MovieChat Forums > The Lost Continent (1968) Discussion > Moral Vacuum

Moral Vacuum

posted 14 years ago by gnome-5
9 replies | jump to latest

This movie contains a strange moral vacuum. The Captain risks not only his own life, but his ship, crew and passengers' lives to make enough money to retire on. When the crew rebels, he is prepared to kill to stop them. And when they take to the lifeboat, he does shoot the radioman.

In fact, the first officer and those members of the crew are almost the only moral people in the story. When they depart, we can only presume that they are killed by the storm. The girl from the Lost Continent also displays some morality, but she ultimately plays only a small part in the story -- to the point that at the end, the ship apparently abandons those shipwrecked people in its haste to get away from the Sargasso. But everyone else is morally compromised in some way. That's why they're on this ship. You might think then, that this voyage is about their salvation. But you'd be wrong.

The Captain's immorality is paralleled by the Spaniards; they're quite prepared to kill anyone who gets in their way in order to get what they want. So it seems odd that it isn't the Captain taken prisoner and forced to face his true predatory nature, but a minor supporting character, the engineman. The Captain not only bursts in like a hero, throwing Phos B bombs and shooting Spaniards, but at the very end he's quoting the bible like he's the moral authority of the movie and not a moral vacuum. If they were trying to signal his hypocrisy here, then they succeeded -- but the rest of movie plays it straight, so I doubt this interpretation.

So we never learn that the Captain's changed from this experience. Of the passengers, only the drunken piano player changes when he gives up drinking. The movie seems to go out of its way to prevent the characters from growing. Just as it refuses to put the captain (ostensibly the main character) in a position where he can face his shortcomings, it fails to put the mother who stole $2 mil to recover her lost son with the only boy in the story (el Supremo) where it might trigger some emotional growth. We see her at the end holding his dead body, but the story is over: it's too late and it means nothing.

Is that the ultimate message of The Lost Continent: life sucks, people suck, and it just goes on?

[–] chrismartonuk-1 14 years ago

Eric Porter and Hildegard Knef's characters ultimately refuse to accept the bad hand fate has dealt them and fight against it. This contrasts to the defeatist attitude of the Inquisitor. Tony Beckley learns to fight instead of dissipating himself in drink.

[–] glenmusher 14 years ago

right and wrong is never as clearcut as it is in many hollywood productions, and for this, this movie is worthy of some merit.

Ones motives and values in life are sometimes not just simple black and white, please remember this.

[–] scotbpens 14 years ago

The OP is looking for meanings in this silly little movie that simply aren't there. This picture isn't about the human condition, moral choices, or the futility of existence. It's about rubber monsters and Dana Gillespie's boobs.

All the universe . . . or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?

[–] glenmusher 14 years ago

thanks for being the life and soul of the party again scot.

[–] gnome-5 12 years ago

"The OP is looking for meanings in this silly little movie that simply aren't there."

I saw this "silly little movie" at a drive-in when I was a kid. I liked it for the monsters and the stranded ships. When it came out on DVD, I had to pick it up. As an adult, I took more interest in the characters and all that. I'm still not taking it seriously, but hey -- even silly movies are worth discussing.

"This picture isn't about the human condition, moral choices, or the futility of existence."

I would have to disagree with this. There's plenty going on in this movie other than the monsters and boobs.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] TonyDood 14 years ago

I felt the same way--the Captain is really an a-moral creep on the surface of it. But I agree with the other poster--the point SEEMS to be that the movie depicts bad people who are ultimately shown what REAL badness is, and as a result, presumably, become better themselves for it, even if we don't see it literally. The captain's first line of the movie, which is theoretically the last line of the movie too, "How did we get here?" seems to be a clue, as well as his softening when he hears Eva's story.

And there's nothing at all wrong with analyzing a movie that was based on the book of a popular fantasy writer, produced by a fantastically successful company, starred stalwart performers, directed by an old pro, and is so oddly compelling it is still being discussed 40+ years later.

By the way, the book really is a moral vacuum, nothing at all like the movie--it's sexist, racist (instead of Spaniards you get "natives" which the characters openly describe with words that aren't p.c. anymore). The ship comes in, the crew get in trouble with the local monsters, the captain kills everything that's alive on the island and they leave, the end. It makes the weird movie seem even better when you consider its mundane source.

Nilbog! It's goblin spelled backwards! This is their kingdom!

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] Wuchak (8108) 3 years ago

This is a great thread and reveals the surprising dramatic depth of the movie, which was based on Dennis Wheatley’s 1938 book “Uncharted Seas,” his second of three "Lost World" novels. I say "surprising" because this is a weird "Ship of Fools" meets Jules Verne Grade B adventure.

The message of the movie is not simply "life sucks, people suck, and it just goes on," as the OP opines.

The theme is reflected in the opening quote by the Captain of Job 14:1: “Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble” (from the 1789 U. S. Book of Common Prayer). Within that context the morally compromised characters might or might not find love, redemption and hope. The Captain & Eva and Harry & Sarah clearly do. What will happen to them & the other survivors if they successfully escape the Sargasso Sea is left open at the end. A key moral, as emphasized by the Captain, is not surrendering to a spirit of fatalism, like those on the old Spanish galleon, because it hamstrings life.