The Warlords of Atlantis ( 1978 )

An incredible tale of terror and suspense .....above and below the sea! 

So reads the tagline to Warlords of Atlantis, another one of director Kevin Connor's sci-fi adventure films of the 1970s. In this story, American inventor Greg Collinson ( Doug McClure ) and British scientist Charles Aitken ( Peter Gilmore ) set out under the sea in a diving bell to search for the lost city of Atlantis. They not only find the city still thriving underwater but find themselves trapped in it and unable to escape from the warlords who rule it!

Warlords of Atlantis aka Warlords of the Deep starts off with a bang and ends with an exciting finale but - like most of Kevin Connor's films - it is very tiresome in the middle segments. Nevertheless, it is a fun adventure film to watch ( especially if you leave the tele to take a sandwich break midway through ) and features some good stop-motion monsters by Roger Dicken. 

Connor loved working with Doug McClure ( this was their fourth film together ) so naturally, the all-American hero had the starring role, but Connor also cast that wonderful English actor Peter Gilmore ( The Onedin Line ) in a really strong supporting role. Gilmore portrays Charles Aitken, a brainy spectacled scientist who is fascinated with the creatures and culture of Atlantis and couldn't care less for their golden treasure. The warlords of Atlantis, Atraxon ( Daniel Massey ) and Atsil ( Cyd Charisse ) want to use Aitken's mental powers to expand their conquest. Why they need him and how they plan to use him is never really explained but, when Greg finds out their plan, he sets out to rescue his friend and return to the calm waters away from Atlantis. Gilmore's character reminds me of the engaging Dr. Perry ( Peter Cushing ) from At the Earth's Core ( 1974 ) and could have been his younger self. 

The screenplay to Warlords of Atlantis was penned by Brian Hayles, who is best known for writing several Doctor Who scripts but also wrote the children's miniseries The Moon Stallion ( 1978 ) and Arabian Adventure ( another Kevin Connor production ). Hayles included a good plot twist in Warlords of Atlantis involving Captain Daniels ( Shane Rimmer ) and his suspicious crew of sailors. 

Also in the cast is Lea Brodie as Greg's love interest, John Ratzenberger, and the striking Michael Gothard. While the film is not worth hunting feverishly for, if you happen to catch it on television then grab yourself some popcorn and sit back and enjoy it. Personally, I love cheesy adventure films and Warlords of Atlantis is a great example of that genre. 

The People That Time Forgot ( 1977 )

The 7th Continent - a lost world shut off by a wall of ice, roamed by beasts unknown to Science, ruled by men lost to History, doomed to vanish in a chaos of leaping flames! 

This was the tagline to The People that Time Forgot, the sequel to The Land that Time Forgot ( 1975 ). Quite a fetching tagline....and the poster of the film is even more enticing! It shows a man ( supposedly Patrick Wayne ) walloping a hairy caveman with the butt of his rifle while a pterodactyl flies overhead. This scene was actually in the movie but it did not seem quite as exciting as the poster makes it out to be. 

The People that Time Forgot does have its share of excitement though. Within its 90-minute runtime, our heroes have to face a continual string of encounters with prehistoric cavemen, wicked warlords, dinosaurs, and erupting volcanoes. 

The story, based on the 1918 novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, begins where The Land that Time Forgot left off. If our readers remember, Bowen Tyler ( Doug McClure ) and Lisa Clayton ( Susan Penhaligon ) were left stranded on the island of Caprona, a land untouched by evolution. Tyler writes an account of his whereabouts, places it in a bottle, and throws it out to sea. 

This is where The People That Time Forgot begins. A sailor discovered this bottle off of the coast of England and Tyler's friend Major Ben McBride organizes a search party to rescue them. Members of this expedition include a woman photographer, Lady Charlotte Cunningham ( Sarah Douglas ), a paleontologist ( Thorley Walters ), and a mechanic ( Shane Rimmer ). 

They arrive on Caprona with an amphibious aircraft but a dogfight with a pterodactyl wrecks the propellor and three of the members decide to embark on their search by foot. En route they meet Ajor, a cavewoman, played by the tremendously buxom Dana Gillispie. She knew Tyler and tells them that he was captured by the Nargus, a samurai-like band of warriors, who are keeping him a prisoner on the Mountain of Skulls. 

Once they find him they have to battle the Nargus' not-so-jolly green giant before scurrying back to the airplane before the island erupts in flames ( volcanoes usually sit undisturbed for hundreds of years but are always ready to erupt when visitors come ). 

The plot is simple enough and it allowed screenwriter Patrick Tilly to add any number of creative hazards for the party to encounter during their rescue mission. These included a few dinosaurs, a tunnel of serpent heads ( who looked surprisingly similar to the Arthur O'Connell serpent from The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao ), and, of course, the prerequisite escape-from-a-sacrificial-ceremony. 

Director Kevin Connor made a series of adventure films based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels in the 1970s beginning with The Land that Time Forgot. All of these films are - unfortunately - quite forgettable, but nevertheless, they make great Saturday-afternoon viewing. The stop-motion dinosaurs are not as impressive as Ray Harryhausen's creatures but the special effects are otherwise done very well. The scenes with the airplane flying through the mountains and the ship cutting through the icy waters are especially good.  

If you enjoy popcorn movies like this, then check out Walt Disney's Island at the Top of the World ( 1974 ) as well...these two films would make for a great double-feature!

At the Earth's Core ( 1976 )

Kevin Connor is best known for directing a series of rather cheesy popcorn sci-fi/adventure film adaptations of Edgar Rice Burrough novels, a series which began with The Land That Time Forgot ( 1975 ).  Most of the films had great casts, adequate special effects and plenty of Jules Verne-ion atmosphere which helped off-set some of the - unfortunately frequent - boring scenes. 

Alas, At the Earth's Core's 89-minute runtime was made up primarily of yawn-inducing moments.  It had a great story premise but, like many of Kevin Connor's movies, was bogged down by too much emphasis on our heroes escape from the primitive tribe that was enslaving them. In this case, the tribe being the Mahars. 

Peter Cushing gives a wonderful performance as the doddering Dr. Perry. This bespeckled British scientist has invented a machine called the Iron Mole which can bore through the Earth. Along with his partner, American financier David Innes ( Doug McClure ), they embark on a journey to the center of the Earth and discover a labyrinth where giant flying reptiles known as the Mahars rule a band of cavemen-like slaves. These slaves help to create tunnels where the Earth's molten lava is channeled away from their underground lair. Every once in awhile the Mahars get hungry and select a sacrificial victim to feast on. Princess Dia ( Caroline Munro ) is chosen to be their next dinner but David intervenes and rescues his newfound sweetheart, destroying the whole tunnel system in the process. 

A simple plot and a good one ( not unlike H.G Wells' First Men in the Moon ) but those darn Mahars were given too much of the film's attention. I am sure the male audience would have preferred the camera to linger on Caroline Munro rather than the giant reptiles. Not that there weren't other creatures to distract.....there were pig-snouted slave-drivers, giant rhino-like dinosaurs, and the mandatory pterodactyl. Yet, combined, they still weren't enough to wake-up the audience. 

It was refreshing to see Peter Cushing play a role so unlike the self-assured professor roles that he usually played in the Hammer films. Dr. Perry is eccentric but endearing and it would have been nice to see this character reappear in another film. Doug McClure gives his usual good performance and Caroline Munro is pleasant on the eyes ( she doesn't have much dialogue ). The remaining cast is obscured behind make-up, with the exception of Godfrey James and Cy Grant. 

At the Earth's Core was riding on the heels of the success of Kevin Connor's last film, The Land That Time Forgot ( 1975 ), and, in spite of its dull script, was very popular at the box-office. Connor would stick with his formula and make two more similiarly-themed films: The People That Time Forgot ( 1977 ) and Warlords of Atlantis ( 1979 ). 

The Land that Time Forgot ( 1975 )

The year is 1916. Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, a German U-boat torpedoes a supply ship and captures its survivors. Among these survivors is Bowen Tyler (Doug McClure) who, with a few other surviving crew members, manages to take command of the vessel. However, he soon becomes allies with the U-boat's commander, Captain von Schoenvorts (John McEnery), when the ship's compass is sabotaged and they find themselves off course and heading towards Antarctica. A narrow underwater passage leads them into an uncharted subcontinent known as Caprona where they work together to search for fuel for the return journey while battling dinosaurs and dangerous tribes of primitive men. 

The Land that Time Forgot is a campy adventure film with rubber dinosaurs and hoards of hairy cavemen, and it probably appeals most to those who grew up with the film from childhood, but even a first-time viewer will discover some exciting moments in it, such as the man-eating prehistoric Loch Ness monster that does indeed have a snack onscreen. 

Edgar Rice Burroughs, the man whose imagination gave birth to Tarzan, penned "The Land that Time Forgot" in 1924. The novel's premise is a clever blend of adventure, sci-fi, and World War I drama, and director Kevin Connor did a fair job of transferring that to the screen. But, overall, it lacks the spit and polish (and the pinch of humor) that could have made it a really memorable classic. While McClure was a talented actor, he didn't exude the heroic charm of an Errol Flynn or Stewart Granger, which the lead character deserved to have. 

Nevertheless, the box-office receipts were so good for The Land that Time Forgot upon its release that Connor turned out two more Edgar Rice Burroughs-based films for American International Pictures: At the Earth's Core (1975), also starring Doug McClure, and The People that Time Forgot (1977) with Patrick Wayne, which was the most entertaining of the three. 

Susan Penhaligon also stars as the requisite love interest, with Keith Barron, Anthony Ainley, Godfrey James, and Roy Holder rounding out the cast.