Le Peuple des abîmes

THE LOST CONTINENT is from a novel by Dennis Wheatley, a prolific writer whose books were a compilation of badly written prose, cardboard characters and often inaccurate details. They also happened to be enormous best sellers.

The movie captures his style. We are introduced to characters whose personalities change during the movie for apparent reason and plot threads that start promisingly then go nowhere.

Ben Carruthers is an almost cartoon-like sleazeball and good actors like Eric Porter, Jimmy Hanley and Hildegarde Kneff somehow manage to keep straight faces throughout.

The music is weird; from the opening crooning of a completely inappropriate title song it seems throughout to have been written for a different movie, having no connection with the mood of the scenes.

With it's painted sets and general air of cheapness it should have been a complete disaster but somehow in the end it all becomes strangely likeable.

One for those yahoo evenings with beer and popcorn.