Le monde perdu

It's such a damn shame that the youngest generation of cinema buffs only knows about "Jurassic Park", because they have been making really good dinosaur movies since the silent era already! Particularly Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary novel has always been a very popular story that received decent film versions in practically every decade. In case you know nothing about the plot just yet: the obnoxious and self-centered professor Challenger assembles a troop of unlikely adventurers to go on an expedition deep in the Amazonian jungle, because there's supposed to be a plateau where the dinosaurs never got extinct. The expedition sure is no field trip, since the plateau also homes giant funky green spiders and an aggressive tribe of aboriginals that don't really like intruders. Unavoidably the group also falls apart due to personal intrigues and two adventurers' mutual love-interest for the same girl. "The Lost World" by Irwin Allen by no means is a good film, but it's vastly entertaining, partly because the special effects and set pieces are so incredibly crummy! The dinosaurs are just ordinary reptiles, like lizards and even a crocodile, with fake horns glued onto them and filmed with a fish-eye lens so that they appear to be gigantic. Well, they obviously remain simple reptiles and totally don't evoke feelings of fear or engagement. The decors are quite nice, though, and this film definitely has the irresistible early 60's charm that never fails to put a smile on your face. Claude Rains, here in the final stage of his well-filled career, is excellent as the boisterous professor Challenge and he obviously amused himself with yelling at people and hitting them on their heads with an umbrella. The rest of the cast is rather forgettable, expect from the stunningly beautiful Vitina Marcus who plays the sexy native girl. Even though I only remember it vaguely, the 1925 version of the same story is a much better film, but this version will definitely appeal more to larger audiences.

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.

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.

The Lost World might have been a better film if it had been set back in the time when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the novel. Which would be in the pre-World War I days of 1912. Back then such a plateau might have escaped detection from modern man.

In any event it's been updated to 1960 and I remember seeing it for the first time at a downtown Rochester theater long since demolished and I was with my grandmother. She took me when I was by myself visiting them in Rochester. I remember the movie, but I also remember how slow she was moving. What I didn't know was that she was in the first stages of Parkinson's disease which would eventually kill her.

Seen as an adult it's a film better left to the juvenile set. And it could use a makeover now and replace those dinosaurs with the more realistic ones of Jurassic Park.

But I doubt we could get a cast as classic as the one I saw. Claude Rains is in the lead as Conan Doyle's irascible Professor George Challenger who was the protagonist in about five books. Not as many as that much more known Conan Doyle hero Sherlock Holmes, but Challenger has his following.

In this film he's back from South America in the country roughly between Venezuela and British Guiana at the time, deep in the interior at some of the Amazon tributary headwaters. He claims he saw some ancient dinosaurs alive on a plateau.

True to his name Claude Rains invites company and financing on a new expedition to prove him right. His rival Richard Haydn accepts as does big game hunter Michael Rennie and David Hedison who is an American newspaperman whose publisher promises financing for an exclusive.

Of course it wouldn't be right in the day of woman's liberation if the shapely Jill St. John, sportswoman and a crack shot doesn't come along with her brother Ray Stricklyn. Guiding the expedition are South Americans Fernando Lamas and Jay Novello who have an agenda all their own involving at least one member of the party.

Watching The Lost World again, I think of myself as a kid back in the day and even with such a cast it really should stay in the juvenile trade. And this review is dedicated to my grandmother Mrs. Sophie Lucyshyn who took me to the movies that day back in 1960.

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.