The People That Time Forgot (1977)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

Kevin Connor

Writers:

Edgar Rice Burroughs (book)
Patrick Tilley (screenplay)

Release Date:

17 August 1977 (France)

Genre:

Adventure | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

FIRST 'The Land That Time Forgot'. THEN 'At The Earth's Core'. NOW a fantastic incredible world of savage mystery...

Plot:

A sequel to The Land That Time Forgot. Major Ben McBride organises a mission to the Antarctic wastes...

Plot Keywords:

Ship | Prehistoric | Sequel | Prehistoric Creature | Horseback Riding

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Patrick Wayne	...	Ben McBride
Doug McClure	...	Bowen Tyler
Sarah Douglas	...	Charly aka Lady Charlotte Cunningham
Dana Gillespie	...	Ajor
Thorley Walters	...	Norfolk
Shane Rimmer	...	Hogan
Tony Britton	...	Captain Lawton
John Hallam	...	Chung-Sha
David Prowse	...	Executioner (as Dave Prowse)
Milton Reid	...	Sabbala
Kiran Shah	...	Bolum
Richard LeParmentier	...	Lt. Whitby (as Richard Parmentier)
Jimmy Ray	...	Lt. Graham
Tony McHale	...	Telegraphist

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Australia:G | France:U | Norway:15 | USA:PG | UK:U

Filming Locations:

Canary Islands, Spain

Company:

American International Pictures (AIP)

Trivia:

The armored creature that attacks McBride and his group in the cave near the end of the film,was actually a model of the Late Permian reptile called Scutosaurus.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When the heroes are making their escape from the Mountain of Skulls, and Tyler is holding off the archers with a pistol, one of the archers' arrows hits him squarely in the face and bounces off.

Quotes:

[Hogan is going insane and talking to his own reflection]
Hogan: Hogan? Yeah? If I don't get outta here you're gonna go bananas!

Movie Connections:

Follows The Land That Time Forgot (1975)

Great story - Bad FX

I saw this film on a drive in double bill with THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT - and had read the books when I was 11 years old (Ace Paperbacks). LAND has hand puppet dinosaurs that don't move and look silly, PEOPLE has men in rubber suits as dinosaurs that look silly. Both films change the Burroughs stories (probably for budget reasons), but PEOPLE does something interesting - it combines the 2nd and 3rd book in Burroughs' series, using Act 1 of PEOPLE and Act 2&3 of OUT OF TIME'S ABYSS. The Weiros from ABYSS have been changed into Nagaas - a volcano cult dressed in Japanese Armor. (The Weiros were humanoids evolved from Pterodactyls - hard to do on a $1.98 budget.) This way they could take the old prisoner from ABYSS and turn him into Doug McClure's character.

PEOPLE is much better than LAND for a couple of reasons. LAND not only had crappy FX, it looked like it was shot on an indoor stage! So even when there isn't some bad process shot of a hand puppet T-Rex growling, the movie looks fake. PEOPLE was shot on location in Spain, and has some nice big panoramic shots - one amazing shot of the team crossing the crest of a mountain looks like something out of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. The other reason why PEOPLE is better - cavegirls! If you read the books (with Frazetta covers) there were always half-naked cavegirls. As an 11 year-old boy, reading these was like discovering your Uncle's Playboy collection. Half naked girls! LAND has no cavegirls at all, PEOPLE has the Ajor character from the novel in a laced leather outfit that fits the drive in AIP scenario to a T.

I love the books, and would love to do a modern adaptation (with today's FX).

- Bill