directed by Michael Carreras, 1968, 84 minutes, (contains mild spoilers, but why worry?)

Captain Lansen (Eric Porter) of the Corita, a dilapidated tramp freighter, sails with a volatile cargo which will explode if it touches water. He’s also taken on-board some desperate passengers seeking a quick escape from their former lives. Storm-damaged and driven off-course the Corita becomes ensnared by voracious seaweed which draws them into a graveyard of stranded ships where they encounter strange creatures and marauding raiders.

When Hammer studios released “The Lost Continent” in the summer of 1968 Britain was a very different place: Concerns about immigration simmered as Enoch Powell made his infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech; Cheaply constructed public high-rise housing at Ronan Point collapsed after a gas explosion and female workers at Dagenham protested about the gender pay gap. Abortion was legalised and theatre censorship ended as hippy musical “Hair” hit the London stage. Hammer was at the start of its long commercial decline and “The Lost Continent” was part of a busy release schedule that included shop-soiled fare like “Dracula has Risen from the Grave” (Freddie Francis) and “The Vengeance of She” (Cliff Owen).

Director Michael Carreras, son of one of Hammer’s founders adapted “The Lost Continent” from “Uncharted Seas”, a 1938 novel by prolific pulp author Denis Wheatley who had also written Hammer’s recent release “The Devil Rides Out” (Terence Fisher). Wheatley spent his formative years in the merchant marine and his experience of life aboard a tramp steamer gives his novel an authentic feel, but its racial politics are now unacceptably dated. By the late sixties, as immigration controversy raged in the United Kingdom and civil rights tensions erupted in the United States Carreras may have decided that Wheatley’s gleeful descriptions of race war were too inflammatory or just considered that the action sequences were beyond his budget. Either way, he extensively rewrote Wheatley’s novel and excised most of the crude racism and this makes his film more palatable for twenty-first century viewers. Carreras reconfigures the conflict of “The Lost Continent” as a clash between tolerance and bigotry. The villains are zealots, marooned Spanish conquistadores who maintain a small but enthusiastic inquisition. The demonization of catholic dogma feels a little overdone and may have pandered to British anxieties about the dangers of cheap package holidays on the Costa del Sol. Carreras recasts the Corita’s Mutineers as disgruntled workers, jobs-worth “sea lawyers” whose proletarian angst recalls late sixties concerns about unruly labour relations. Viewers may have some sympathy for the disgruntled crew but here their uncouth panic mongering is contrasted unfavourably with the steady nerve of unscrupulous commander Eric Porter.

With roots in British variety theatre tradition, Hammer’s product now seems rather quaint. Like Hollywood creature features of the 1950s or Spanish horror in the 1970s, Hammer walked an unsteady line between crowd-pleasing titillation and social conservatism. Transgressive behaviour is usually punished, and authority figures restore a comforting sense of order as the end credits roll. Hammer is remembered for its camp misogyny, but Carreras acknowledges the sixties mood of sexual liberation to create some slightly more nuanced female characters. Hildegard Knef convinces as a woman trying to escape a repressive regime. Knef’s wartime experiences help her to bring a disarming level of honesty to her role. Jazz diva and Bowie collaborator Dana Gillespie as Sarah has little to do here but her entrance, buoyed up above the predatory weed by shoulder-mounted gas balloons remains memorable and she is presented as a conscientious objector to religious repression rather than a swooning victim. Suzanna Leigh makes Unity one of the films greatest pleasures: Described by her father, dodgy surgeon Doctor Webster (Nigel Stock) as “a delicate child” Unity energetically champions spiritual independence and the pursuit of pleasure in the face of impending disaster. A style icon, whether she’s manhandling volatile chemicals in a flooded hold or fighting off voracious seaweed; her startling crochet top and beret combination is perfect for those long, squiffy afternoons in the passenger saloon. Gape in wonder as our good time girl offers compassionate advice to a reformed alcoholic, mourns the loss of a beloved parent and entices louche hitman Ricaldi (Ben Carruthers) with her seductive smoking technique. Unity demonstrates that despite its flirtation with the trappings of psychedelia Hammer’s sexual politics remained closer to the fifties than the sixties and we feel that she would be more at home bed-hopping in the home-counties than savouring the sexual anarchy of Haight-Ashbury.

Familiar character performers awake comforting waves of nostalgia for viewers of a certain age. 1930s child star Jimmy Hanley (in one of his final roles) plays Steward Pat, so mellow that he stays in the bar when everyone else abandons ship. Pat exudes bonhomie, even when fighting off violent drunks or dispensing relationship advice whilst mixing a fortifying gin and tonic. There is a rousing turn from James Cossins as the dependable chief engineer who never misses an opportunity to express his strong non-conformist principles in the face of popish mummery. Look out for a young Donald Sumpter (still a mainstay of British TV and cinema) as one of Unity’s early conquests.  Neil McCallum, sweaty in dress whites, has an utterly thankless role as first officer Hemmings and looks like a seventies ‘Action Man’ toy smeared in chip oil.

The oddest thing about “The Lost Continent” is how it transcends Hammer’s conventional house-style to become a classic of narcotic cinema. This may be something to do with its lurid colour palette and outlandish imagery or perhaps all those unintentionally knowing references to weed in the dialogue. In the summer of 1968 hippies in search of cinematic kicks were spoiled for choice, this is an easier (and cheesier) watch than Kubrick’s “2001” but you need to be patient and wait for the high. Initially it feels like we are watching a low-rent maritime re-tread of Clouzot’s “Wages of Fear” (1953) but almost exactly half-way things become much more interesting as the setting shifts to a fever-dream Sargasso of carnivorous kelp. From this point onwards “The Lost Continent” provides a surfeit of spectacle and sheer gusto. It’s easy to mock the not-so-special effects but although they are hardly Harryhausen they have a playful vigour absent from the photorealistic digital creations of a film like “Clash of the Titans” (Louis Leterrier, 2010). The floppy rubber, bike wheels and lightbulbs exude their own Heath Robinson charm and are still much better than the lumpen denizens of “The Land that Time Forgot” (Kevin Connor, 1974); El Supremo’s punishment pit looks like an immature version of the sarlacc from “Return of the Jedi” (Richard Marquand, 1983) before George Lucas transformed it digitally into Audrey from “The Little Shop of Horrors” (Frank Oz, 1986). Arthur Lawson’s art direction is superb with fine scenic paintings and solid model work. The maritime action, choreographed entirely in studio tanks or sets is believably staged but unfortunately the surreal stilt and balloon combination described in the novel which allows people to hop across the carnivorous weed like huge fleas was clearly beyond the available technology. The weed walkers, sporting balloons for buoyancy and doughnut-shaped footwear look like stray contestants from ‘Jeux sans frontiere’ (Gary Lux, 1966-2001).

Although Hammer’s output has been extensively recycled to help bolster its fading brand “The Lost Continent” is usually missing from retrospectives but this obscure film deserves to be better remembered for its eccentric, dreamlike quality. The Hammond organ and occasional vocals of Mancunian jazz-soul trio The Peddlers drift in and out of the soundtrack like stale reefer smoke. Their style suits the film perfectly and evokes false memories of stumbling out of a smoky sixties’ fleapit wearing loon pants and shoulder-length hair. The drug of choice for many of the Friday night punters who watched “The Lost Continent” in 1968 may have been lemon shandy or Watney’s Red Barrel but there is something here for every taste: Sleazy romance, grotesque fashion, crab monsters, Eric Porter beating up that bloke from “George and Mildred” (Brian Cooke, Johnnie Mortimer, 1976-1979) and an explosive climax that plays like a cut-price “Apocalypse Now” (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) with improvised catapult and industrial chemicals instead of Hueys and  napalm. For those of us currently adrift in our own ship of fools the convoluted storyline may possess an additional level of irony as the passengers and crew of the Corita choose to leave a supposedly sinking ship, argue a lot and then get back on board. Later Lansen (Eric Porter) makes a stirring speech about the virtues of not giving up that sounds uncomfortably close to British tabloid journalism; his assumption that the best way to deal with foreign types and their strange notions is to lecture them on good old British values and then incinerate them would be a vote-winner in a country battered by storms, cut off from civilization and besieged by heathen hordes. Leave politics (and political correctness) behind, press ‘play’, sit back and relax but watch out for that killer weed.

Quotes

“I’ve never seen weed like this, where does it come from?”  Nick, chief engineer (James Cossins)

“You’re a bore when you’re sober. Did you hear me? You’d better start drinking again and pretty soon, it might make a man of you.”     Unity (Suzanna Leigh)

Connections

Film

‘Murder at the Vanities’ directed by Mitchell Leisen (1934)

‘The Ghost Ship’ directed by Mark Robson (1943)

‘The Wages of Fear’ directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (1953)

‘The Mysterious Island’ directed by Cy Endfield (1961)

‘Matango’ directed Ishirô Honda (1963)

‘The Land that Time Forgot’ directed by Kevin Connor (1974)

Reading

The House of Horror: The Story of Hammer Films (edited by Allen Eyles, Robert Adkinson and Nicholas Fry, Lorrimer Publishing, 1973, ISBN 0856470201