The Land That Time Forgot

To have created and chronicled the adventures of John Clayton Lord Greystoke, (better known to millions as Tarzan of the Apes) would have been sufficient guarantee of immortality to most men. But not content with this, the American Edgar Rice Burroughs (E.R.B. to generations of fans) also produced stories of inter-planetary adventure on Mars and Venus, crime fiction, Hollywood romances, Westerns and historical - and indeed pre-historical - novels, including The Land That Time Forgot. In the book, E.R.B. advanced a rival theory of evolution to that of Darwin, but in the 1974 film version, its adaptors (including Michael Moorcock, the science fiction writer perhaps most akin to the Master) chose to concentrate on the more escapist aspects of the story, which is revealed to the world through a manuscript found in a bottle salvaged by a Cornish coastguard. This tells how a German U-Boat, captured by the survivors of one of its victims, the S.S. Montrose, is swept by currents under the Polar ice to land on the fabled continent of Caprona. This is a rich and fertile land, teeming with strange, often terrifying life-forms. while searching for oil to re-fuel their engines the party are attacked by assorted prehistoric monsters and primitive savages, who carry off the inevitable lady scientist (Susan Penhaligon). She is rescued from a fate worse than death by the film's resourceful young American hero (Doug McClure). Indeed. all seems set for escape when a spectacular volcanic eruption engulfs the submarine and strands the young lovers forever on the Land That Time Forgot. All in all a thoroughly ripping yarn, wisely played perfectly straight, lavishly produced and with splendid special effects by Derek Meddings. 'Even the dinosaurs are lovely!' wrote one enraptured critic. This is splendid entertainment for all audiences, a film of which one feels that even the great E.R.B., who so intensely disliked most Hollywood versions of Tarzan, would have wholeheartedly approved.