Isla desconocida

This minor little prehistoric monster flick used to be shown on local TV quite often back in sixties when I was a kid. It was the first monster flick I saw in colour on TV. I enjoyed it back then when I was a kid and I've have seen it on video a couple of time recently. (Several badly transfered copies with faded colour have been around for years, but my favorite video store recently got in a newly restored version with excellent quality colour.) I have to admit I still enjoy watching this lively, island full of prehistoric monsters flick.

The monsters, with exception of a pair of what looks stop motion brontasaurus shown briefly, are men in suits, ala Godzilla. I didn't think that they looked all that bad when I was a kid, but seeing them today they look awfully stiff. The creature often called an ape monster, is supposed to be according to the press kit from this film, a giant sloth. Whatever it was supposed to be, I thought it was pretty creepy when I saw this film as a kid. One major complaint I have about the use of men in suits as they are used here, is that unlike stop motion dinosaurs or photographically enlarged lizards, it could be very easy using this method, even in a film of this budget level, to have dinosaurs interact with the actors. The cast never seems directly menaced by the dinosaurs. In fact, with exception of the giant sloth, most of the time they never get near them! In fact I have always felt that the only advantage to using this method (along with full scale models ala THEM!)is that allows easy interaction with the actors with out any expensive split screens, traveling matte etc. that would jack a films budget up.

UNKNOWN ISLAND has a decent cast, including Barton MacLane, who is quite entertaining as the lecherous sea captain. Director Jack Bernhard keeps things moving. The film also avoids one of the most often over used plot contrivances that often turn up in these "lost world" type films; the island doesn't suddenly blow up and then sink beneath the waves.

Overall, I still find UNKNOWN ISLAND an entertaining, enjoyable monster romp. Perhaps because the film has "quaintness" about it that I still find appealing today, despite the derision voiced in this forum by cheap cynics. Despite its faults, I'll take this over most of todays over produced CGI special effects films any day.

See Ya! Youroldpaljim

Unknown Island is great fun for those of you who love the old jungle adventure films. It boasts classic Hollywood jungle sets, carnivorous dinosaurs (portrayed by men in rubber suits), a giant sloth (played by Ray "Crash" Corrigan of movie gorilla fame), and a few truly chilling moments. Although the special effects seem crude by today's standards, fans of classic jungle serials, old gorilla movies, or dinosaur films will not be disappointed with this fun to watch 1948 feature.

No this is no masterpiece, it isn't even all that good really. But it is entertaining enough to occupy 72 minutes of your time if you have some time to waste. The acting is fine and the special FX have a certain surprising charm except for the disappointing giant sloth. I enjoyed the romantic interest undertone of the film centering around Carole Lane(Virginia Grey) and the three men who desire her. All in all, this is a fun time waster.

Unknown Island was a film often shown when I was a kid on Saturday morning. Being an independent film it was probably sold to television very early before the big studios started selling off their libraries. For the time the special effects were pretty good, especially when you realize that this is an independent without big studio special effects department available.

Philip Reed and Virginia Grey go into a Singapore dive looking for the notorious Captain Tarnowski played by Barton MacLane. They're looking to charter his tramp freighter which is primarily used by trappers for the wild animals they capture. There's this Unknown Island reputed to have prehistoric beasts on it and Reed wants to photograph them.

Of course with Grey around everybody's hormones go into overdrive. Among those others are Richard Denning who has been to the island before and has barely drawn a sober breath since. As for MacLane he develops plans for the dinosaurs and for Grey.

Not too much research was used as prehistoric animals from all eras get to appear here. Including the giant megatherium sloth which was one of the largest prehistoric mammals. Of course the fact that they were primarily vegetarian didn't get in the way. I suppose they had to learn to eat meat especially with all the T-Rexes around. The fight between the giant sloth and a T-Rex is a beauty.

And of the human players Barton MacLane looks like he's having a ball doing a fabulous job of overacting as a man gone crazy with chronic malaria and drink. The other humans in the cast also get in the spirit of the project.

Unknown Island is not bad for an independent film and it's a lot of fun.

A lot of this movie looks like a re-do of some elements of King Kong, which had been released 15 years earlier. The stop-motion technology of Kong was here replaced by a forced-perspective split-screen approach to animate the ferocious gigantic beasts. Compared to today's CGI, the effects may seem as primitive as the dinosaurs it shows, but it's a fun movie to watch.

There's a bunch of tough sea dogs, one pretty girl, and some others introduced in pre-adventure bar room brawls and so on. Some explorer guy hears legends of the existence of the mysterious uncharted island, where prehistoric life has somehow avoided extinction, and books the sea dogs for a voyage to the island. Sound familiar? Apparently, this guy had heard about horrible deaths in the earlier film, and had aspirations to get killed in the same way.

I love the creatures in this film. They're not as scary as others you've seen, but they're certainly a novelty to see. They move slowly and stare with curiosity at panicky human characters who like to shoot at them. In a couple of scenes, one of the grinning dinosaurs even looks like he's about to sing the Barney song, "I Love You, You Love Me." Be on the lookout for Kong's toothy cousin, who stages the obligatory rematch with one of Barney's more vicious relatives.

It's all some good dinosaur fun, which was probably quite cool for its time, and it certainly can still entertain today, if you look past the cheap effects. The actors approach their characters with enthusiasm, and there is a good balance of character development, action, and plot development. A decent watch, for some fun drive-in nostalgia.