The Lost Continent
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The Lost Continent
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1968 Starring: The Uncharted Seas was the first of three novels by British author Dennis Wheatley to be brought to the screen by Hammer Studios. Hammer changed the title of the film to The Lost Continent and it was released in 1968, the same year another novel was released on film by Hammer, The Devil Rides Out, starring Christopher Lee. Wheatley is a pretty interesting character in his own right, believing in Buddhist tenets and reincarnation, but being very conservative and right wing politically. He lived from 1897 to 1977 and for years was Britain's best selling author, selling over 1 million copies a year of his over 60 novels. The Lost Continent starts out with a eulogy being read on board a cargo ship, the Corita, which is sailing in an orange tinted world, shrouded in fog and mist. On the deck of the Corita is a mixed bag of passengers and ships crew, some in medieval Spanish soldier outfits, others in modern, western cloths. The captain of the ship is the one reading, and a body wrapped in a tarp and having a sword tied around it, is dropped into the water. But wait, this is the end of the story! The movie then cuts back to the beginning, days earlier. The ship is being hailed by a customs boat in an African port, but the captain insists on steaming full ahead out of the port despite the first officers protestations. We never know exactly where they are sailing from, but they are headed to Caracas, Venezuela via the mysterious "Sargasso Sea". There is a an interesting bunch of paying passengers on board which include a father and daughter (who is affectionately referred to as "Hellcat" by a shipboard lover), who are running from the law - The father was fooling around with the staff and patients at the clinic he headed up. There is a sultry beauty, Eva (Hildegard Knef), who is running from a former lover who was the political head of a country somewhere in Africa. Eva also has a large amount of bearer bonds that she stole from her former lover. There is also a man who has been pursuing Eva in an attempt to return what she stole back to it's rightful owner. Another character plays piano and cracks jokes and wants to be drunk most of the time. After the running of the blockade and introduction to the passengers, the captain informs his first officer why he could not let customs board his ship. He has a large store of an illegal explosive that explodes on contact with water! Of course the ship has leaks and mechanical problems and is headed into a huge storm that the captain decides to ignore and try and weather out... After they enter the storm the ship starts taking on water. They try valiantly to keep her afloat though and the captain gets the passengers to help move the explosive cargo to a safer part of the ship after the hold starts filling with water. After the captain realizes it is futile, he gives the order to abandon ship. So off go the lifeboats into the stormy seas. There is one really cool effect where Eva shoots a guy who has started to go crazy with a flare gun. I watched this almost frame by frame and it really was well done because it really looks like the guy is shot with the flare and then it starts burning him from the inside. This is where things take a turn to the fantastical in the film and the crew and passengers encounter a viney, seaweed like substance that floats on the water and is connected to a monster. The director, Michael Carreras, could have probably come up with a way to have a monster without showing it so much. It is a little distracting in how fake it looks, but it is not without it's charm. After the sea monster kills a couple crew members, the lifeboats make their way back to the ship which has somehow miraculously survived the storm and now that the seas are calm, they decide to board it again. But the ship is stuck in the vines and they are not able to make any headway. But they do see many other older, galleon type ships that are stuck in the water not far from them. Around this time they see a strange site of a person walking on snowshoe like shoes, with large balloons tied onto the upper body. They soon realize that there is a pursuit and other, equally strangely dressed pursuers, are chasing after a woman (played by Dana Gillespie, who is now a prominent blues singer in England) who is headed towards the ship. A quick battle ensues and the woman as it turns out, is from a nearby island that is dominated by a group of pirates who's leader is known as "El Diablo", and is but a boy of maybe 16. There is a priest who is descended from a long line of Knights Templars, who wears a creepy, white hood over his face with a tall, pointy top. He advises El Diablo on all matters and is the true power in the pirate realm. A revolution has been brewing from the peaceful, island folk, and the new ships arrival helps to spawn it. This is where I cut out as to not ruin too much of the movie, but if it sounds very fantastic and perhaps a little absurd, well, it is! But it is also a lot of fun along the way and there is a very strange mood that is created on board the ship by the passengers at the beginning. There is a lot of intrigue and character development in the first hour of the film and they don't encounter the the monster until halfway through the film, and the pirates until two thirds of the way through the film. Most of the effects are pretty well done considering their budget, with the exception of the monster that I noted earlier. But the atmosphere that is created is top notch and most big budget sci-fi and fantasy films I have seen cannot approach it. I first saw Lost Continent 20 or 25 years ago, and then not again until about 5 years ago, again on TV, and I was so excited to see it again because I remembered what an unusual movie it was. Then imagine my excitement when I saw it on sale at the local DVD store for only $8.99! This is part of Anchor Bays impressive Hammer Collection. They did a great job of cleaning up the print and even more important, found an extra 8 minutes of footage that had been cut because of it's sexual nature. It seems pretty tame by today's standards, especially since there is no frontal nudity. The video is in a 1.77:1 enhanced format and the audio is great sounding Dolby mono format. The extras are the original theatrical trailer and a couple of black and white TV spots (the film is in color) and also a World of Hammer episode entitled "Lands Before Time". This is part of a British TV series that aired in 1990 that summarized the glory years of Hammer Studios. It is narrated by former Hammer star, Oliver Reed. My thoughts are that this is a must own dvd, but then again, it may not be for everyone. Certainly it is not a horror movie, but it is good fun with great atmosphere and a near perfect afternoon movie for any day of the week. |
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15 Jan 03 (rev. 2 May 03) |
