THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT (1977) *1/2 In the early portion of the film the actors wander about trying to impersonate enthusiasm beyond that of the extraordinarily sedentary dinosaurs. It's enough to make you think that maybe dinosaurs really were stupid, and confirm your worst fears about actors. Then they run into straight-from-the-beautician's tragic cavegirl Dana Gillespie seeking her destiny as a star in Nebraska without knowing it- and though her acting's probably even worse, she adds a populist dimension to the film and the cameramen ensure that she's impossible to ignore. Thus refreshed, it all turns towards distracting attention away from the immotile dino's and instead onto a series of volcanic explosions attended by worshipful savages with murder on their minds. Although I'm a big fan of volcanic explosions, and have nothing against the rest, cinematically, none of it works much for me. There are plenty of times when you might consider the plot and think “That can't be right,” but they're working off Edgar Rice Burroughs so it would be wrong to go about it like that. If anything, you should wonder how many centuries ERB was ahead of Hollywood: Sarah Douglas is a potentially fascinating character, and just about the time that Kevin Connor begins to demonstrate a grasp of the potential fascination of a rich, ballsy, bright, talented, mega-feminist in the company of chauvinists investigating Cro-Magnons (and with the requisite sense of superiority, at least), she gets terminally eclipsed by Gillespie. I understand that it was a movie based on some kind of teenage male demographic thing, but in doing so they betrayed one of the most interesting parts of the plot for cave variety titillation. And so the directors wonder why the writers bitch, and the writers wonder why the directors bitch and...and...and...why the bitches just take over!
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