Continente perdido

Plot—a retrieval team is dispatched to the Pacific to bring back vital info from a downed rocket. Their plane, however, crashes on a prehistoric island, so adventure follows.

Considering the production's barrel bottom pedigree, it's better than I expected. Not that this says much—the monsters are poorly done, the rescue team climbs endlessly the same rocks, the pacing sometimes drags, while the green tint is stomach churning. Still, producer Neufeld hired a capable cast, even if the women's roles dangle like appendages, (added no doubt for marquee value). Then too, low-rent comedian Melton restrains his usual buffoonery as one of the team.

On a different note, catch the brief Cold War dialog between Rostov (Hoyt) and Nolan (Romero). Judging from the release date, I expect the movie was filmed at the height (late 1950) of the Korean War, so maybe the departure's not surprising. Anyway, the ambitions may greatly exceed the budget, but the cast manages some interest in an adventure movie that could have easily been a total loss.

A decent cast is wasted in this low-budget film, hastily put together to compete with "Rocketship X-M", which wasn't all that good of a movie either. However, that movie at least attempts to convey some profound message, this film is satisfied with just being a typical "action" film. Unfortunately, very little action actually occurs as approximately two-thirds of the film is devoted to a search party making slow progress up a mountain.

Although, it should be noted that the film actually tries to avoid stereotypes with the German/Russian guy. For that, I think, the film deserves a little praise.

Sam Newfield was one of the, if not THE, most prolific directors in American film history. Counting features and two-reelers, Newfield racked up close to 300 films in a career that started shortly after the turn of the century and ended in 1958. Newfield churned out movies so quickly and on such a regular basis that one studio he worked for, PRC (owned by his brother, Sigmund), tacked the names "Sherman Scott" and "Peter Stewart" on much of Newfield's output so it wouldn't look like one man was making almost all of PRC's product. As can be expected, much of Newfield's work is of little or no importance (his Buster Crabbe westerns for PRC in the '40s are especially worthless), but every so often something would happen and Newfield would turn out a film that was coherent, professional-looking and even (gasp!) entertaining. He was assigned by producer Sam Katzman to the Tim McCoy series of westerns for Puritan in the mid-1930s, and some of them are actually tidy little gems--tight, humorous, well-staged little examples of the best of the B-western. "The Lost Continent" is among Newfield's best work--in fact, it probably IS Newfield's best work. Working with a larger budget than he was usually accustomed to (even given the fact that it was a cheapo Lippert production), and given a stronger cast than he got in many of his films, Newfield manages to do quite a good job with what he is given. The story (an Air Force plane trying to recover a lost missile that has landed in what turns out to be a prehistoric jungle, complete with dinosaurs) is nothing much, but Newfield's pacing is quite steady, the dialogue isn't as mind-numbing as the usual Newfield extravaganza, and he actually manages to generate some suspense (a first for him) with the Russian character played by John Hoyt (is he or isn't he a Commie spy?). The crude stop-motion dinosaurs are cheesy and badly done, but since they seem to have been thrown in at the last minute, they don't really detract from the film all that much. If you're familiar with Sam Newfield's work, this will be a revelation to you. If you're not, check it out to see what is the best film in an otherwise almost completely undistinguished career.

The Lost Continent is an excellent, low budget dinosaur adventure from 1951. Although we don't get to see any dinosaurs until the last half hour, this is worth the wait.

A party is sent to a South Seas island to search for a missing atomic rocket. They eventually arrive there after a long flight and a lot of rock climbing. While resting on the rock face, one of the party sees an enlarged lizard, but no one else believes him. When they get there, they discover an uncharted plateau where time has stood still. It is tinted green. On the plateau, they battle a Brontosaurus, some Triceratops and a Pterodactyl. These stop-motion monsters look quite impressive, even though they are not done by Willis O'Brien or Ray Harryhausen. The party eventually finds the rocket, get the information they want off it and escape from the plateau which is then destroyed by an earthquake.

This movie stars Cesar Romero and several familiar faces from 50's sci-fi movies: Whit Bissell (Creature From the Black Lagoon), John Hoyt (When Worlds Collide) and Hillary Brooke (Invaders From Mars). All play good parts. The score in this movie is excellent throughout and the green tint looks good too.

I had been after this movie for ages and was pleased when I obtained an NTSC copy.

This is a must for fans of dinosaur movies and 1950's sci-fi. A treat.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

I usually enjoy movies where scientists with guns find some lost world where dinosaurs exist.I have seen a ton of them and they are usually good.This is the exact opposite.The most exciting thing about this movie is that Hugh Beaumont is in it, another old sitcom star that I have never seen in a movie.But his barely noticeable appearance is not enough to save this movie.It's literally so boring that I bet most people won't be able to make it to when they get to the "Lost Continent".There's so much non-sense,unintelligible babble and straight out lying that it's not easy to understand what's going on.Don't waste your time with this.Go watch it done right in The Land Unknown.