Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: The Land Unknown (1957)

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Poster for The Land Unknown (1957)The Land Unknown (1957) by #VirgilWVogel

w/#JockMahoney #ShirleyPatterson

Three men and a woman crash-land in a deep crater in Antarctica, where they find a prehistoric world.

“Lost and Terrorized in Prehistoric Time.”

#SciFi #Horror #Fantasy
#Dinosaurs
#NotQuiteClassicCinema
#FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn

I always loved movies about lost worlds and dinosaurs, but The Land Unknown (1957) is not a movie I remember seeing when I was  young. King Kong (1933) I remember, and I watched it whenever it was on TV. Later on I added King Kong (1976) to the regular watch list as well. It’s possible I saw The Land Unknown at some point, but if I did it didn’t make a lasting impression.

Honestly, The Land Unknown is not quite in the same class as King Kong, but it’s still a nostalgic and fun watch for those who grew up with these kind of movies. 

What blew my mind when watching it – or rather, when reading about it afterwards – is discovering that the lead actress, Shirley Patterson, was born in my home town of Winnipeg. This makes her a #MadeInManitobaMonday actress, I suppose.

Patterson, who’s credited as Shawn Smith in this movie (and most of everything else she made after 1950) started out in North of the Rockies (1942). She appeared in over 50 movies and TV shows, but never really became a big star. Aside from The Land Unknown, she also had a big part in It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958). These appear to be her final two movies, so perhaps she was on her way to becoming a leading lady of Science Fiction. Alas, she was in a serious skiing accident in 1958 which left her unable to work for a couple of years, and she wound up retiring. Who knows what might have happened if it hadn’t been for that unfortunate incident at California’s Big Bear mountain resort?

The Land Unknown (1957) is #NotQuiteClassicCinema that would have been just as at home on a Sunday afternoon as on a #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn. But if you’re an old school dinosaur fan,  it’s likely to put a smile on your face no matter when you choose to watch it.

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