Scott LeBrun
A few years after the events of "The Land that Time Forgot", adventurer Ben McBride (John Waynes' hunky son Patrick Wayne) is launching an expedition to find and rescue his good friend Bowen Tyler (Doug McClure). Fortunately, he finds the isolated island, where cavemen still exist and dinosaurs still roam, without much trouble. He learns that he will have to battle with a rather advanced, villainous prehistoric people who are holding Bowen prisoner.Admittedly, this sequel to "Land", based on the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs, is pretty juvenile, dopey, and lightweight. There's not much in it that will really scare younger viewers. The monsters are fairly plentiful, but not that threatening. The special effects may not be terribly convincing, but this viewer will still take these sorts of effects over most CGI any day. Good visuals, reasonable excitement, and a mild sense of wonder help to keep things entertaining. Alan Hume is the cinematographer who gives us the colorful lighting, Maurice Carter the production designer who supplies the amusing sets (this was shot both on location in Spain and at Pinewood Studios), and John Scott contributes the appealing, rousing music score.Wayne is a decent hero, while Sarah Douglas (as Charly the photographer) and well endowed Dana Gillespie (as the cavegirl Ajor) supply highly appreciated eye candy. Douglas is best known for playing the villainous Ursa in "Superman" 1 and 2, so it's interesting to see her in this leading lady role, before she really hit it big. Thorley Walters is delightful, as usual, as a professor tagging along, and Canadian actor Shane Rimmer supplies some comedy relief in the role of Hogan. Among other things, Hogan talks to himself in order to deal with loneliness, and keeps a running tally of the pterodactyls that he's shot down. There's a few familiar actors in smaller roles, too: John Hallam, David "Darth Vader" Prowse, Richard LeParmentier, Milton Reid. It is nice to see McClure reprise his role of Tyler from the first film.It's not great cinema, but it's not trying to be. It's just good, simple, likable escapism.Seven out of 10.
Wuchak
"The PEOPLE That Time Forgot" is the much inferior 1977 sequel to "The Land That Time Forgot" from 1975. The basic plot is essentially identical to "Beneath the Planet of the Apes," albeit far less serious.An expedition (including Patrick Wayne and Sarah Douglas) goes to the savage arctic hidden land of Caprona to find Bowen Tyler (Doug McClure). There they run into fairly cheesy prehistoric creatures and a ravishing cavewoman named Ajor (Dana Gillespie). She leads them to the Mountain of the Skull wherein Tyler is held captive by a hostile neanderthal-like tribe dressed in cool samurai apparel.WHAT WORKS: The Spanish locations are outstanding, as are the costumes and many of the life-size sets and opticals. The story moves along pretty quickly (the flick's only 90 minutes long). Patrick Wayne and Doug McClure are Great and Dana Gillespie is awe-inspiring in her skimpy cavegirl outfit, in fact, in my opinion Dana blows the more popular Raquel Welch in "One Million Years BC" out of the water (Raquel is a bit too thin to my tastes; Dana has far better curves).WHAT DOESN'T WORK: The story is less serious than "The Land That Time Forgot" (i.e. campier) and not nearly as compelling; in other words, don't expect for a second to be enraptured by the story. The miniature sets are too-obviously unreal and the creature F/X are only mediocre-to-poor (for the time period).FINAL ANALYSIS: If you're into these types of Edgar Rice Burroughs adventures, "People" is certainly worth having in your video library. It's nothing exceptional or captivating, but it's certainly fun, light and brisk. And catching the voluptuous Dana Gillespie at the height of her physical beauty is a must. Lastly, it's far, far better than the ridiculously awful "At the Earth's Core."GRADE: C+
SanteeFats
Nice follow up to "The Land that Time Forgot". In this one Patrick Wayne is searching for his long lost friend, Doug McClure, who disappeared several years ago. They come to the ice in a ship, take off in a float plane, of course with a female reporter along and a mechanic who turns out to be decently funny. The encounter with a pterodactyl while in the air causes them to land short with a chewed up prop. Most of the group proceeds on, leaving the mechanic alone to try and fix the plane. They find out that the friend has been captured by some caveman type tribe. They find Doug McClure, rescue him and his friend, get them safely back to the plane and, with some difficulty manage to take off and get back to the ship just before it has depart.
junkvj
I watched this for free on Hulu.com and had to look it up here to find who did the special effects. They are similar to Ray Harryhausen's work, but he is not listed in the credits. I have to write the rest of this because they require that I fill in with 10 lines of text. Why is there such a rule? The producers do use stop action for the animation of a seaplane flying out of the arctic and if you like that type of animation then this is a good movie to watch. This movie uses a lot of exploding flares and it must have been hard on the actors "flying" through exploding clouds and simulated rocks. Yes, the acting was kinda bad, and the attacking tribe was rather weak, but what do you want for a 70's B movie??
AD
