ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

This rip-roaring sci-fi adventure scores high marks in several categories. The story concerns four people whose helicopter lands in an unknown prehistoric valley, a freak temperate zone located thousands of feet below sea level in the Antarctic, kept warm by volcanically-heated water and a permanent cloud layer that traps the warm air.







The special effects are by Universal's FX wizard Clifford Stine, and even though the dinosaurs are not animated, they are extremely effective and enjoyable.





"Great shot, sweetheart, that was beautiful! But let's try that scene again, okay? And this time I'd like to see just a bit more primal rage."





The Tyrannosaurus Rex is a man in a suit, the flippered dinosaur is a convincing mechanical model, and the rest of the dinosaurs are portrayed very effectively as enlarged lizards.







All the dinosaurs are skillfully integrated with live action shots. Stine loaded the film with wonderful scenes of the fog-shrouded prehistoric landscape, using marvelous matte shots and impressive sets, creating a Skull Island atmosphere.







In some ways, this is the perfect 1950's sci-fi film. It proudly presents a wealth of facts about the Antarctic before it begins its fanciful story. The music by Joseph Gershenson is extremely effective. Director Virgil Vogel (The Mole People) keeps the action moving right along. Hero Jock Mahoney (a former stunt man who does all his own stunts in this film, and who later played Tarzan) is a stalwart hero.





Shawn Smith makes a very gorgeous-and-gutsy heroine. She can be seen as the severe heroine in It! The Terror from Beyond Space and one of the delicious mini-skirted ladies in World Without End. She also appears in many other films under her other screen name, Shirley Patterson.

Henry Brandon does a commendable job as a half-crazed survivor from a previous expedition to the Antarctic region.







Also starring Douglas Kennedy and William Reynolds. Produced by William Alland (This Island Earth, "The Space Children", etc.).
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Robert (Butch) Day]

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The first picture won't show. Presumably it's one of these posters.












The funniest line (to me) is that offered by Captain Burnham: Your goal, gentlemen: Antarctica. Five million square miles of terra incognate, but your job to make it just a little less incognate.

Now Antarctica thinks?
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[larryfoster]

I like this oldie, except for the rubber T-Rex. I like the volcanic-heated prehistoric jungle, under the Antarctic ice.

If a 'Return To...' sequel is ever made, I hope (in addition to dinosaurs), the new explorers also encounter descendant New Swabia Nazi's (and their flying saucers) - in Agartha (Hollow Earth). Hopefully, they might even find modern descendants of the pre-Sumerian civilization, and a Stargate-style wormhole transport device to the ancient- inhabited planet Aldebaran, in the Taurus constellation.

But please... no Adolph Hitler riding a T-Rex.
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Tired of waiting on NASA to adopt Flying Saucer technology! Sick of human political-representative government! I want 1970: COLOSSUS (The Forbin Project) A.I. - as World Control government! Providing flying saucer tech, "For the betterment of man."

[Robert (Butch) Day]

Did anyone notice that parts of the movie's plot were 'lifted' from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Caprona stories? [These were poorly made as the movies The Land That Time Forgot (1975) and The People That Time Forgot (1977). The 3rd novel Out Of Time's Abyss has not been made — yet.]
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Pow]

Oh, but imagine if all the dinos had been done as stop-motion creatures by either O'Bie or Ray Harryhausen?

This would be considered a classic.

One of the aspects that did always impress me was the jungle sets. Be it miniature work or a practical set, the jungle, mixed with fog, was always eerie & epic looking to me.

Trivia: Had Ray done a s-m plant it would have been his first & only one. Mr. Harryhausen in his legendary career animated dinos, statues, mythical beings, skeletons, insects, giant versions of real life creatures & aliens. However, he never got around to plants.

Wanted to do one for his Mysterious Island film but time & money wouldn't allow it.

[Bud Brewster]

[Pow]

I cannot speak to the fact that some folks brains actually process stop-motion differently from others.

All I know is that films that employ either men in dino-suits, or take live lizards & glue scales onto them, have never, ever been convincing to me. They look like what they are: cheap solutions for their budget.

I always prefer well done stop-motion (Jack the Giant Killer being an example of the opposite of well done) than anything else.

[Krel]

[Bud Brewster]

[orzel-w]

[Robert (Butch) Day]

[orzel-w]

[Bud Brewster]

[Bud Brewster]

The Truth About Admiral Byrd’s “Bitter Reality” At Earth’s End

* Read the full article at the link above.

In honor of All Sci-Fi's Friday Live Chat on May 20th, I offer these excerpts from an article about Admiral Byrd's 1947 expedition to the Antarctic, which inspired the story for The Land Unknown.

The Truth About Admiral Byrd's "Bitter Reality" At Earth's End

by Micah Hanks
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In spite of the scientific and historic merit of Byrd's achievements, there are less widely-publicized theories which suggest Byrd was onto something that went far deeper than his exploration of the surface world.

The fringe beliefs associated with Admiral Byrd's exploits spin off in a variety of strange directions, all of which seem to belong more in the realm of science fiction than historic fact. For example, some accounts have claimed the famous explorer, while visiting the polar regions, actually discovered entrances to a vast Hollow Earth, in which lost civilizations with advanced UFO flying craft existed.

Antarctic explorer Paul Siple later noted that the reporters aboard the USS Mount Olympus had overblown claims from Byrd's expedition pertaining to the so-called "Bungers Oasis", a lake area found to have uniquely warm temperatures (around 30 degrees) and a variety of algae growing within.

Byrd later described the location as a "land of blue and green lakes and brown hills in an otherwise limitless expanse of ice," and that his crew had "seemed to have dropped out of the twentieth century into a landscape of thousands of years ago when land was just starting to emerge from one of the great ice ages."

* Antarctica's warm region, surrounded by many miles of snow and ice.







There were, of course, no reports of mammoths or flying saucers mentioned at this point, although Byrd would later call the discovery "by far the most important, so far as the public interest was concerned of the expedition."

Nonetheless, Siple notes, "the eleven press representatives aboard the Uss Mount Olympus had fired off dispatches to the outside world describing the oasis as a "Shangri-La" and implying that it was warmed by a mysterious source of heat and might be supporting vegetation."

Taken into context, these details could easily have been the root of claims about a prehistoric "oasis" at the South Pole.
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The following incident was photographed, and the footage was actually used in the climax of The Land Unknown! — Bud
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The onset of inclement weather had caused a variety of issues, particularly with aircraft, by late January of 1947. One dramatic example of this included a sudden downwind that literally swept a helicopter in mid-takeoff directly into the ocean water, leaving a narrow window of opportunity for the pilot to escape, and moments later be rescued.
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Please join us Friday night to watch The Land Unknown!


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Okay, for all you folks who criticize the big rubber T-Rex, I think we should put more of the blame on the guy inside it instead of the talented people who created it. I think they did a pretty good job!


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And just look what can be done in a rubber suit if it's worn by the right person. Why, with a little training and practice, that T-Rex could be have been a star!
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_______________ Teaching A T-Rex to Macarena

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)