Saturday Night at the Movies: The Land That Time Forgot (1975) and The People That Time Forgot (1977)

A double feature this week. Recently I bought one of a series of releases that MGM and Sony released called "Midnite Movies". Some (although not all) of these re-releases of classic horror and sci-fi movies have two movies on a single DVD. That was the case with this one. The movies star Doug McClure (co-star with James Drury on TV's "The Virginian"), and the premise is there is a lost world, located somewhere near the south pole.

The events take place in the early 1900's (the first movie states a date in 1916). in the first movie a German U-boat sinks a liner that has as its survivors McClure, Susan Penhaglion as the female interest and a handful of British seamen. After several transfers of power, (in which one or the other group unconvincingly gains control of the ship) the group find themselves lost in the south Atlantic.

At this point there is a mutual agreement between the two factions to work together. And at this point they discover the lost island of Caprona, according to the German captain, a land discovered by an Italian named Caproni, who tried but could not find a place to land on the island. This being a U-boat sub, they find an underwater passage, and discover the prehistoric land on the other side.

Skipping over to the second feature, Patrick Wayne stars as a friend of one of the original movies' group, looking for him. They too manage to find this lost island.

The island has a secret that I won't reveal here, but suffice to say that it is inhabited by prehisoric cavemen and some of the most unconvincing dinosaurs I have ever seen outside of a Ray Harryhausen claymation special effects movie. Now someone who is familiar with the movie company American International will say they made those movies on an extremely small budget". Yeah, I know, but still, in some cases you can tell the creatures are made of cloth or styrofoam.

Aside from that and the gratuitous fight scenes early on (mentioned above), both are good entertainment for their time and budget. If you can appreciate cheesy sci-fi, then you can hardly go wrong here.

Rate both of them 3 stars.