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It appears your browser does not have it turned on. Please see your browser settings for this feature. EMBED for wordpress. Storyline Edit. Adventure-seeker Ted Osborne has convinced his finacee Carole to finance his expedition to an uncharted South Pacific island supposedly populated with dinosaurs. Piloting their ship is Captain Tarnowski, a ruthless alcoholic suffering from malaria- induced bouts of insanity. When they arrive at the island, they discover that the stories they have heard are all true.
Will they survive to tell anyone what they've found? It's out of this world! Adventure Horror Romance Sci-Fi. Add content advisory. Did you know Edit. Trivia The two-legged dinosaurs ceratosaurs were rubber suits worn by actors in the desert of Palmdale, CA. When the explorers shoot grenades at them, one of the beasts falls down, apparently dead. The actor inside the suit actually passed out and later died due extreme heat exhaustion, and the director decided to use the footage of the actor collapsing to his death in the final film.
Quotes Capt. Connections Featured in Godzilla Raids Again User reviews 33 Review. Top review. Cheap special effects, but entertaining. A lot of this movie looks like a re-do of some elements of King Kong, which had been released 15 years earlier.
The stop-motion technology of Kong was here replaced by a forced-perspective split-screen approach to animate the ferocious gigantic beasts. Compared to today's CGI, the effects may seem as primitive as the dinosaurs it shows, but it's a fun movie to watch.
There's a bunch of tough sea dogs, one pretty girl, and some others introduced in pre-adventure bar room brawls and so on. Some explorer guy hears legends of the existence of the mysterious uncharted island, where prehistoric life has somehow avoided extinction, and books the sea dogs for a voyage to the island.
Sound familiar? Apparently, this guy had heard about horrible deaths in the earlier film, and had aspirations to get killed in the same way. This movie was enjoyable despite the cheap looking monsters.
A treat. Rating: 4 stars out of 5. This modest budget independent movie could teach today's filmmakers a few tricks. The first is to begin with interesting characters and a good story.
The second is to keep the suspense rolling along. Blessedly free of today's stupid-looking computer animation, the prehistoric animals are nowhere near as excellent as in 's KING KONG, but light years better than Spielberg's bag of tricks.
If you see the new Indiana Jones movie, stay for the credits and notice that hundreds and hundreds of technicians were involved in that movie as it is in most action films , too many cooks spoil the stew. All that excess in staff does nothing to make a movie better. Remember that Indy is inspired by the far superior movies of 50 or 60 years ago. Unknown Island is a pretty decent example. See it on DVD. Kinda Scary! Given the slick computer assisted graphics seen in Jurassic Park and the like, the sight of wobbly dinosaurs and a gorilla-like giant sloth will likely provoke more laughter than anxiety this days.
But, the monsters gave me bad dreams for months-- nay, years!! A classic adventure tale of a lost island that has perserved a haven for dinosaurs. Pretty amazing stuff No this is no masterpiece, it isn't even all that good really. But it is entertaining enough to occupy 72 minutes of your time if you have some time to waste. The acting is fine and the special FX have a certain surprising charm except for the disappointing giant sloth.
I enjoyed the romantic interest undertone of the film centering around Carole Lane Virginia Grey and the three men who desire her. All in all, this is a fun time waster. I found it hard to do anything but like this movie. Yes, it's from , it's low budget, and the "special effects" are quite limited to what they had at that moment, under that limited budget. Still, I liked all the actors.
Barton McLane takes over the movie as the gruff, dubious Captain, someone you shouldn't trust with your lunch, never mind your life. Virginia Grey as Carole hits the nail on the head as the classy rich lady who's no pushover. I liked the direction, which is quite unusual for The monster attack sequences are cut quite tightly, with alternating close-ups of horrific monster faces, nasty gushing red blood taking advantage of the Cinecolor format employed.
Check out the climactic "monster vs. I even liked the stop-motion miniature dinosaurs used sparingly and the man-sized dinosaur costumes a la Godzilla that were used more liberally. Yes, from our perspective these costumes are very cheesy, but for the time and the budget involved, I thought they were quite cool, and hating on the people that created them is shooting fish or T-Rexes in a barrel.
You have to grade on a curve here, people, we're talking about Overall, much better than other low budget jungle adventure flicks from around that time, such as The Lost Continent, and a lovable way to spend 72 minutes. This is an enjoyable romp for when you just want to turn on a movie and get lost in a story, and not think about matters like whether the plot makes any sense.
Don't analyze, just have fun. Enjoyable prehistoric monster flick. This minor little prehistoric monster flick used to be shown on local TV quite often back in sixties when I was a kid. It was the first monster flick I saw in colour on TV. I enjoyed it back then when I was a kid and I've have seen it on video a couple of time recently. Several badly transfered copies with faded colour have been around for years, but my favorite video store recently got in a newly restored version with excellent quality colour.
I have to admit I still enjoy watching this lively, island full of prehistoric monsters flick. The monsters, with exception of a pair of what looks stop motion brontasaurus shown briefly, are men in suits, ala Godzilla. I didn't think that they looked all that bad when I was a kid, but seeing them today they look awfully stiff.
The creature often called an ape monster, is supposed to be according to the press kit from this film, a giant sloth. Whatever it was supposed to be, I thought it was pretty creepy when I saw this film as a kid. One major complaint I have about the use of men in suits as they are used here, is that unlike stop motion dinosaurs or photographically enlarged lizards, it could be very easy using this method, even in a film of this budget level, to have dinosaurs interact with the actors.
The cast never seems directly menaced by the dinosaurs. In fact, with exception of the giant sloth, most of the time they never get near them! In fact I have always felt that the only advantage to using this method along with full scale models ala THEM!
Director Jack Bernhard keeps things moving. The film also avoids one of the most often over used plot contrivances that often turn up in these "lost world" type films; the island doesn't suddenly blow up and then sink beneath the waves. Perhaps because the film has "quaintness" about it that I still find appealing today, despite the derision voiced in this forum by cheap cynics.
Despite its faults, I'll take this over most of todays over produced CGI special effects films any day. See Ya! After debating in a local bar their chances of surviving a visit to the mysterious atoll, Richard Denning, Barton MacLane, and pretty Virginia Grey sober up and pile into a dinghy which looks like it was designed by Gilligan to take them to the island where they roam around just long enough to realize that they want to get the hell out of there as quickly as they can. The dinosaurs are cute.
Dino adventure is fun, and good for laughs. Unknown Island is a low budget adventure-thriller in Cinecolor. The acting is creaky, and the prehistoric beasts look ridiculous. An engaged couple charter the ship of a salty captain to sail to a mysterious island rumored to have live dinosaurs. The man chartering the ship Ted Osborne says he only wants to take pictures of the beasts he once witnessed as he flew over the island in an airplane we are then shown a hilarious "photograph" he took from the airplane of one of the dinosaurs , but we soon learn he is a selfish and slimy type of guy.
His fiancee Virginia Grey is helping finance the expedition, and seems to want to only take a leisurely part in the trip. The salty captain of the ship Barton MacLane proves to be a masher to the lady, and a selfish jerk as he decides he wants one of the beasts to take back for the profit. His decision leaves everyone on the island longer, and in constant threat of danger from the wild, prehistoric beasts. Richard Denning has also once witnessed the horrible beasts of the island, and he plays an alcoholic who learns to sober up during the return to the island.
A mutual interest becomes established between his character and the woman. Upon nearing the island we get to witness a brontosaurus pair, which are badly animated stop-motion models.
The cast is "menaced" on the island by ridiculous carnivorous dinosaurs that make hilarious vocal noises, and by a sloth creature which is a man in a sloth suit LOL. There's even a rubber dimetrodon creeping around the island. The salty captain's workers don't always appear to be the ethnic types they're supposed to be, which is funny as a flub in the film. I will say the jungle setting does look nice, and the Cinecolor is interesting. Bad special effects, flubs, and a general ridiculousness make this movie somewhat laughable and fun to watch.
Like this film greatly. A late 40's B-grade adventure with good actors, not a bad story, and in color which was unusual for a film of this type at the time. A conglomeration of characters go on a photo safari to a lost island chock full of Z-grade, sluggish dinosaurs. The best part is when the crazed captain gets his from what is called a giant sloth but is best described as a gigantopithecus.
The color is surprisingly good. At 73 minutes it doesn't wear out its welcome. Probably the best quality that's available. Highly recommended. Filmed in gloriously murky Cinecolor, Barton MacLane dominates this entry in the "Lost World" genre as a rough, tough, sea captain who likes to hang out down by the pier and dress in women's clothing.
OK, I stole the cross-dressing bit from Monty Python, but MacLane's character is definitely several hotcakes shy of a full stack, with a disturbing habit of cackling wildly over things that aren't very funny at all.
We learn that back during WWII, former fighter pilot Reed was on a solo recon mission in this part of the Pacific, when he flew over an island where he spotted a dinosaur cavorting in the bush. Naturally, he kept this incident to himself, although he did note his position and snap a photo for evidence. Now that the war's over, he's itching to cash in on his discovery. Richard Denning -- a beachcomber and alcoholic who's bumming drinks at the very same low dive where Grey and Reed rendezvous with Laughing Boy to discuss hiring his ship -- is the lone survivor of a group of war buddies who got shipwrecked on the title island.
Seeing his friends devoured by prehistoric beasties and then spending a week adrift on a raft with no shelter or provisions has understandably left him a basket case. After seeing Reed's photo, MacLane -- who may be nuts but he isn't stupid -- realizes that Denning's crazy story about dinosaurs scarfing down his mates must be true.
Figuring his experience on the island might come in handy, they try to sign him up for the expedition. Denning sensibly wants nothing to do with it, but MacLane's one of those "Getting to 'Yes! The voyage to the island gives Denning a chance to dry out and clean up nicely. MacLane gets an opportunity to try out his beefy, blustering charms on Grey, and there's also a quickly-put-down mutiny among his Laskar crew thrown in for some needed padding the film's only got an hour-and-a-quarter running time and to underscore just how rough and tough he is.
They finally arrive at Unknown Island, to find it populated by a grab-bag of rubbery puppets, guys in very uncomfortable-looking Ceratosaur kind of like a T-Rex, with a horn on its nose suits, and special guest star Ray "Crash" Corrigan as a Giant Sloth.
Unfortunately, his costume looks even less like a Giant Sloth than the other guys' suits look like Ceratosaurs, which is to say, "Not much at all. Even though the suits are an interesting design -- early versions of the sort of thing which would later make Toho Studios famous -- the best their poor operators can manage is to lurch about and waddle stiffly toward their prey.
A moderately spry year-old with a walker could easily outdistance these fearsome predators. After one of their slower-moving shipmates is fatally mauled by a couple of Ceratosaurs, the Laskars abscond with the ship's boat, leaving our protagonists stranded on the island. A carelessly discarded cigarette starts a fire which destroys their provisions and ammo. Reed turns out to be a money-obsessed jerk, and Grey falls for Denning.
After Laughing Boy -- who's now lost a bit of his sunny disposition -- finds a boat, he plans to kidnap Grey and leave the other two men to end up as dino kibbles. But Laughing Boy's treacherous scheme is foiled at the last moment by Denning, and in one of the few truly entertaining scenes in this not-so-very-gracefully aging low-budget thriller MacLane gets eaten by the Giant Sloth.
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