Unknown Island (1948) – movie review

Rare and Obscure Dinosaur films

Unknown Island (1948)

Directed by Jack Bernhard and shot in Cinecolor while most films were still in B&W, Unknown Island boasts some class actors. This is basically a King Kong movie in color without the Kong. The dinosaurs were a bit funky looking in this one, but it had a decent enough plot. Virginia Grey, Richard Denning, Phillip Reed and Barton Maclane provide above average acting for this kind of film albeit melodramatic at points. I was swooped up into the story drama and characters.

An airforce pilot, Ted, veered off course by a typhoon, spotted an island in the Pacific that had strange giant beasts living on it during WWII. Now, after the war, he and a well-to-do fiancé, Carole, are in Singapore to hire Captain TarnowskI, a hard-ass, womanizing, ship owner, to help them find this uncharted island. TarnowskI has heard of this island from a drunk, John Fairbanks (Richard Denning) and brings him along for his knowledge of the mystery. They find the island and have to battle a mutiny from the crew, dozens of Tyrannosaurus and a big ape looking thing they call a giant sloth.

They come ashore in a lagoon studio set that looks an awful lot like the set in Gilligan’s Island. Early scenes of Brontosaurus in a swamp look decent enough and several Dimetrodon look okay, until they start walking and its clear they’re being dragged by a rope. The T. Rex are men in costume and crappy ones at that. In early scenes, the crew are shooting at them from afar. As the film goes on, we get close-ups of the beasts and, oh boy, they are terrible costumes. The giant sloth/ape thing is clearly a modified gorilla costume. The sloth and a T. Rex have a ridiculous fight at the climax of the film which amounts to the two costumed actors bumping into each other over and over. It’s kinda‘, hilarious.

While Ted is interested in the discovery of the dinos and capturing them on camera, The captain is only interested in Carole and getting a piece of that action. He makes several blatant and unwelcome advances on her. Late in the film he attacks her and is saved by Fairbanks. Carole and Fairbanks fall in love. When they tell fiancé Ted, he is totally okay with it and wishes them luck ???? Anyway, with all this ridiculousness going on you may wonder why I like this film at all. I really can’t tell you for sure, but I suspect it’s the simplicity of the plot and a nostalgia for that 1940’s style storytelling. Or maybe it’s just Virginia Grey.

Can’t recommend it except for the completist dinosaur film fans.

Fun facts:

Barton Maclane would later star in I Dream of Jeannie as General Peterson (1965-1969)

Even though they are calling them T. Rex in the film, these dinos have a horn on their snouts, which indicates they are Ceratosaurus.

In one scene, they throw grenades at the dinos and one falls over dead. In actuality, the guy in the dino-suit fainted from heat exhaustion and they left the shot in the scene.

Cinecolor was not true full color. Colors such as bright green, purple, and yellow could not be rendered properly using this process.

 

 

Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956) – movie review

Rare and Obscure Dinosaur films

Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956) – movie review

This was the first western/dinosaur film mash-up, made many years before The Valley of Gwangi. Both films were based off of a story Idea from Willis O’Brien. It is said that O’Brien penned some of the script under a pseudonym, El Toro Estrella. Although it beat the Harryhausen/Gwangi film to the punch it is not nearly as good. O’Brien was originally going to do the effects for the film but did not for unknown reasons. It was directed by Edward Nassour and Ismael Rodriguez and the stop motion effects (and replacement animation) were most likely handled by, Nassour and Henry Lyon, though a clear credit is impossible to find. It stars Guy Madison and Patricia Medina.

An American rancher, Jimmy Ryan, comes to Mexico to find cheap land to raise cattle. He does, right next to a legendary cursed place called Hollow Mountain. The Mountain has never been explored. Soon Cattle go missing and it is said that a giant beast takes them in the night. Jimmy Ryan becomes friend’s with a boy and his father (Panchito and Poncho) and gets into a love triangle with a local gal, Sarita. Soon Jimmy and the rival suitor have to team up to stop the giant beast, an Allosaurus, from destroying the small village and eating their loved ones.

The film is rather dull at points and the Allosaurus was not all that realistic looking compared to dino flicks to that date. The Allosaurus was cartoonish and looked like a dinosaur that you would see in a children’s show. If you replaced the Allosaurus with a wild animal you would have a grade-z western. There were parts of the film I did like. The scene where the Allosaurus attacked Sarita and Pachito and destroyed the barn trying to get them is interesting, but comparable to what you‘d see in the 70‘s children’s TV show, Land of the Lost. It was not a great film, but being a dino-film completist, I had to purchase it nevertheless. It is currently available on Bluray as a double feature with The Neanderthal Man.

His tongue looks like a rubbery piece of bacon

Aw, poor man eating beasty got a boo-boo 😦

The Steaks are high!

Is this where the party is at?

tastes just like chicken

 

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968) – movie review

Rare and Obscure Dinosaur films

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968)

This film has a strange history because it is actually the third incarnation of the same film. It was originally a Russian sci-fi film, Planeta Bur (1962), by director, Peter Bogdanovich. When it was first released in the US, it was re-edited (including the sequence of events) and bore the title, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965). Two years later, (probably after Hammer’s success with When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth) additional footage was added, most notably of a vixen race of blonde women and it bore the title, Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women. All three show this planet as a harsh environment with a demonic looking pterodactyl, killer plants, and a volcanic eruption for the climax. The films robot, Robot John, is the Russian answer to the US, Robby the Robot. The vixen women race is led by Mamie Van Doren, a popular pin-up model and B-movie actress in the 1960’s. So what we have in this third incarnation is kind of a jumbled mess. The 2^nd version had replaced the original storyline with a new one that included actors, Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue. In this newest version, they were removed to make room for this new storyline of vixens from Venus. I think the only thing left from the original Russian film was the special effects sequences (dinos, robot, eruption.) The Pathecolor doesn’t help the film and everything just looks plain weird. While it is fun to see the Russian film versions of dinosaurs and Robot John, it is a struggle to follow any sort of plotline. The film is overall terrible in its current state, ready for Mystery Science Theater 3000. It would have been better if they had left the original Russian version in tact and just dubbed the voices, because I hear that it was a serious sci-fi effort. But I guess, just coming out of the 1950’s, no American would have paid to see a Soviet Union film in fear that they were supporting communism. They even replaced all the end credits with fake American names. Not recommended, except for the most tenacious dinosaur movie fans.

Aka: The Gill Women of Venus” “Cosmonauts on Venus”, “Planet of Storms”, “Planet of Tempests”, “Planeta Burg”, and “Storm Planet”.

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