Lost Continent
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Movie Reviews of Lost Continent
Movie Review: Still a great movie
Summary: 4 Stars
A bit dated, but well acted. Better than I remembered from what was shown back in the 1950's on TV. Good cast and moves along well. Special effects were some of the best for the 1950's.Movie Review: Good sci fi
Summary: 4 Stars
I saw this film only when it was shown on B&W TV in the '50s and didn't know about the green tint gimmic until I watched the DVD.Movie Review: 50's LOST WORLD-LIKE MISFIRE IS CAMPY FUN
Summary: 3 Stars
All about a rocketship that crashes on a remote island and the guys sent out to find the craft and retrieve its 'black box' and other vital secrets. The boys fly to the last reported location of the craft but encounter engine trouble and have to crash on an island. The island just happens to be the same place where the rocket came down---nice coincidence. The pilot, played by veteran actor Cesar Romero, decides to crashland on the rocky island rather than the predominant smooth ocean waters---nice thinking, Cez. The barrelling plane comes down in a jungle with windows and fuselage intact---the guys come out looking as if they just had their nails clipped. No Ginger or Maryann on this isle, though, as they come upon a jungle girl and a chubby little kid. The kid has a conventional 50-ish American haircut---must have some pretty good barbers on the island. The jungle girl points the way to where the rocket probably landed---a dangerous mountain plateau avoided by the natives. The guys start up the rocky monolith using a novel strategy to prevent altitude sickness---by smoking a cigarette at every break. Actor Whit Bissell, with one of the most recognizable faces of the baby-boomer TV era, falls from a cliff into the foggy depths and we never see him again---but you know that he gets up and dusts himself off as he went on to omnipresence in a slew of later 50's and 60's horror/science fiction/Western films and TV shows. There is one scene where the guys have to jump over a bottomless break in the rocky path in order to get to the other side and continue their ascent. It's a tough go but they make it---hey, guys, how about taking off those heavy backpacks and tools and tossing them across first before jumping? The ascent and arrival at the top is filled with lots of the compulsory 50's B-like traisping around and muttering. Once on the plateau the film is tinted green---was hoping we'd bump into Marta or Athena here (the knockout green aliens in the original STAR TREK episode 'Whom God's Destroy' [1969] and the LOST IN SPACE TV series episode 'The Girl from the Green Dimension' [1967], respectively), but, no such luck. Romero, a very fine actor, performs splendidly under the circumstances with noir-worthy delivery and presence. At one point he suspects two of the scientists he has brought along---one played by John Hoyt (can't forget him as the selfish, wheelchair-bound millionaire in WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, 1951) and the other by Hugh Beaumont (yep, the Beav's dad)---of collusion, planning the mishap with the rocket so that they could claim the uranium-rich but geologically volatile plateau. Romero is wrong but this would have been a much more interesting and novel plot to pursue in this film. Once on the top we see dinosaurs that appear more like toys or models than any of O'brien's or Harryhausen's work---pretty bad. One guy, Ward Cleaver (I mean, the Beav's dad) is chased by a bronto and has to climb up a tree (a scenario first depicted in the original KING KONG [1933])---nice strategy of climbing up a tree when chased by a bronto, facilitating the ravenous fury of a beast who happens to have a neck as long as the tree your climbing. You would think that after what happened to the guy in KING KONG this guy would have learned his lesson. The plateau is huge and the rocket could be anywhere, as there are no clues as to its whereabouts---nice how they just stumble into it ["...hey, there it is.."] The ship crashed nose-first into a swamp-like area---interesting how it sank to a perfect depth leaving the only external door at a level above ground just about the height of the average adult male, easily accessible to anyone except a midget. When first discovered the ship is at an angle to the ground but later seems to have miraculously straightened itself out a bit. At the end, as the mountain begins to implode and the boys scamper back down, a small boulder hits Romero on the shoulder without eliciting even a wince, an ouch, or interrupting his descent. The movie ends with Romero, sitting in a canoe, lighting up another cig---guess he'd rather go from a heart attack than starve to death or become a shark's next meal. If you look closely he seems to have stopped for a shave during his descent. By the way, the DVD's cover art features a guy to Romero's left who is never part of the original investigative party, is never on the plane, yet shows up for a few seconds as the first brontosaurous approaches---an editing miscue? A fill-in for Beaumont who was busy combing his hair? Who was this guy? Just gotta love this. No extras on the DVD but a very good print as usual from IMAGE. Have fun.Movie Review: Think Like a Kid and You Might Like It
Summary: 3 Stars
When you think of a "B" science fiction movie, one like THE LOST CONTINENT comes to mind. Released in 1951, it is a microcosm of the age. It shows the skimpy special effects typical of the age although one might think that Hollywood ought to have progressed beyond the King Kong film of nearly twenty years prior. It includes the prototypical cast of second tier actors, most of whom are well known to viewers old enough to remember such stalwarts as ABBOT AND COSTELLO (Hillary Brooke), ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE (John Hoyt), I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF (Whit Bissel), LEAVE IT TO BEAVER (Hugh Beaumont), ROCKY JONES, SPACE RANGER (Sid Melton), and BATMAN (Cesar Romero). And it even includes the anti-communist dogma then current with a burgeoning cold war.
The plot is a straight forward account of a team of scientists and military types sent to recover a lost missle. The film never lets the viewer forget that the successful accomplishment of the mission is a must. Even when the very lives of the team are in danger, their leader (an oddly miscast Cesar Romero as the romantic hero) insists that they push on. And push on they do. Director Sam Newfield spends considerable screen time in showing no more than the extreme vicissitudes involved in climbing the sheer cliffs of a volcano that you know must erupt as part of the grand finale. The dinosaurs are clumsily filmed in a manner that had begun to pall even on juvenile audiences. It is easy to overlook the scientific blunders such as a charging Brontosaurus, who as a herbivore, would not have been likely to feel threatened by a pack of puny humans. What gives THE LOST CONTINENT its basic dramatic thrust is the continuing ability of the rescue team to recover the lost missle so as to determine why it went off course. There were a few grumbles in the team about whether the benefit was worth the cost but Cesar Romero kept them on target. There were even a few scenes of emotional power such as the one in which the wise cracking Sid Melton was gored by a raging Triceratops. The ending weakened what until then had been a reasonably satisfying adventure movie. I shall not reveal the specifics except to say that the crumbling island vignette had been done before and better. Still, THE LOST CONTINENT is a pleasant way for the over fifty crowd to remember just why they went to the Saturday matinee in the first place.
Movie Review: Found continent
Summary: 3 Stars
Here's a picture that Channel 5, WNEW-TV in NYC used to show regularly back in the 60s as an early Sunday afternoon matinee. Although not well-regarded by users of imdb, Robert L. Lippert's LOST CONTINENT (1951) is good fun for anyone amenable (or immune) to its cheap interiors and odd claymation critters.
SYNOPSIS--
When remote control of an experimental rocket fails and it disappears off radar, a small team of scientists and Air Force men are sent to locate the crash site and retrieve any surviving flight data. While duplicating the missing craft's course, Maj. Joe Nolan (Cesar Romero) encounters a magnetic field that forces him to crash-land his plummeting transport plane on an uncharted island.
Using a geiger counter supplied by Dr. Phillips (Hugh Beaumont), the expedition traces the rocket's whereabouts to a steep mountain. One man dies during their ascent and when the group reaches the peak's crest, the air (and our film) is suddenly green-tinged. This is explained as a concentration of atmospheric chlorophyll caused by dense vegetation.
Soon the men see various prehistoric creatures, and this is where much criticism gets heaped. An elephant-trumpeting brontosaurus (supposedly vegetarian) hunts the men. Two triceratops that sound like tigers do battle. A pteradactyl (with another pachyderm voice) is shot for its meat but the previous three monsters converge for some dino-sushi.
Stock footage gets sprinkled throughout, including scenes from another Lippert "classic," ROCKETSHIP X-M (1950). More men die, but it's up to the patient viewer to find out who and how.
Comic relief (such as it is) provided by Sid Melton. Also here are Hugh Beaumont (LEAVE IT TO BEAVER) and in a totally superfluous early scene, Hillary Brooke (THE ABBOTT & COSTELLO SHOW). The cast is rounded out by Chick Chandler, John Hoyt and Whit Bissell.