When Richard Boone's egotistical great white hunter (aptly named Maston Thrust) is introduced to Nancy Wilson's soulful opening theme song, I initially thought the film's title was a dramatic metaphor for Boone's character, an anachronism in an environmentally conscious world seeking to protect the majestic beasts he so callously discards. And whilst the double meaning persists throughout the picture, patience pays off, and after a somewhat vague start, Boone and his intrepid crew venture off to a subterranean eco-system where living dinosaurs and neanderthal man have been mysteriously preserved deep underground.
Van Ark plays the feisty Pulitzer prize winning photo journalist who tags along to document the much anticipated discovery, Keats is the uptight shuttle captain, and former NBA player Rackley (who narrowly missed out on a championship ring with the Knicks before being traded early in the '72/'73 season) plays 'Bunta' the mute harpooner/servant complete with native garb who Boone describes as being highly articulate and also a rampant polygamist possessing 100 wives no less.
The special effects consist of the usual men-in-monster suits fighting one another a-la 'Ultraman' or 'Godzilla', close-ups of elaborate miniatures and sets, and dual screen projection juxtaposing the actors in front of the giant marauding dinosaurs. The array of specimens created might appear amateurish by today's standards, but was quite entertaining contemporaneously.
Mild sexual tension emerges amid the crew's desperate attempts to survive, leading to some cracker dialogue between Keats and Van Ark after the latter takes umbrage at being forced to become a domestic housekeeper as the men hunt for food ('why don't you just shut-up!' yells Keats as if to a nagging wife to which Van Ark responds defiantly 'why don't you just make me!'). What follows is touching - literally - and an emasculated Richard Boone discovers his tail-chasing salad days are coming to an ignominious end.
Well-paced, nicely photographed and scored (although the brass cues are somewhat overused) with some genuinely moving moments, there's a lot for an adolescent audience to enjoy (including a mud-covered Joan Van Ark) in this neo-classical adventure which effectively brings the Japanese monster genre into Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's lost world.
Van Ark plays the feisty Pulitzer prize winning photo journalist who tags along to document the much anticipated discovery, Keats is the uptight shuttle captain, and former NBA player Rackley (who narrowly missed out on a championship ring with the Knicks before being traded early in the '72/'73 season) plays 'Bunta' the mute harpooner/servant complete with native garb who Boone describes as being highly articulate and also a rampant polygamist possessing 100 wives no less.
The special effects consist of the usual men-in-monster suits fighting one another a-la 'Ultraman' or 'Godzilla', close-ups of elaborate miniatures and sets, and dual screen projection juxtaposing the actors in front of the giant marauding dinosaurs. The array of specimens created might appear amateurish by today's standards, but was quite entertaining contemporaneously.
Mild sexual tension emerges amid the crew's desperate attempts to survive, leading to some cracker dialogue between Keats and Van Ark after the latter takes umbrage at being forced to become a domestic housekeeper as the men hunt for food ('why don't you just shut-up!' yells Keats as if to a nagging wife to which Van Ark responds defiantly 'why don't you just make me!'). What follows is touching - literally - and an emasculated Richard Boone discovers his tail-chasing salad days are coming to an ignominious end.
Well-paced, nicely photographed and scored (although the brass cues are somewhat overused) with some genuinely moving moments, there's a lot for an adolescent audience to enjoy (including a mud-covered Joan Van Ark) in this neo-classical adventure which effectively brings the Japanese monster genre into Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's lost world.