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| A publicity image from The Land Unknown (1957) from the collection of Ken Hulsey |
For most of my young life I believed that somewhere out there was some undiscovered island, secluded jungle oasis or even a vast underground cavern that had been preserved for millions of years. The main inhabitants of this primeval world would be none other than real living dinosaurs waiting to be discovered by some explorers or a team of scientists.
This belief of mine was fueled by my desire to actually see a living dinosaur or two and the fact that Hollywood had produced numerous movies about people stumbling upon lost worlds filled with creatures from the prehistoric past.
Today's Fantastic Photo is a still from just such a movie, the 1957 epic The Land Unknown. In this image we see a gigantic Tyrannosaurus (a Godzilla inspired man in a suit instead of a stop-motion model) chasing the films two stars William Reynolds (as Lt. Jack Carmen) and Shirley Patterson (as Margaret Hathaway) through the jungle.
Plot:
Navy Commander Hal Roberts is assigned to lead an expedition to Little America in Antartica to investigate reports of a mysterious warm water inland lake discovered a decade earlier. His helicopter and its small party, including beautiful reporter Maggie Hathaway, is forced down into a volcanic crater by a fierce storm. They find themselves trapped in a lush tropical environment that has survived from the Mesozoic Era. Fighting carnivorous plants, dinosaurs, and a limited time window, they struggle to survive and repair the helicopter, their only means of escape. They are both helped and hindered by Dr. Carl Hunter, a megalomaniac survivor of an earlier expedition, who has learned to adapt to the hostile environment. - IMDBThe film was a low budget offering but it is one of my favorites.
As was the case with all of these cinema stills it was supposed to be displayed at a movie theater where The Land Unknown was being exhibited and then returned to the distributer along with the film.
It is hard to know if this image was displayed in theaters or sent to publications and media outlets for publicity purposes.
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