The People That Time Forgot(1977)
World War I ace Major Ben McBride (Patrick Wayne) is out to find his old friend Bowen Tyler (Doug McClure, billed as the guest star) who has been missing since The Land that Time Forgot. Along for the ride are Lady Charlotte Cunningham (Sarah Douglas with a Princess Leia do), Dr. Norfolk, and Hogan (Ben's crew chief).
The British Navy has brought them down on a toy steam ship along with their amphibious bi-plane. They have to cross the ice wall (looked like mountains to me) and it's a lot easier to fly 200 miles than to walk it.
They no sooner get past the ice wall, than the plane is attacked by a pteradactyl. After Hogan apparently misses the thing with a couple of hundred rounds, it sticks it's beak in the propeller taking the plane and itself down.
Once on the ground they have to level the plane, so they tie a rope to it and a nearby stegosaurus who gladly pulls it out for them. They then decide to go looking for Tyler. Ben orders Hogan to stay behind to fix the plane while he, the Doc, and Charley(Douglas) go hunting for his missing bud.
Well wouldn't you know it, they have to save beautiful cave lady from man eating dinosaurs (hard to tell what they were). Once they scare the beasts off with a smoke grenade, they find out cave girl speaks English. Seems Tyler had been living with her tribe the last couple of years. He taught them English, farming, and metal working (apparently he also taught them the secrets of lip gloss, eye shadow, and the wonder bra).
Her name is Ajor (Dana Gillespie) and her people along with Tyler were taken away by the evil people who worship the volcano god.
Of course Ben wants to find Tyler, so they set out to the Skull Mountain (or Mountain of Skulls, eh). They are captured by a group of Neanderthals who try to feed them to a crocodile sort of thingie. Ajor had gone ahead scouting for a tunnel through the mountains, so she gets back just in time to save the other three from being dinner.
They escape through a cave only to be captured by the volcano people (who are dressed like medivel Samurai and ride horses). The bad guys act like they are guests and that Tyler is powerful man to them. They take our heroes to a bad matte painting called the Skull Mountain.
There waiting for them is Lord Lardass (a Tor Johnson lookalike) who is the king, priest, or something. They quickly grab the girls to sacrifice to the volcano god and shuffle the boys off to the dungeon.
Guess what? Old Tyler is in the next cell, so they hatch a plan, knock out the guards, take their uniforms, and rush to save the girls.
They get there just as the executioner (old Darth Vader himself, Dave Prowse) is about to lop Ajor's noggin off. A fight insues and Ajor pushes Lord Lardass into the lava pit, which must have offended the volcano god because......(well, you know what happens with volcanoes in this kinda movie).
Everyone runs for the plane, fight their way past giant snake heads, a hippo looking dinosaur, the bad guys shoot a lot of balsa wood arrows (Tyler almost got one in the eye), things are blowing up everywhere, and Tyler dies valiantly defending the rear. The survivors get away in the plane, crash on the ice, and the ship gets away just in time for the whole island to go up in fire and smoke.
The effects in this thing were for the time, except for the dinosaurs. I think they used play-doh to make them. Let's just say they weren't modelled after any known dinos, except the dactyl and the stego.
I think Doug McClure made three of these pictures with American International, but I will always remember him as Trampas on The Virginian.
This one was fun, but not nearly as cool as The Land That Time Forgot. The dinosaurs in Land were more varied, prevalent, and executed much better. A lot of people rag on Land, but I really dug it. People is a passable, if not exactly up-to-snuff successor.
The other "hidden land of monsters" movie Doug made was "At The Earth's Core." Didn't have anything to do with either of the "Time Forgot" movies, though. Based on the book by Edgar Rice Boroughs, which manages to pack as much sexism as dinosaurs into its scant 100-odd pages.
I have seen these "Time Forgot" movies on late night television years ago. Ridiculous, but so fun to watch.
I reviewed this one a while back over at my site:
(shameless plug)
My favorite part: when it takes them 10 minutes to run back to the plane, a journey that took them three days on the way out! What was Patrick Wayne (son of the Duke) doing with Dana Gillespie all that time?
And what other movie is there out there in which our heroes get chased by a VOLCANO!!!!
I guess Lord Lardass wasn't a virgin. Everyone knows, that the only proper human sacrifice to a volcano (snakegod, etc.) in a B-movie, is a virgin.
I liked Thorley Waters in this one.