The Land Unknown

Rotor Blade Runner

The Land Unknown
USA 1957
Directed by Virgil W. Vogel
Universal/101 Films 
Blu Ray Zone B/DVD Region 2 Dual Edition

Well, I’ve somehow never encountered this 1950s B-movie before now and, luckily, one of the semi-regular 101 Films online sales meant I could pick the thing up cheaply and finally see it. I’m not sure why I never caught The Land Unknown on television as a kid but, catching up to it now, it’s possible that it just wasn’t that well thought of enough even to schedule it on a Sunday afternoon on the BBC (or maybe I just managed to miss it). Either way, I’ve seen it now and I’m here to tell you that this movie is actually fairly awful, not all that entertaining but, I dunno, is something of a comforting watch (I’d watch this again, even though it didn’t do much for me, it has to be said).

Anyway, this film was apparently inspired by real life events when, in 1947, warm water was discovered in Antarctica. All this is used in a very long briefing by a Navy chief to his crew who, ten years later, are going out there with thier ships, seaplanes and helicopters, to explore various sections of the South Pole to try and figure out why there are warm waters in certain areas. This opening section is, in all honesty, interminably dull and it’s only livened up when Commander Alan Roberts (played by none other than Jock ‘Tarzan’ Mahoney) and his sidekick  Lt. Jack Carmen (played by William Reynolds) are introduced to the female reporter for the Oceanic Press, Margaret Hathaway (played by Shirley Patterson) and she utters the only memorable line in the movie, “I always love to meet men, Captain”.

At any rate, two months later, Alan, Jack, Margaret and Steve Miller (played by Phil Harvey... no, not that Steve Miller) find themselves at the Antarctic and in a helicopter flying over said warm water. Alas, a storm comes along and, as they’re trying to get back to their base ship, a Pterodactyl gives them a swipe with it’s wing, damaging an essential part of their ‘copter and forcing them to crash land in a volcanic valley. Here they encounter dangerous grab-you-while-you’re-not-looking vegetation, two giant lizards, a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a Plesiosaur and, no less a villain for most of the movie until he kinda redeems himself at the end, the hostile survivor of an exploration team from ten years prior... Hunter, played by none other than Henry Brandon. You may remember Brandon in some famous roles such as the titular doctor in the 1940 serial Drums Of Fu Manchu, as Scar in The Searchers and  even an appearance as a tough, old timer cop in John Carpenter’s Assault On Precinct 13. 

Now there are two big problems with the film but, in its favour is that it mostly looks nice. It was originally supposed to be a full colour A-picture but, when Universal slashed the budget and went for a black and white B-picture instead, famed director Jack Arnold jumped ship and Virgil W. Vogel, director of The Mole People (reviewed here) took over. But lets get back to those two problems...

One problem is the tone of the special effects... in some ways they’re pretty good in that, asides from the old chestnut of having two real lizards fighting, standing in for dinosaurs, the various actual ‘man-in-suit’ dinosaur creations in the film are dropped in quite credibly against both the real live action and also the various miniatures, with rarely a matt line or juddery mismatch to be seen (an illusion which even survives the beautiful Blu Ray transfer of the film, put out here by 101 Films). Sadly, the majority of the actual dinosaurs spliced in like this are far from credible in and of themselves. I mean, the Plesiosaur is fairly easy on the eye but that T-Rex (the head apparently later re-used as the dino under the stairs in the original TV series The Munsters) looks quite ridiculous and, no matter how cleverly it’s interpolated into the surrounding footage, it really doesn’t save it.

The other big problem with the movie are the practicalities. We have a big, hulking Tyrannosaurus Rex who has to back off because his seemingly tough skin is sliced apart by the rotors of the grounded helicopter (the rotor blades completely unscathed by the encounter). I mean, really? Also, although our heroes... such as they are and they’re, refreshingly for the time, ‘shades of grey’, almost anti-heroes... spend almost 25 days in the prehistoric valley (such as it is), they stay clean shaven. How and why have they got, in their unlikely helicopter full of provisions, a bunch of razor blades from somewhere? Certainly, this issue isn’t addressed in the film at all and just ignored, as our less than facially rugged protagonists explore their new domain. 

And finally, how does long term survivor Henry Brandon know that blowing in a specific shell frightens away dinosaurs? I mean, how do you find this stuff out in the first place? In this hostile environment where you’re trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to become dino food, did he just decide to blow into one within the vicinity of a giant beast for fun one day? None of these questions are addressed, let alone explained, in the course of the adventures.

And there you have it. I really don’t have much good to say about The Land Unknown. I kinda half enjoyed it and I found it comforting to switch the brain off and do nothing... which is how I suspect people who watch football (for whatever reason or motivation those bizarre people behave like that) feel when they are watching their team pit their leg woggling skills against an enemy team, maybe. So, yeah, I can’t recommend this one, in all honesty and, I can’t even say it’s not a complete dud... but I did personally get some entertainment value out of it and, as I said, I would watch this one again. I guess you’ll probably need to go with your gut on this one.