Must admit to seeing this film for the first time in the early 70's in a flea-pit cinema in Glasgow's East end on a double bill with of all things the camp classic that was Adam West's "Batman" movie from 1966 (an interesting coincidence is the presence of Alan "Alfred The Butler" Napier in a supporting role here). I really enjoyed it then and somewhat guiltily returned to it on a rare TV screening recently.
Hmmm...I wish I could be more charitable about it today however, but at times I have to say it's almost as camp as old Bats in his 60's pomp! Things I'd forgotten - good - the Edinburgh location settings in the prologue before the journey (actual settings, I briefly lived there and the New Town streets are almost identical today), and bad - Pat Boone in a prominent role (this I attribute to selective amnesia).
There are some really hokey bits - like the papier-mache "rock" careering down the cave to crush our heroes early on, Pat Boone's, I'll be kind, singular take on Burns' "My Love is Like A Red Red Rose" and of course the lizard monsters appearance near the end. The unintentionally funniest line goes to James Mason's comment about a piece of rock having the consistency of cardboard in front of the most obvious background painting of the Scottish Highlands.
But Mason, who has the most professorial voice you could ever hear, enters into the spirit of the whole fantasy piece and carries you along for the ride and some of the shots in the phosphorescent caves are quite pretty. I'm sure they could have beefed up the supposed blackguard of a villain who dogs our intrepid group's trail, but I know I'm being too harsh on this.
I'll stop my journey here and close by saying I was pleased to see it again after all these years and the confession that the faults I see in it today are more likely down to my mature cynicism than the enthusiastic action I witnessed on the screen.
Hmmm...I wish I could be more charitable about it today however, but at times I have to say it's almost as camp as old Bats in his 60's pomp! Things I'd forgotten - good - the Edinburgh location settings in the prologue before the journey (actual settings, I briefly lived there and the New Town streets are almost identical today), and bad - Pat Boone in a prominent role (this I attribute to selective amnesia).
There are some really hokey bits - like the papier-mache "rock" careering down the cave to crush our heroes early on, Pat Boone's, I'll be kind, singular take on Burns' "My Love is Like A Red Red Rose" and of course the lizard monsters appearance near the end. The unintentionally funniest line goes to James Mason's comment about a piece of rock having the consistency of cardboard in front of the most obvious background painting of the Scottish Highlands.
But Mason, who has the most professorial voice you could ever hear, enters into the spirit of the whole fantasy piece and carries you along for the ride and some of the shots in the phosphorescent caves are quite pretty. I'm sure they could have beefed up the supposed blackguard of a villain who dogs our intrepid group's trail, but I know I'm being too harsh on this.
I'll stop my journey here and close by saying I was pleased to see it again after all these years and the confession that the faults I see in it today are more likely down to my mature cynicism than the enthusiastic action I witnessed on the screen.