The Land Unknown is another movie from The Classic Science Fiction Ultimate Collection. It's a 1957 Universal Picture directed by Virgil W. Vogel. He was a film editor who's first movie was The Mole People which he followed with The Kettles on Old MacDonalds Farm. After The Land Unknown he went on to direct tv episodes of many popular shows through 1995. TLU is a pretty entertaining film about some science guys and a gal reporter on an expedition to Antarctica. Their helicopter runs into a pterodactyl in a storm and plunges into a hidden dinosaur filled jungle in the middle of a volcano. I know what it's like to have a dangerous job; I dropped a ream of paper the other day and it nearly hit my foot. The guys lack the part to fix the engine and the fuel supply is low. The radio cann't get through to the planes flying above looking for them. On top of that a T-Rex comes to visit and he's hungry. That's him below.
Rex gets called off by a horn like sound. Is someone there? Yep. It's a guy who was trapped there years ago. He lives in a cave, dodges dinos, and has gone rather 'round the bend. There's a lot of running from the dinosaurs both on land and water. There's some conflict with the crazy guy, who's a hankerin' for the reporter. Sad for him she's got somethin' going with lead hunk Jock Mahoney. The gal is played by Shirley Patterson, billed as Shawn Smith in this movie, who's Canadian born and from my old home town of Winnipeg. That's her with Jock below. Somehow most of the edges of their clothes seemed to have fallen off.
Like many of the movies of the 50's there was a comic version from Dell. That's a page from inside the cover with some stills from the movie. That model of the T-Rex just looked pretty entertaining, so I stuck it in there. The dinosaurs in the movie are of mixed quality. The T-Rex looks like a guy in a suit and some of them are monitor lizards in a model set. There are some carnivorous plants that grab at our heroes. They look ok as do most of the full size sets. The miniature jungle looks great occasionally and the model work is pretty good most of the time. You can get a great amount of detail when your helicopter is 6 or 8 feet long. Still and all it's entertaining and that's the best thing about the movie. That and the dinosaurs. The good guys escape the dinos and everyone gets out in time for Jock and Shawn to get busy.
I NetFlix'd 9 because I was sort of interested in it but wasn't thinking I would want to buy it. I'm glad I did take a gander at it. It's a post apocolypse story in an alternate earth, at least according to Shane Acker, the writer and director of the original award winning short and this movie. All the humans are dead, killed by bullets and gas bombs. It looks vaguely European but there is stuff that wouldn't be there in our universe. Like a giant killing machine. Oooh, we sure could use that right about now, huh. Take your mind off some of the other stuff going on. A scientist made the machine to make stuff for people but the evil dictator used it to make piles of dead bodies. Then the machine goes out of control and the humans are toast. Can a scientist make a robot so powerful even he can't destroy it? Before he dies the scientist makes 9 small robot guys, giving each one a bit of his soul, and a number on it's back. He also creates a round glowing device which 9 finds when he awakens at the start of the movie. The only life left is robotic life and some of it is deadly, like the mean and nasty catbot, and it's arial conterpart, a deadly giant mechanical bird that's all claws and beak. 9 hooks up with another little robot guy and is finding out about his new world when the cat critter attacks. They escape and 9 meets more little robot guys. More back story. The bird attacks and 7 is kidnapped. On a rescue mission 9 accidentally restarts the killing machine with the device. The killing machine can suck the soul out of the little robot guys. 9 has to work pretty hard to shut it down. The world our little guys live in is all rundown, overgrown with weeds and mold, and sharp points where everything was shattered by bombs and destroyed by fire. There isn't much color at times, dark greens, browns and grays buried in black. The animation is good, there are plenty of interesting things to look at. It was entertaining to watch but I wasn't thinking too much of the whole story. More interesting as a concept. The original short is packaged with the movie and that's interesting to watch. There are some good making of featurettes and an ok commentary. If I found this for 3 or 4 bucks I might get one.
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