Dos mundos perdidos

The same year that he played the rampaging alien in "The Thing from Another World" a studly young James Arness is our jut-jawed hero in this agreeable adventure. Arness plays Kirk Hamilton, a mate on a 19th century clipper ship who, after a skirmish with pirates, spends some time in Australia getting his wounds treated. After helping the locals deal with this pirate problem, he and several other characters end up marooned on an uncharted island that is frozen in time, complete with oversized lizards.

This film is a little misrepresented by ad copy. Much more of an adventure film (dividing its time between action on land and action at sea) than sci-fi, it only spends its final third on this island. And we never get to see very many prehistoric animals, only the aforementioned lizards that are stock footage from "One Million B.C." ("Two Lost Worlds" didn't shoot any of its own creature scenes.) Also, while a fair amount of time is spent with Australian characters, NONE of them have Australian accents!

Still, this minor but agreeable feature shows its audience a reasonable time. At the very least, it has a very brief running time of 62 minutes. Much like many a fun B movie, it doesn't waste too much time. That is, except for portraying a love triangle between Kirk, Queensland native Elaine Jeffries (Kasey Rogers), and a resentful rancher named Martin Shannon (Bill Kennedy). The supporting cast is filled out by capable character actors such as Pierre Watkin, Tom Monroe, Michael Rye as the evil pirate leader (you'll have a good time hating this guy), Fred Kohler Jr., Tim Graham, and Richard Bartell. Young co-star Gloria Petroff is the daughter of producer Boris Petroff (a.k.a. Brooke L. Peters). Co-star Tom Hubbard (who plays John Hartley) also helped to adapt the story by Petroff and wrote the screenplay.

The movie does give its viewers an exciting finish with a volcanic eruption (more stock footage), and features some hilariously florid narration written by Bill Shaw and spoken by Dan Riss. All in all, it's amusing stuff.

Six out of 10.

This movie is available on video, and I recommend buying it. A problem with the bad movie genre (subgenre? metagenre?) is that it is dominated by science fiction and horror. Well, this movie has elements of both, but it is mainly an adventure film gone horribly wrong. So, it is often overlooked as a source of unintentional laughs. Here's 10 good reasons to see it:

1. Look at the tattoos in the opening and closing title sequence.

2. Is it a historical drama? A pirate adventure? A monster movie? Who knows?

3. Bad narration -- lots of it! Could be missing pieces of soundtrack.

4. James Aurness (sic) -- He was more expressive as the carrot in "The Thing"

5. Bill Kennedy -- the grouchy costar was later a popular TV movie host in the Detroit area -- a special Michigan connection

6. Fight montage sequence -- there must be stuff from 10 movies in here!

7. You know, you can MOVE that camera! But this cinematographer obviously wasn't aware -- he just turned the camera on, and people walked in and out of the shot. Guess he was in the can a lot.

8. The monsters fight each other, but pose no threat to the humans. They should get guest star billing!

9. If you can tell the two lead women apart, you're doing better than me.

10. Last but not least -- the finale features the world's most powerful handheld telescope as a side-splitting topper.

I've said enough -- and last but not least -- it's SHORT! The best quality a bad movie can have. This one's a winner, folks.

Pirates attack the ship carrying Kirk Hamilton (Jim Aurness aka James Arness), scion of a ship-building family, in the New Hebrides forcing the ship to take refuge in Australia (in a part of Queensland where everyone has an American accent). When the pirates begin ransacking the local villages, Hamilton convinces a Royal Navy captain (Tom Monroe) to pursue their ship. Both the navy ship and the pirate ship are sunk in the ensuing battle but a small group of survivors (including Hamilton) escape in a lifeboat only to find themselves marooned on a volcanic island populated by gigantic beasts. The low-budget film, directed by Norman Dawn, is an uneven mix of sea-adventure and fantasy with little to connect the two elements. This is particularly noticeable on the island, when the narrator (Dan Riss) excitedly describes the castaways' search for water, and later food, while making no comments whatsoever about the 'dinosaur' fight that occurs in front of them, almost killing them. Typical for a low-budget B-film 'Two Lost Worlds' liberally borrows from earlier films, notably One Million B. C. (1940) for the 'dinosaurs' and 'Captain Caution' (1940) for the climactic fight with the pirates. Discounting the repurposed footage, the film has the production values of a '50's TV show and none of the cast do much with the trite storyline and script. Since there is nothing novel or interesting in the new material, the sum of the film is worse than its parts.

According to the review by youroldpaljim, two episodes of a television series were edited together to make this movie. Additionally, some footage (often reused in other films) of 'dinosaurs' fighting was inserted from the 1940 film "One Million BC"! To make this all a semi-coherent film, there is LOTS of narration...filling in the gaps in the stories! Talk about a cheap and cynical way of film making!!

Jame Arness stars as Kirk Hamilton, an American sailor who is injured in a pirate attack at sea and is left by his ship to recuperate in 1830s Australia. There he falls in love with a local girl AND assists the locals in fighting these same pirates that attacked his ship. Later, after any semblance to a real movie is lost and dinosaurs, volcanic explosions and more are unleashed on the audience....along with LOTS of stock footage.

I guess the mantra for this film is 'if you can get it for nothing or very little, shove it into this movie'...and it shows. Although parts of the story are good and Arness tries his best, chopping it all apart and shoving all sorts of crap into the film completely ruins it. It's also funny how NONE of the Australians sound the least bit Australian, but American! Overall, a dopey and cynical film that starts well and eventually degenerates into an incomprehensible mess.

During the 40s and the 50s many sci-fi and adventure movies were produced about giant monsters fighting brave adventurers. "One Million B.C." (1940) is probably the best known example and the one that started the trend, but there were many low-budget films that tried to emulate the success of that film with less than spectacular results. "Two Lost Worlds" may be one of those lesser known films, but what makes it "different" from the rest is the fact that it contains basically every element of the action-adventure sub genre to tell its story. From pirates to dinosaurs, and from naval fights to cowboys, this one has it all.

James Arness is young Kirk Hamilton, a brave captain who is severely injured after being attacked by pirates on their travel to Asia. While his ship continues the trip, he is left in Queensland, Australia to recover, where he'll find the beautiful Elaine Jeffries (Kasey Rogers) and her precocious sister Nancy (Jane Harlan), as well as earning the enmity of Martin Shannon (Bill Kennedy), a man who is also in love with Elaine. But adventure calls him even there, as the pirates return and raid Queensland, kidnapping Elaine and Nancy and taking James and Martin to adventure. In their rescue trip they'll fight not only the pirates, but the strange creatures of a nearby island.

Well, this film is basically an epic adventure that includes basically every element necessary to be classified as "adventure". While this is indeed as messy as it sounds, it has an explanation: "Two Lost Worlds" was made of two episodes (maybe three) of a failed TV series project blend together to work as a B-Movie. The origins of the film are very notorious, as the movie changes of "theme" as it changes of setting (aided by some rather poor use of stock footage), as the film goes from one adventure to another the pace feels at times disjointed and the constant narration doesn't help to make it better.

The movie's most notorious "detail" is the use of the famous footage "One Million B.C.", and while it is in fact sold as the hook of the film, the actual scenes used are rather short (due mostly to the previously discussed factors). Technically, the film is rather poor and it probably would had worked a lot better as a TV show (as it was intended). This was director Norman Dawn's final movie after directing a long series of adventure movies, some of them rather infamous like "Wild Women" (1951) and "Tundra" (1936).

If there is a redeeming feature in this movie (and one that's worth a lot), is the acting. A pre-"Gunsmoke" James Arness carries the film with grace and makes charming a character that otherwise would be poor and stereotypical. Kasey Rogers (who would participate in an iconic scene later that year in "Strangers on a Train") is equally effective although her character may be "too 50s" for today's standards. Bill Kennedy is also good as the Kirk's rival and has very good scenes (his character was probably the most developed of the cast).

It would be easy to point out the many problems of "Two Lost Worlds", but one has to consider that it was a low-budget production (for TV) on a time where special effects were a novelty (it wasn't the only movie to use ""One Million B.C."'s stock footage) and while this is no excuse for its disjointed storyline, the film is considerably more enjoyable than most films of its era.

"Two Lost Worlds" is by no means a classic. It may not even be a good movie. But at least it entertains, and for most movies that's something. People looking for classy horror and adventure better look elsewhere, those interested in a strange novelty and/or the career of a young James Arness will find "Two Lost Worlds" an interesting piece of film. 5/10