The Lost World (1960)

the audience applauded

Thanks for the memories!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Producer: Irwin Allen. An Irwin Allen Production. Copyright 1960 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Warner: 13 July 1960. U.S. release: July 1960. U.K. release: 28 August 1960. Australian release: December 1960. 97 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Zoology Professor George Edward Challenger (Claude Rains) flies home to London from South America to announce he has discovered a "lost world" where Jurassic monsters from 150,000,000 B.C. still roam. His claim is doubted by members of the Zoological Institute, so he offers to lead an expedition back to the area. Those who accompany Challenger on his next exploration are Lord Roxton (Michael Rennie), a playboy and big game hunter; Jennifer Holmes (Jill St John), daughter of the American newspaper executive who finances this venture; David Holmes (Ray Stricklyn), Jennifer's brother; Ed Malone (David Hedison), American newsman and photographer; and Professor Walter Summerlee (Richard Haydn), a scientist who has long been critical of Challenger.When the party arrives at a remote trading post on the Amazon, two others join the expedition — Gomez (Fernando Lamas), who pilots the helicopter to the plateau where the "lost world" exists, and Costa (Jay Novello), a jungle travel agent and guide. Gomez, who notices everything while he plays his guitar and sings, realizes that Jennifer is very interested in Lord Roxton, but Roxton isn't serious about Jennifer.Gomez lands the helicopter beside a cliff, atop the "lost world". This is a land of strange vegetation, of intertwining vines, of contorted trees and bizarre colors.NOTES: "The Lost World" was first filmed by First National in 1925. It was directed by Harry Hoyt and starred Lewis Stone, Bessie Love and Wallace Beery. In the earlier film the adventurers returned to London with the baby dinosaur which later terrorized the city.COMMENT: After carping about "Journey to the Center of the Earth", a lot of critics then had the audacity to compare this movie unfavorably. I found both equally enjoyable. Neither is meant to be taken seriously so far as plot and characters are concerned, but both have wonderful sets and effects which are ideally suited to and look absolutely great in CinemaScope.I especially liked Claude Rains as the larger-than-life Challenger, Michael Rennie as the steadfast hero, Richard Haydn the ideal Summerlee, and Jill St John the appealingly comic-stripped heroine.OTHER VIEWS: Pleasingly chipper... refuses to take itself too seriously... fright with a smile on its face. — Paul V. Beckley in the N.Y. Herald Tribune.

It's really bad. To take common lizards and stick things on their backs to make them look dinosaur-like. This is just a silly jaunt into parts unknown to a Jurassic Park type place on the lowest of budgets. Irwin Allen who produced a bunch of disaster movies spent about twenty-five cents on this clunker. There are rubbery spiders and goofy natives and cliffhangers. It reminded me of the kind of thing we would have seen in the 1940's with an audience of ten year olds whose standards weren't too high. Unfortunately, this was supposed to be a somewhat serious movie. I recently watched the old silent one which is much better than this--even with the claymation sauropods.

Dinosaurs! Uh, no, just komodos and iguanas with horns and spikes duct-taped to them....Didn't matter when you were ten. And THE LOST WORLD (the second film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel) is definitely FOR ten-year-olds, seemingly made BY ten-year-olds. Been decades since I read the book, but screenwriter-director Irwin Allen takes Conan Doyle's exciting meat and potatoes story, changes it unnecessarily to accommodate his interminable padding (the gripping "volunteers" segment, the compelling "arguing-over-taking-a-woman" vignette, the tension-wracked "tentacles-that-don't-kill-anyone" obstacle, the thrilling "walking-slowly-through-the-dead-dinosaur-ribcage" scene - there's more padding here than in Kiera Knightley's bra) - then Allen adds cheese and plastic. THE CHEESE:• As Professor Challenger, Claude Rains overacts into leading an expedition to a prehistoric Amazonian plateau, accompanied by: • Michael Rennie (smug over-actor) • David Hedison (actionboy over-actor)• Fernando Lamas (Spanish over-actor, who does a mean Ricardo Montalban; father of Lorenzo; some kind of gay subplot - him and another guy in a locket together - ?) • Richard Haydn (British over-actor - best known for helping Chris Plummer and Julie Andrews escape Nazis in THE SOUND OF MUSIC) • Jill St. John (stereotypical woman over-actor, whom Challenger doesn't want on the expedition because she'll bring her girl germs and pink luggage) • a puling Mexican (ethnic over-actor, taking time off as a villager in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN) • a teen model (heartthrob over-actor, taking time off from a Frankie Avalon beach shoot) • the hot cave girl (Vitina Marcus, with her animal-skin miniskirt designed by Tommy Hilfiger - d'ya think she's wearing undies?)THE PLASTIC: Spikes, horns, sails, spinal plates, head frills - all lackadaisically taped to plodding komodo dragons, soporific iguanas and an unfortunate caiman, which made them look like dinosaurs to people with the intelligence of cavemen.We can expect bad effects from pre-CGI movies, but THE LOST WORLD fails for many other reasons: foremost being its blatant disinformation, voiced via its ignorant characters, and by association, the ignorant filmmakers. After being "chased" by a forced-perspective komodo with a taped-on frill (roaring like an explosion coming through a tunnel), Challenger says, "We've just been visited by a Jurassic Brontosaurus!" If I can stop my head from exploding in outrage, I'll outline why this statement proves Irwin Allen's brain case is as small as outmoded thinking perceived dinosaur brain cases to be: Brontosaurus (correctly termed Apatosaurus) was known since the late 1870s. Even school kids in 1960 knew Brontosaurus. (Exactly how retarded does Allen think his audience?) And if you knew Brontosaurus, firstly, you knew this sleek, splay-footed lizard looked NOTHING like the bulky, tree-limbed Brontosaurus. You also knew it was a herbivore, and herbivores don't chase people to eat them - unless they are taunted by magnificent overacting. At least those stop-motion dinosaur movies of the time displayed a level of art and ingenuity, in trying to portray dinosaurs at the state that science knew them. But these people just don't care! It's like maverick mediocrity Bert I. Gordon in KING DINOSAUR (1955) calling a forced-perspective iguana a Tyrannosaurus rex and expecting everyone in his audiences to squint real hard. In this movie's defense, it came during an unenlightened age, when biological science took a step backwards and started regarding dinosaurs as big dopey versions of modern lizards. Very soon, it would be realized that dinosaurs were not reptiles, but Dinosauria, their own genus. They resembled reptiles as much as this movie resembled JURASSIC PARK. Their physiology, movement, bone structure, habits, appearance - were nothing like reptiles. After the eight mismatched explorers stand around yammering for a good part of the film's running time, all standing facing the fourth wall to get their screen time on like an episode of FRIENDS, they are kidnapped by white-skinned natives who look suspiciously like extras who can't act. The hot cave girl helps them find a path out of their cave prison by helpfully showing it to them right in front of their faces. (We wonder what axe she's grinding against her own people to aid the intruders' escape. Someone that hot would be spoiled bitchless in cave-culture - unless the gene to perceive hotness wasn't invented yet and she was considered mutated.)Naff subplots about diamonds, past expeditions, Lamas sacrificing his life to save the others by letting a doll that looks like him fall into some lava...enough cheese and plastic to make a modern corporate theater hot dog proud.

I just saw this 1960s version of The Lost World and I must say it's pretty amazing! It's like the Jurassic Park of the 1960s. In the movie a professor in London England decides to prove his theory about seeing dinosaurs in a Lost World by taking a group of explorers on an expedition to the Lost World where they not only find dinosaurs but a group of Natives as well! The dinosaurs I thought were just wonderful! I was just blowing away with them and the actors and actresses gave wonderful performances. I think Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle who wrote the novel of the same name would of been pretty proud of this film adaption of his novel! It's a true dinosaur classic 10 out of 10!