A Ilha Desconhecida

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.

Given the slick computer assisted graphics seen in Jurassic Park and the like, the sight of wobbly dinosaurs and a gorilla-like giant sloth will likely provoke more laughter than anxiety this days. But, the monsters gave me bad dreams for months-- nay, years!! after seeing this movie. A classic adventure tale of a lost island that has perserved a haven for dinosaurs. Pretty amazing stuff...for a kid in 1948.

"Unknown Island" is a horror/fantasy film made in Cinecolor. I mention this because Cinecolor is not a true color process but one made up of two colors instead of the three colors in Technicolor. The colors were much more garish and intense than Technicolor and over time, the films tended to look very orangy-red and greenish-blue....and many colors in the spectrum simply weren't present at all (such as yellows and purples). So why did folks use this inferior two-color process? Price! It was cheap to buy...about the same price as black & white film....whereas Technicolor was very expensive by comparison. I mention this because you might wonder why "Unknown Island" looks the way it does.

The story begins in Singapore. A young couple (Phillip Reed and Virginia Grey) approach Captain Tarnowski (Barton MacLane) with a strange proposition. They want to hire him and his boat to take them to an island which supposedly has living dinosaurs!! Apparently, Ted (Reed) saw dinosaurs when he flew over the island during the war...and now he wants to return to capitalize on this. Naturally, bad things are gonna happen, as the story is quite similar to "King Kong"...and you know it's best they leave these creatures alone!

So is it any good? Well, yes and no. The actors are quite good and the moments when they aren't encountering dinosaurs are also good. But the dinosaurs themselves are pretty limp. Many look like plastic dinosaurs and others are folks wearing clumsy dinosaur costumes...and they all look pretty bad. With a bigger budget might have come better looking creatures. Because of this, while the movie is worth seeing, the film is uneven and the dinosaurs pretty lame.

By the way, early in the film a sailor points out Tarnowski for the couple. That sailor is played by Snub Pollard, a gifted silent comedian whose career changed dramatically when the sound era arrived. Now in the talkies, he was no longer a star or co-star but made a career out of playing various bit parts...possibly because he was an Aussie and perhaps his accent stood in his way...though when he spoke, I never noticed his accent being all that strong.

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.

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