Two Lost Worlds

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.

Two Lost Worlds is one of those movies that I remember seeing as a very young child...well, at least I remembered one part of the movie, not knowing which one it was from. The scene where the cavegirl is caught in the lava flow was one of those pivotal images with me for some unknown reason. The scene was also repeated (I'm not sure if it was the exact same shot, but it could have been) in Valley of the Dragons.

While this movie has special effects and "dinosaurs" (lizards in make-up), it is very hard to classify this as a real science fiction movie, even under the very un-demanding criteria of the time. For the most part, this movie is a pirate-style adventure. James Arness is as stoic as ever in it, and there isn't much else to really recommend the film.

My research indicates that TWO LOST WORLDS is made up of two episodes of an un-aired T.V. series. Perhaps the producers of this T.V. series thought these pilot episodes were so spiffy that they decided to edit them into a feature film and release it to theaters. Perhaps not. It is more likely the series just did not sell. This explains the films bifurcated structure. The dinosaur sequences come from that often mined film ONE MILLION B.C.

Other films made from unsold T.V. shows include PROJECT MOON BASE; JUNGLE HELL; TARZAN AND THE TRAPPERS; and INVISIBLE AVENGER. I'm sure there are a least a dozen more examples of films made from unsold pilots that could be found.

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.

Two Lost Worlds is more of an adventure movie than a sci-fi but I still quite enjoyed this.

After being attacked by pirates, the clipper ship The Queen settles in Queensland, Austrlia while its captain recovers from injuries received during the attack. He falls in love with one of the local girls there and pirates then raid the colony and they escape. After the ship is attacked again and set on fire, the few survivors end up on an uncharted island where they encounter dinosaurs and then a volcanic eruption and earthquake and are then rescued.

The dinosaur footage in this movie is the fight from One Million BC, as is the disaster footage, where we get to see more enlarged lizards from that movie too.

The only member of the cast I've heard of in this is James Arness (The Thing From Another World, Them!).

Despite the low budget, Two Lost Worlds is worth watching. Not bad at all.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.