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Just perfect...

hyped garbage

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

I happened to come across this lovely gem of a movie whilst looking up information for a review about another 50's B-movie. Honesty, I had never heard of this movie before and up to this point, I thought I had covered all the unknown island/continent/world fantasy movies. Interestingly enough this film was inspired by a real time event in 1947 when warm water was discovered in Antarctica, but no dinosaurs.The plot involves an expedition to simply map the vast area of Antarctica and check out this unusual body of warm water found in 1947. As per usual we have the predictable set of short, back n sides, military types running the show, and just for eye candy purposes we have the attractive lady too. Whilst on a scouting mission in their helicopter a small team of explorers (three blokes and the lady) hit a bad storm and are forced to land. As you may have guessed they land in an unknown deep warm volcanic crater many miles below sea-level. This crater just so happens to be the home for an entire prehistoric jungle complete with dinosaurs, man-eating plants and various extinct flora and fauna. All that's missing here is Doug McClure.Again to be honest I was expecting a bit of a crap fest here, the films poster looked hokey as hell, as said I'd never heard of the film and pictures I had seen online looked pretty terrible. Much to my surprise, when the team vacate their chopper and start to explore their new ancient surroundings, I was really pleasantly amazed at how decent the sets and props were and how large it all appeared to be. Yes everything looked like a set, that was to be expected, but there was a lot of solid depth and detail here. Add to that the lovely large matte paintings for the background landscapes and you have a really atmospheric little picture going on. The use of a smoke machine to create swirling mist and fog really helped to add a good level of depth and perspective whilst also hiding obvious plastic plant life and rocks.The real fun came along with the dinosaurs of course, were they realistic? well no, lets not get carried away here. The first special effect was the old concept of using real monitor lizards on a small model landscape complete with matte painting backgrounds. That footage would then be added to live action footage of the actors as a rear projection effect. This idea was further used in a few similar themed movies, although I'm unsure if this movie started that trend. Overall it does work to a degree, the lizards look good, but the hopelessly obvious rear projection effect against the actors footage never really works. The lizards don't really pull off the size trick either, you can see they aren't huge because we know they aren't.The other main effect is that of the T-Rex, in this case a man in a rubber suit just like 'Godzilla'. Now although this sounds ridiculously hokey (and it was), it did look really good. Suspension of disbelief is the key here folks, yes we all know its a man in a rubber suit, yes the suit looks rubbery, yes the dinosaur clearly walks like a man...but hey, it still looks cool and its a fun fantasy people. Another dinosaur effect was the large Nessie-like Elasmosaurus in the lake. Now this was a mechanical puppet that clearly only had so many moves at its dispersal, head up, head left, head right, head down and submerge. What makes things worse is the fact its mouth and eyes never move, its one of those creature puppets that, due to technical limitations, always had a static expression which reduces the thrill factor really.So yes it must be said that despite what you might think, the effects in this rather unknown film (no pun intended) are in fact pretty sweet and highly atmospheric. Everything looked suitably murky, moody, mysterious and eerie, the sound effects added to that and at times the film could be a tad scary even, slightly more gritty than other similar movies of the era. Hell at one point we see a cute little Tarsier get scooped up and devoured by a flesh- eating plant...not literately of course. The only thing I didn't really get was why the lone survivor Hunter (a convenient crash survivor from a previous expedition), didn't want to leave the crater with the others. OK he's been stranded there a long time and gone a bit loopy, but surely you'd want to leave, right?Don't expect anything new here, lets face it, if you've seen one lost world with dinosaurs flick, you've kinda seen them all and this is no exception. All the actors do their thing well, nothing particularly outstanding really, its all clockwork and passable stuff, again, we've seen this all before. That being said, this is still a highly enjoyable, atmospheric and visually exciting movie with some great monster moments like the T-Rex, any 'Godzilla' fan will love that. You know what to expect basically, you know to appreciate these films for what they are and nothing more, just sit back and enjoy the charming ride.8/10

Scientists determine that somewhere in the frozen mass of land known as Antarctica is a body of warm water. An expedition is launched to explore the area; along for the ride are intrepid Commander Hal Roberts (later Tarzan performer Jock Mahoney), lovely blonde reporter Maggie Hathaway (Shirley Patterson), pilot Jack Carmen (William Reynolds), and machinists' mate Steve Miller (Phil Harvey). As they reach their destination unforeseen circumstances force them to land in an area that turns out to be 3000 feet below sea level - an area still stuck in the Mesozoic era, full of reptilian menaces and Carl Hunter (Henry Brandon), a traumatized survivor of a previous expedition.As directed by Virgil W. Vogel ("The Mole People"), "The Land Unknown" is very agreeable escapism. What gives it an edge over other Universal-International product of the time is the CinemaScope aspect ratio, giving us more of an eyeful of some pretty good sets. There's plenty of vegetation and steam to add to the atmosphere. It's true that the special effects dinosaurs are on the silly-looking side, but this does add appreciable cheesy B movie charm. The script is full of the usual "science" and exposition for this type of movie. The actors all give a straight faced go at the material. Mahoney is a stalwart hero, and Patterson ("It! The Terror from Beyond Space") is fine eye candy. The standout among the cast is Brandon ("Assault on Precinct 13" (1976)), who's convincing enough as a modern man reduced to a state of primitiveness. (Look for Kurt Russell's dad Bing as a radio operator.) Enhancing all of it is appropriate stock music from such composers as Henry Mancini, Heinz Roemheld, Hans J. Salter, and Herman Stein.This is good straightforward fun recommended to fans of "lost world" cinema.Seven out of 10.

"The Lost World" in 1925, "King Kong" in 1933 and "Unknown Island" in 1948. For 1957, there is "The Land Unknown". A lovable trope that was used in stories, films, TV shows and cartoons. The special effects are cheesy by today's standards. No stop-motion effects, but the T-Rex is a man in dinosaur suit, the Elasmosaurus is a mechanical prop, the pterodactyl is a puppet on a string and the stegosauri are just monitor lizards (read my review on the 1960 remake of "The Lost World"). Basically, a group of scientists find warm water caused by some volcanic action and they wind up on the set of "One Million B.C." Speaking of which, there is a Charleton Heston wannabe who rules the beasts with a sea shell. So there you have it. Is it worth the watch? Yes. Do I recommend it? Dinosaur fan or not, give it a watch. Not rated, but a G would work, but PG would best apply it because of the violence, peril and monsters.

Although it rarely makes the news now even in the Fifties when I was growing up polar exploration was still news. So in the context of the times the expedition that Douglas Kennedy is head of is quite congruent. Would that the story here been a bit better done.The Land Unknown is a real camp classic. Part of Kennedy's expedition involves some map making by Jock Mahoney, William Reynolds and Phil Harvey who with reporter Shirley Patterson are taking a helicopter ride over the Antarctic. They encounter a dense fog and then the blade of the helicopter brushes against something big flying into it and a part comes loose forcing them down.Once down the group finds themselves in the Mesozoic age like in so many of these kinds of films. But a scientist from a previous expedition that was lost has survived their among the dinosaurs and that is Henry Brandon. He's set himself up nicely in a cave and has now regressed somewhat to the primitive. And being a caveman he takes one look at Patterson and woos her caveman style.Even among the beasts Mahoney waxes philosophical and shows off his knowledge of paleontology. Patterson outfit is getting skimpier by the minute only encouraging Brandon more. But in a camp sort of way the film is fun.Not the fault of The Land Unknown, but ever since Steven Spielberg gave us Jurassic Park , dinosaur films from the past just don't cut it. We've moved ahead in movie magic, not like poor Henry Brandon.Story is a bit dumb, but enjoyably bad.