The Island At The Top Of The World

Check out our review of The Island At The Top Of The World - is it any good and how suitable is it for kids?

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The Island At The Top Of The World

Starring: David Hartman, Donald Sinden. (U)

Release date: 1974

2 out of 5

2

A ‘lost world’ romp in the same vein as The Land That Time Forgot and Journey to the Center of the Earth. In this one, based on Ian Cameron’s novel The Lost Ones, Sir Anthony Ross (Sinden) recruits an archaeologist (Hartman) and airship captain (Jacques Marin) to travel with him to the Arctic in search of Ross’s missing son. Instead, they find an island hidden under the clouds populated by a race of lost Vikings, but things don’t look too friendly when the Vikings decide our intrepid explorers are actually a sign that the world is coming to an end.
The story is pretty preposterous – as is the inclusion of a French poodle along with the explorers, who belongs to the airship captain – while the film-makers’ decision to have the Vikings speak in Norse, and then not always translate it, is just odd. But the sets are terrific and the airship miniature doesn’t look as awful as you’d expect for a film made in 1974, a fact which just about rescues it from the reject pile. 

Is The Island At The Top Of The World suitable for kids? Here are our parents’ notes...

None.

If you like this, why not try: The Land That Time Forgot, Journey To The Center Of The Earth 1959, Journey To The Center Of The Earth 2008, At The Earth's Core, 20000 Leagues Under The Sea,