Quicksand in the Movies

Welcome To

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The Saturday Afternoon Movie List of
Quicksand and Deep Mud Scenes
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Thanks to all for contributions to the list... I'm still looking for more movie titles with scenes involving people getting stuck quicksand and/or deep mud (this new catagory is now allowed, since there really aren't that many qs scenes out there).

09/05/96 Mythical Scenes: A lot of us have searched in vain for the Charlie's Angels and Land of the Giants scenes. Based on long term searches by a LOT of folks, I do not believe these scenes exist. If you are absolutely sure about a scene, send me a copy of the clip as proof. Until then, I'm going on the premise that "If someone doesn't have it on tape, it doesn't exist".

Quicksand Movies

Amuck! - 1978 Italian film originaly titled: "Replica of a Crime". Mystery with a young woman who, after being scantily clad throughout the movie, puts on full outdoor hunting gear and slops through thick, grey mud. She is pursued and falls into watery, grey "quicksand" in a very long and not bad scene. There is more water and Fuller's Earth than mud.

Bare Essentials - made for CBS TV Movie with Gregory Harrison where Lisa Hartman wanders and sinks into quicksand. Her sreaming is the most realiztic thing, since we never really see what she is sinking into.

Beast of the Dead. Rated as a "BOMB" by Leonard Maltin, this 1970 flick was originally titled "Beast of Blood." It is sometimes seen on Elvira's Movie Macabre. Has actress step into quicksand, but scene is very dark and not shot too great.

The Beastmaster - Mark Singer falls in sawdust qs and "ferrets" his way out!

Blazing Saddles - two black guys and a railroad car sink in a quicksand pit - humorous scene.

Cruel Swamp -- 50s B movie also released as "Swamp Women" and "Swamp Diamonds"with quicksand and escaped women prisoners.

Captive Girl - Johnny Wiessmuller gets to rescue the title heroine after she falls into a very thick quicksand pit. This scene is helped a lot by the before and after wet scenes.

Crusoe (1989) Aidan Quinn About one quarter into the movie, Aidan and native are fighting when they fall into a pit of quicksand.(Blooper: If you watch closely you will see that quinns face is clean when he is up to his shoulders, the camera the camera cuts back to quinn he is up to his neck and his face is covered with mud)

Death Curse of Tartu- Dallas produced film where four junior anthropologists disturb indian's grave in the Everglades and are knocked off by the forces of nature one by one. One girl crawls through some nice gray shallow mud and at the end, the other girl is chased and shaken off a log into quicksand; it looks like just water and sawdust with grass clippings. But, she struggles well all the way over her head and she's *real* cute. Hero arrives, he and villain throw some punches, the villain lands in quicksand, and girl is rescued.

Escape - Woman prisoner escaping from South American white slave camp sinks in a puddle of water that's *supposed* to be quicksand...

Flash Gordon (1980) Sam Jones A really fast scene about one quarter into the movie. While Flash is running from the forest people he "falls" into a bog of quicksand.

From Hell It Came - A South Sea islander is murdered and comes back from the dead as a walking tree stump (I am not on drugs or making this up)! In one scene he throws a woman into quicksand and watches her sink.

Guns of Darkness. (1962) Niven and his wife are driving across a stream in South America somewhere and his car gets stuck. Then the ground around the car solidifies and he and his wife are forced onto the top of the car. Then they have to jump into the quicksand as the car sinks out of sight. One of the most realisticquicksand scenes ever filmed!

The Hallelujah Trail - A wagon train of whiskey, seeking to escape temerance militants, drives headlong into a swamp called "Quicksand Bottoms" and sinks out of reach of the thirsty townspeople (sawdust/cork on water).

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Hammer film's 1959)- starring Chris Lee and Peter Cushing. A young woman dies in quicksand while fleeing from Baskerville Hall at the end of the film.There is another scene in which Cushing almost suffers the same fate.

Lure of the Swamp - Old fifties b/w. It has a woman (crook), who chases a man through the swamp at the end of the movie, shooting him several times, before she steps into a pool of mud/water, up to her ankles and then falls and sinks to her death, since it turns out to be quicksand/mud. Fake!

Journey to the Center of the Earth (remake) - The token female in the expedition goes off down a tunnel by herself, & sinks over her head in thick, brown muck. She gets a scolding before the group goes on.

Jungle Book (Disney 1994) - Big, bad guy sinks and dies in black, oily, sawdusty quicksand.

King Solomons Mines - (Allan Quartermain movie) Nazis foolishly blunder into a sawdust/water quicksand.

Krull - band of adventurers sink when the ground turns into qs under magician's spell (sawdust/dirt/water)

The Land That Time Forgot- At the very end Susan Penhaligon is being chased by a caveman when the both plunge into some brown sawdust-on-water.They flounder around until Doug (hic!) McClure arrives, plunges in, gives the cro-mag a solid right, and pulls the girl and himself free with some handy vines while the baddie sinks out of sight.

Leech Woman (V) - 1960 b/w starring colleen gray. A Guy runs into quicksand, & the female leadrefuses to rescue him until he throws her the pouch with a secret formula. he throws it to her, then she kills him & his body sinks out of sight. The qs is black& thick.

The Mating Season - tv movie with Lucie (Ball) Arnaz in it. One scene has her exploring around a lake and she steps into quicksand, standing there and slowly going down before her love interest pulls her out.

Neighbors: Belushi falls into quicksand. (bad shot)

The Night Has Eyes: An older B & W movie starring James Mason.There is a scene where 2 women get lost in the moors during a rainstorm, and one of them gets stuck, and in the end, the baddies are given a choice of paths that cross the moor, panic and step off the path into the bog.

Remo Williams: The Adventure Continues - guy sinks in cement that is like quicksand.

Southern Comfort - lots of guys in swamp... multiple qs and mud scenes but mostly water and floating wood.

Swiss Family Robinson (Disney version) - The characters rescue atrapped zebra, the teenage girl helps and gets kinda messy. (Only in the uncut version... in the cut version, nothing but zebra gets muddy)

Supergirl. When Supergirl (Helen Slater) is banished to the Phantom Zone, she loses her powers and stumbles into slimey, purple oil. Quite gooey, but she's supposed to be"stuck in deep goo, and struggling to escape" (as I imagine the script suggests.) Instead, they have her in 6 inches of slimy oil, and you can see her butt sticking up behind her! Her acting isn't convincing, and earns her a FAKE! award!

Tarzan's Hidden Jungle. Has a nice scene where Vera Miles is lost in the jungle and stumbles into quicksand (floating black oil and mossy-sawdust. Longer than most quicksand scenes and very well done!

Trader Horn- The 1973 color remake that stole footage from other color jungle epics has everyone slogging through knee-deep mud. Much later in the film, the sole girl wanders about three feet from the path and sinks neck deep in some yellow quicksand. Quick, sawdust qs.

The World's Greatest Athelete - Tim Conway sinks into quicksand (ha, ha)

When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth- At the end, while the protagonists are escaping a geologial disaster, one of the unlucky cave girls sinks into some quicksand on the beach. (Worth watching for Victoria Vetri in that leather bikini, otherwise a very short ...2-3 second... scene.)

Valley of Mystery- 1967 film made for TV but released first in drive-ins. An airliner crashes in South America. A woman writer , replete in blue slinky dress, heels, and costume jewelry wanders away from the crash site straight into some black mud. Very nice scene where she struggles all the way up to her neck. Peter Graves (yay!) arrives, hacks down a vine, and yanks her free.

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Aside: how is it in the Hollywood version of nature all
quicksand exists in pools about four feet wide and
ninety feet deep??
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