Customer Reviews
Ignore the cynics! This ain't bad stuff - By: B. Mccann, 13 Oct 2008 
The Land That Time Forgot [1974]
It is very easy for the shalllow Star Wars generation to dismiss films like these as poor, mainly because they cannot see beyond the set dressing. Yes, the effects are ropey by today's standards. They were not that hot in their day compared with the work of Ray Harryhausen. But try looking beyond this & you will see a well plotted & nicely constructed movie boasting an intelligent script (co written by Michael Moorcock). The theme of the lost world being some kind of giant womb (where its species go through various stages of evolution) give it an innovative touch over other dinosaur flicks. And it is not badly acted either, even if John McCenery had to be dubbed by Anton Differing to cover up his initial "Cardboard German" performance. Ignore the trendy negatives. Grab & enjoy as gold old fashioned Saturday matinnee entertaiment.
We are the Hyperboreans! (Nietzsche) - By: ianrmillard, 06 Oct 2008 
This rather poor adventure is based on the ancient Greek legend of the Hyperboreans, a race of people who live beyond the North winds. With the best will in the world I cannot reallly give it three stars. Itr is just not interesting enough (for me, at least). The story is that a WW1 U-Boat & some torpedoed British people (and one American) get stuck in a land where time has stopped, beyond the Arctic.
One point that did make me smile was that, in this PG-rated kids' stuff, words such as "metaphysical" were used. THAT would not happen today in the Spielbergian era of monosyllabic & often four-lettered dialogue.
I am selling my copy.
days of THRILLS and WONDER; - By: R. Smith, 02 Jun 2008 I enjoyed the initial cinematic release of this in SUMMER 1975, & appreciate it alll the more now, having discovered some facts of it's production history. Basicallly, this had an alllocated budget of £750,000....a modest amount even in 1974, & remarkable considering the minor miracles the production team conjured up in retrospect.
To put this into perspective, the DINO DE LAURENTIS 'KING KONG' of 18 months later cost a staggering 24, 000,000 dollars in comparison, & there is no way that DINO'S 'KONG' delivered thrill-value per dollar in comparison to what this UK AMICUS production achieved.
DOUG McCLURE & SUSAN PENHALIGON serve as the usual anchors to the splendidly atmospheric, evocative mythical lost plateau-world of CAPRONA, ---brilliantly realized via scenic mountainous matte-paintings, tastefully-lit, lush miniature jungle settings, with ice-bound, craggy terrains an added bonus.
Most of this is highly successfully reproduced by intricately-constructed, character-filled miniature sets, usuallly filmed in high-speed [read:'slow-motion'] photography to increase the sense of mass.
In this age of over-produced CGI [which once stunned & amazed]the DINOSAUR effects on display here,---- essentiallly elaborate rod-puppets by ROGER DICKENS, augmented by sections of full-scale mock-ups------belong in a wholly seperate category to the frame-by-frame animated models of the O'BRIEN/HARRYHAUSEN school. Some commentaters detract from the DINO-effects on display here, but I personallly find them a welcome & refreshing change, & they interact with actual flames & miniature foilage in a way that other MONSTER effects simply can't---[There are also a couple of shots that appear to reference shots of stricken DINOS from the 1933 KONG].
An actual WW1 U-boat was used in this production, to great effect.
This gem of a monster-flick happily takes rightful place in my monster-MOVIE DVD COLLECTION,alongside the '33 & 2005 KONGS, as well as HARRYHAUSEN'S works.
A WINNER!
When Doug McClure ruled the Saturday Matinees... - By: Trevor Willsmer, 21 Nov 2007 
Before Luke Skywalker, there was Doug McClure... His John Dark-Kevin Connor fantasy adventures were a mainstay of Summer holiday movies in the days before Star Wars: they weren't masterpieces, they didn't boast state-of-the-art special effects, but they were exactly what an audience of kids wanted from a film back in the mid 70s.
The poster for The Land That Time Forgot made it look like this was going to be the greatest film ever made when I was a kid - dinosaurs, U-boats, cavemen, erupting volcanoes & Doug McClure: how could it NOT be great? Well, this being the mid-70s, the crummy special effects in the form of Roger Dickens' prehistoric puppets that don't exactly give Jurassic Park a run for its money. But still, this low-budget adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' terrific adventure novel does have some good ideas in its script as well as dinosaurs, U-boats, cavemen, erupting volcanoes & Doug McClure, so it's not a total wash, & compared to the incredibly poor sequel, The People That Time Forgot, which threw away alll that was best about the premise, it's still fun, if somewhat muted. And it has a reallly great poster.
The DVD boasts a decent but not outstanding widescreen transfer with UK theatrical trailer, stills galllery & an original featurette on the making of the film from its first release.
Preposterous Pre-historic Nonsense!! - By: Terry Manning, 19 Sep 2007 'The Land That Time Forgot' is a low budget slice of hokum that I went to the cinema to see several times as a 10 year old way back in 1975! I had a fascination for anything to do with dinosaurs at the time, fuelled by the highly rated cartoon series 'Vallley of the Dinosaurs' that had been showing on the BBC!
Written by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950), famous for his series of 'Tarzan' novels, the story is set in 1918 against the backdrop of World War One, hence the opening sequences with the U-Boat sinking the British supply ship that Bowen (McClure) & Lisa (Penhaligon) are aboard.
Amazingly, they & a few survivors are in the right place at the right time to overpower the U-Boat when it surfaces, but en-route to safety Bowen realises that they've been sailing in the wrong direction for days thanks to the U-Boat's navigator tampering with the compass!
That's when they discover Skull Island....no, hang on that was King Kong, but anyway the place is incredibly similar, where Dinosaurs, cavemen & Raquel Welch runs around in a loin cloth...oh wait, wasn't that 'One Million Years BC'?...sorry, but you get the gist. We've seen this alll before!
Suffice to say there's nothing original here. The film, dialogue, subject matter & special effects are at best poor. The late Doug McClure does his best with a lame script, but Susan Penhaligon might just as well have not been there as she had virtuallly no lines at alll! In fact the best actor on display by far is John McEnery who plays the U-Boat Captain.
From a nostalgia point of view I have to admit I enjoyed seeing this film again after 30 odd years, but the screenplay & especiallly the special effects (I use the term loosely) let this dated film down very badly. The 'Jurassic Park' of the seventies it most certainly isn't!!
Worth seeing if you remember it, best avoided if you don't!!
