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. 

Buck Rogers

Buck To The Future

Buck Rogers
Directed by Ford Beebe & Saul A. Goodkind
USA 1940 Image DVD Region 1

Between Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars (reviewed here) in 1938 and Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe (reviewed here) in 1940, Larry ‘Buster’ Crabbe played another famous comic strip hero on the big screen... in addition to Flash, Tarzan (who was, of course, a pulp hero first) and Red Barry. This theatrical serial was Buck Rogers but, curiously, it wasn’t actually based on either the strip or novel itself (although the opening credits of every episode proclaimed it to be so) and instead the character was just grafted onto a different story and given a slightly different origin. In fact, it’s said to possibly be based on an illegally published, unofficial Flash Gordon story from 1936, in which he travels to Saturn.

Either way, it’s still a cool serial and, although it’s probably a little more pedestrian than the Flash Gordon ones in terms of a variety of locales and characters, it does suit the serial format quite well and in this one Buck is not alone in his situation. When his airship crashes in some snowy mountains and the hybernation gas invented by Professor Wade is turned on in the cabin, in case search parties can’t find them, his young friend Buddy Wade (the professor’s son) is also along for the trip into the 25th Century and they are both woken from their airship slumbers by the rebellion facing off against tyrant Killer Kane, hoodlum ruler of the Earth, five hundred years later. Unlike the newspaper strip, Buddy is not Buddy Dearing, a native of the 25th century and Wilmas's younger brother.

So joining Crabbe is Jackie Moran as Buddy Wade, Constance Moore as Wilma Deering, serial king C. Montague Shaw as Professor Huer (who we last saw as the clay king in Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars), Philson Ahn as Prince Talon of the planet Saturn (where a good majority of the Saturnians, apart from the mutant slave race the Zuggs - with their rubber face applications - seem to be of Asian extraction... yeah, I’m not going to touch that one) and Anthony Warde as Killer Kane (who isn’t in it as much as a lead villain ought to be, it has to be said). There’s also Henry Brandon as prominent bad guy Captain Laska, who many may best remember ‘Asianed up’ for the title role in the 1940 serial Drums Of Fu Manchu, in ‘red face’ as Scar in the 1956 John Wayne classic The Searchers and as the old cop in John Carpenter’s original 1976 movie Assault On Precinct 13.

So the action takes place in just three locations which, in serial fashion, the hero and his companions travel to and from in various episodes... so the Hidden City of the rebellion (which is located in a secret mountain that has big doors disguised as the front of the mountain, allowing spaceships to fly in and out), Killer Kane’s technologically advanced city and, of course, the planet Saturn. And there are lots of things going on, some of which make no sense (there are a huge number of plot holes in this one) but, one of the big factors is that Kane has made a zombie-like army of human robots, by putting amnesia helmets on his enemies and making them susceptible to his orders (possibly an influence on the original TV serial version of Doctor Who - The Dalek Invasion Of Earth, by the looks of it).  Most of the set ups are obvious and, despite the expense of serials of this nature, there are a hell of a lot of recycled sets in this. Once obvious thing is that the bullet cars which work as an underground transit system on Saturn are the exact same ones that the Clay Men in Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars used.

I mentioned in yesterdays review of Flash Gordon’s Conquers The Universe that George lucas took a lot of ideas from these serials and both the opening episode recap credit calls and the viewscreen focussing with accompanying sound effect are again in evidence here. In fact, as far as that viewing screen from Star Wars - The Phantom Menace goes, he was possibly thinking of this one first because, here, the viewscreens are also circular in design as they are in that later film.

Actually, despite the crankiness of the effects, some of this stuff is certainly well done. It’s hard to detect the wires on some of the things, such as the little microphones that float above the big radio sets when they’re in use or the ones holding up the people when the characters are using the anti-gravity belts (this serial’s gimmick similar to the Martian wing-cloaks in Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars). And also, talking of some of those technically advanced gadget effects, Gene Rodenberry must have been a big fan of this serial because there are two things he definitely seems to have taken on board for Star Trek. One is that pesky cloaking device which renders spaceships invisible. This is similar here to the one in Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe except is has to be hand fired from a cannon by an observer in the Hidden City and aimed at the ship. Unlike the ones in that serial, the effects of this one will only last for ten minutes so... yeah, you can just see the cliff hanger ending coming on that one, can’t you?

But another future Star Trek element... and very impressively done here... is the teleportation pads which go from point to point in the Hidden City. We’re told how they disassemble and then reassemble a person’s molecules somewhere else and they use very familiar ‘beam me up’ textures when they’re in action. This was an obvious steal by Roddenberry and they look really good. Another great effect is when two Hidden City people are using ray guns to chop through the ice formed outside the preserved dirigible that Buck and Buddy take their time trip in. A layer of superimposed ray effects are in action as the ice melts... I eventually worked out that it was a raggedy piece of cut perspex lowered through the floor with the rays put over the top but, still, very impressive stuff, especially for 1939.

The serial is full of the required fist fights (with really bad and prominent stuntmen looking nothing like the actors they are ‘doubling’ for) and aerial battles, plus the usual stealth visits behind enemy lines etc. It’s light watching for sure and, though it’s probably not quite as engaging in terms of story as the three Flash Gordon serials, I still got a real kick out watching this and it’s hopefully not be the last time I revisit this one. Like the Flash Gordon serials and others of that ilk (like King Of The Rocket Men and Daredevils Of The Red Circle), this serial was a common fixture on BBC in the school holidays during the late 1970s and through the 1980s. So Buck Rogers will always have a special place in my heart and I’ll never stop watching these things. For my last review of ‘Serial Week’ though, I’ll be watching another Larry ‘Buster’ Crabbe serial based on a comic strip and, unlike the other four, it’s one I’ve not seen before. So, you know, I’m keeping my fingers crossed it’s as much of a masterpiece as these others. 

Buster Crabbe Serial Week at NUTS4R2

Flash Gordon (1936)

Flash Gordon's Trip To Mars (1938)

Red Barry (1938)

Buck Rogers (1939)

Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe (1940)