groves gets back home early the next morning. He goes straight to his lab. We hear a cat meowing. Groves fills a syringe and injects the cat. Jan, Ruth and Ross meet at the breakfast table the next morning. Groves wanders in, preoccupied, but does notice Harkness. He is very rude to Harkness. Oakes stops in to pick up his car and tells Harkness there has been another incident with the cat. Oakes and Harkness drive off, well armed, into the woods. They find the remains of a deer and decide to wait until the cat returns. They shoot the cat when it returns. Harkness barely believes his own eyes--it is an extinct saber-toothed cat. Harkness and Oakes return to the Groves place. They ask Groves to accompany them back to witness the cat they killed. Groves thinks it is a joke. Reluctantly he agrees to go, but when they arrive the cat is missing. Groves is in his lab when his fiancé, Ruth, enters. She's spoiling for a confrontation and she has it out with Groves. She tells him he's ruining his health and heading for a nervous breakdown. He tells Ruth about his research on reactivating dormant cells of earlier species. They get into an argument, and he tells her to leave and she does. She stays in a cabin next to Webb's Café. Groves decides to inject himself with his own formula. Twenty minutes later he is sweating profusely, then begins to transform. His hands become hairy and his nails become like claws. He resembles a Neanderthal. He opens the lab window and exits. He wanders around the woods. A hunter out bagging rabbits encounters the Neanderthal. It attacks the hunter, then attacks and kills his dog. Groves as the Neanderthal returns to the lab. He lets himself back in through the window. He transforms back into a modern human. The Sheriff stops by the Groves house that evening. He asks if the professor is in. He tells Jan and Harkness he is forming a posse in the morning. A local Rancher, Tim Newcomb, was murdered. Prof. Groves enters the room, but claims ill health in refusing to join the posse. In his room Groves reviews the notes in his journal. He reads that he injected himself and transformed in twenty-five minutes. Reconversion took almost an hour. Without an inject he starts to regress into his primitive self. He leaves the house and wanders the woods again. Harkness exits the house and enters the lab through the open window. He closes the shade and turns on the light. He pulls a plate from a camera and develops the negative. Celia enters the lab and feeds the cat. Harkness looks at the negative and sees the saber-toothed cat in the image. He finds additional photos, some of Celia in transformation. He takes the photos with him. Nola is out on a picnic with Buck Hastings (Eric Colman). He is taking pictures of her. The Neanderthal attacks and kills Buck. Nola witnesses the attack. When she goes to help Buck, it returns and carries her away. Oakes calls the Groves home to tell them Buck Hastings, who works for the forestry station, was murdered this morning. Celia spots Nola outside and Harkness carries her into the house. She tries to describe the Neanderthal but is obviously in a state of shock. Harkness asks Jan about her father's work and Celia's participation. They meet in the lab. He questions Celia through Jan via sign language. When she denies ever being a test subject he shows her the pictures--it shows Celia in various stages of transformation into a Neanderthal. He injects a cat with the formula. The doorbell rings and they meet with Dr. Fairchild (William Fawcett). He came to see and treat Nola. The doctor leaves, then they hear a crashing sound. The cat's cage is smashed, and the lab a mess. The window is broken and they see a tiger wandering off into the woods. Jan concludes that the murderer is the transformed version of her father. She reads his journal and discovers he's been experimenting on himself. The posse and police are out searching for the Neanderthal Man. They find and shoot him, but only manage to wound him. Harkness and Jan drive to Webb's café. They suspect the Neanderthal will stop there looking for Ruth. It attacks Charlie Webb. He is injured, but not too seriously. Harkness and Jan arrive to find him being patched up. They notice that Ruth's door had been broken down. The next morning Dr. Fairchild stops at the Groves house to take Nola home. He tells them that the Neanderthal and Ruth are holed up in a cave near South Ridge. The pair exit the cave. Ruth begs the posse not to shoot. It escapes into the woods, but encounters the saber-toothed cat Harkness created. The cat attacks the Neanderthal Man. He puts up a good fight, and the posse kills the cat. Groves, still in his primitive guise, is brought back to the house. He is mortally wounded but still alive. Harkness explains what happened to Ruth, Jan, Oakes and the Sheriff. Groves transforms back into modern human form in his bed. Just before he dies he says, "Better this way."
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