The Lost World

Irwin Allen puts a saddle on the Conan Doyle novel and digs in the spurs in this silly adaptation of the eponymous book. Loaded with action but not much else, and well stocked with useless characters such as Frosty the poodle. SEE! Jill St.John, who starts off feisty but ends up as simpering baggage, explore the Amazon in pink tights. HEAR!! Michael Rennie murder the Spanish language. FEEL!!! The sense of loss as Fernando Lamas deadpans the line: "My helicopter". In an interview years later, David Hedison admitted that he HATED this movie, and it's easy to see why. With typical pre-release hype, Irwin Allen teased the public with promises of unbelievably authentic-looking monsters("like nothing you've ever seen before!"). Wrong: they were exactly like everything we've seen before. The actors, from Claude Rains to Fernando Lamas, are all good to very good, but not in this clunker. Their combined talents were wasted, as will be your money if you buy or rent this film. Get it ONLY if you feel compelled to complete a collection of '50s and '60s B-movies, otherwise: don't walk, run!

Unlike `The Lost Continent' (1951), this 20th Century Fox Cinemascope production had an ample budget -- but the money wasn't spent very well. A good cast (Michael Rennie, Claude Rains, Jill St. John, David Hedison, and Fernando Lamas) are all part of an expedition that discovers a plateau in South America where dinosaurs still thrive.

Unfortunately producer Irwin Allen elected not to use stop motion animation to create the dinosaurs. Instead, the audience is treated to two hours of disguised iguanas and enlarged baby alligators. Irwin Allen also co-wrote the script, which is burdened by an excess of soap opera melodrama. The good musical score, however, is by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter.

Top quality production values and good photography make the film easy enough to watch, but there's a tragic story behind `The Lost World'. Willis O'Brien, creator of `King Kong', spent several years during the late 1950s making preparations for a big-budget remake of his 1925 version of `The Lost World'. He made his pitch to producer Irwin Allen and the big wheels at 20th Century Fox, showing them the hundreds of preproduction drawings and paintings he had done. He succeeded in persuading them to make the film -- but Fox refused to let O'Brien do the film's special effects, substituting the poorly embellished reptiles instead.

From all reports, O'Brien's version would have been the greatest lost-land adventure movie of all time. Irwin Allen's lack of vision is puzzling in view of the fact that in 1955 he produced `The Animal World' with animated dinosaurs by Ray Harryhausen and Wills O'Brien! See my comments on `Animal World' for more info.

This was the first sound version of the Lost World and I think it is one of the best. The silent, 1925 movie is the best. There have been several remakes since this one.

Professor Challenger takes a party to an uncharted plateau where dinosaurs still roam. They arrive there by helicopter, but not long after they get there, this is destroyed by a dinosaur. Despite this, they explore the land and capture a native cave girl, who knows how to use a gun. We learn that Lord Roxton has been here on a previous expedition and he killed Gomez's brother. After a fight between two dinosaurs, the party are captured by unfriendly natives, who are cannibals. Luckily, the cave girl who the party captured earlier helps them to escape and after meeting Burton White, the blind surviver of an earlier expedition, make their way along a narrow ridge where Challenger nearly meets his death. The party collects some diamonds and then Gomez holds everyone hostage as he wants Lord Roxton dead, but the gun shot wakes the "fire monster" and it eats Costa. Gomez then meets his death by falling in the lava helping to open a rock door. The plateau then blows its top and everyone is safe. But one last explosion causes the dinosaur egg they found to fall on the floor and break, revealing a baby T-Rex...

The "dinosaurs" in this movie are enlarged lizards with fins and horns attached to them and an enlarged crocodile. This what director Irwin Allen wanted unfortunately. Pity he did not want stop-motion, despite Willis O'Brien helping with the special effects. We also see a giant spider and man eating plants.

The movie has a great cast: Claude Rains (The Invisible Man), Michael Rennie (The Day the Earth Stood Still), David Hedison (The Fly, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea) and Bond Girl Jill St John (Diamonds Are Forever).

I enjoyed this movie, despite the non stop-motion dinosaurs.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

Along with King Kong this is one of the first films I remember seeing, on Saturday night TV sometime in the mid '60's. My expert judgement at 6 years old was that it was the best film ever made, over the years since it has somewhat slipped down my list – but at least is still in it! Viewed through rose-tinted spectacles I still enjoy watching it and trot the vid out every 5 years or so for another wallow in personal nostalgia. Viewed dispassionately I think it's also better than both 1925 versions – the long was too slow, the short unintelligible; forget any others.

Eccentric Professor Challenger challenges crusty Professor Summerlee in public to go with him on an expedition to find a plateau in South America where he (claimed) he saw prehistoric dinosaurs roaming around. A motley party is assembled to make the trip consisting of a cynical aristocrat with a secret, his eye-fodder girlfriend in pink and her eye-fodder brother, the hard working reporter who fancies her, and 2 dingy latins with plenty of secrets. A couple of hours after landing they discover … prehistoric dinosaurs roaming around partial to wrecking helicopters, and we discover Challenger appears rather challenged when coming to name them. Corn abounds, the special effects are worse than in 1925, every plot device is telegraphed ahead, and every racial, sexual and class stereotype is out in force – but I love it just the same! At least Jill St. John didn't twist her ankle, and the sets weren't always cardboard though.

If you didn't see this when young and impressionable don't bother, however if you did and you're not a serious type it's worth a try. You still might be horrified but you might return to a lost world of safe family adventure movies.

You would expect much more from an Irwin Allen film than 1960's The Lost World delivers. This film is high on silly-to-obnoxious characters, and corniness. The first few scenes in the film are particularly loaded down by corniness as we are introduced to the characters. There's eccentric Professor Challenger (Claude Rains) with his silly facial expressions, and boisterous but stuffy personality. There's Lord John Roxton (Michael Rennie) with his selfish and uncharming personality. There's Jennifer Holmes (Jill St. John) who starts out by trying to show the men a woman can also be worthy to take along on an expedition, but then becomes a useless, timid character who shows no strengths at all. The sexist remarks made by some male characters in the beginning become even more obnoxious, because Jennifer never comes through on showing strength, courage or ideas to help her crew members. The only strength she really proves is that she can pick out some elegant but inappropriate clothing to wear during the dangerous expedition. Jennifer has also brought along her silly, little poodle named Frosty. And then there's Costa (Jay Novello), a wimpy, greedy, seedy, little man. Throw in Fernando Lamas as Manual Gomez, the hired helicopter pilot who is also along for a side plot of personal revenge. He plots his murder-revenge and strums his guitar along the way (the natives even let him keep his guitar when the group is captured!) Not too many characters to really care for, but there are a few to possibly like such as Jennifer's brother, David (Ray Stricklyn.) David actually turns out to be more of a help then originally believed. A captured native girl (Vitina Marcus) turns out to be one of the better characters in the picture, but that is most likely because she has none of the corny lines and characteristics the expedition party's characters have. There's also corny drama from a love triangle that forms along the way. We all know Claude Rains (Phantom Of The Opera), Michael Rennie (The Day The Earth Stood Still) and others can do fine acting jobs, and the acting in this movie is fine--It's just most of the characters are so corny at times it should be embarrassing to the stars of the picture. The action in the film does not really build to any exciting levels as the crew is menaced by various creatures. The dinosaurs are lizards and reptiles with fins and horns applied to their bodies, and the giant spider is a rather lame effect (especially since it just hangs there, and only moves its legs a bit.) There is an unpleasant scene in which a real lizard fights a real reptile (portraying dinosaurs) that seems very politically incorrect by today's standards (and should have been a no-no even back in 1960.) Irwin Allen and 20th Century Fox could've done much better than this, and it is not nearly as good of a film as Journey To The Center Of The Earth (also from 20th Century Fox.) Still, The Lost World may entertain on a Saturday afternoon matinee level, and it is one of those movies collectors of horror and science fiction films will probably want to add to their 1950's and 1960's collections.