Themes: Survival in the Wilderness, Finding a Way Back Home, Lost Worlds
Main Cast: Michael Rennie, Jill St. John, David Hedison, Claude Rains, Fernando Lamas
Release Year: 1960
Country: US
Run Time: 98 minutes
Plot
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story of an expedition to a remote plateau rumored to be the home of prehistoric beasts, already the basis of a 1925 sci-fi classic, is again brought to the screen in Irwin Allen's lesser version. Claude Rains stars as Professor Challenger, who leads a team of fellow scientists and adventurers deep into the Amazon jungle. The team must battle unforgiving jungle conditions before arriving at the isolated plateau that is their final destination. There they discover a strange group of prehistoric beasts and unexpectedly find themselves in a fight for survival. While the 1925 Harry Hoyt version is still considered noteworthy for its ground-breaking stop-motion effects, Allen relies on enlarged footage of modern-day animals dressed up as their prehistoric counterparts, a technique that has aged less gracefully. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
Review
Though vastly inferior to the 1925 silent version, Irwin Allen's production of The Lost World is still cheesy good fun for devotees of prehistoric monster films. Certainly, part of the film's problem is with its screenplay -- often a major culprit in films of this sci-fi genre. Writing an "undiscovered world" film is actually pretty tricky -- the wonders of the lost world have to take precedence over in-depth characterization or stunningly original plotting. At the same time, audiences won't be satisfied with mere cardboard characters or plot twists that are telegraphed far in advance. Charles Bennett's screenplay, while not particularly good (or overly concerned with logic), is far from dismal; its biggest flaw is that it relies far too much on special effects (not unusual in films of this sort). Unfortunately, the effects (i.e., the dinosaurs) are not very special, being for the most part lizards or iguanas modified with a couple of horns or some extra scales -- but very young children will find them cool enough, and older kids-at-heart will enjoy laughing at them. Allen's direction is fairly aimless, but he has assembled a good cast to enliven things. (If nothing else, World gives viewers a chance to see a red-haired, bushy-bearded Claude Rains, an interesting sight in and of itself.) Those who have little patience for prehistoric monster films might as well not even bother tuning in, but those who have a soft spot for these movies could do worse than The Lost World. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Duncan Cramer - Art Director, Walter M. Simonds - Art Director, Paul Zastupnevich - Costume Designer, Irwin Allen - Director, Hugh S. Fowler - Editor, Paul Sawtell - Composer (Music Score), Bert Shefter - Composer (Music Score), Ben Nye, Sr. - Makeup, Winton Hoch - Cinematographer, Irwin Allen - Producer, Joseph Kish - Set Designer, Walter Scott - Set Designer, John Sturtevant - Set Designer, L.B. Abbott - Special Effects, James B. Gordon - Special Effects, Emil Kosa, Jr. - Special Effects, Irwin Allen - Screenwriter, Charles Bennett - Screenwriter, Arthur Conan Doyle - Book Author
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Expand to include the entire plot and re-write so as not to sound like a movie promotion.
Professor Challenger leads team of scientists and adventurers to a remote plateau deep within the Amazonian jungle to investigate reports that dinosaurs still live there.
The boisterous, arrogant Professor Challenger (Claude Rains), a reputed biologist and anthropologist, dares the London Zoological Society to mount an expedition to verify his spectacular claim, without physical proof, that his previous expedition to the Amazon Basin found live dinosaurs. Apart from him and his 'socialite' counterpart, Professor Summerlee (Richard Haydn), it consists of experienced discoverer Lord Roxton (Michael Rennie), the young reporter Ed Malone (David Hedison) - who got publicly struck down with Challenger's umbrella at his arrival - and Jennifer Holmes (Jill St. John), Malone's news agency's boss's daughter, essentially as conditions for putting up the money. In Brazil they are joined by Jennifer's brother David (Ray Stricklyn) and local 'guide' Manuel Gomez (Fernando Lamas). They soon discover the dinosaurs are real and dangerous, like giant spiders, but lose their helicopter and thus are desperate for a way down from the isolated plateau. They learn Roxton knew about the fate of Burton White, an explorer whose diary they find, thus presume to be dead, in search of diamonds, and confirmation of the local tribe being the lethal guardians of the plateau's secrets, but also get surprising help...
