"The Lost World" had first been made as a silent picture in 1925, Wallace Beery as Professor Challenger meeting up with dinosaurs animated by King Kong's Willis O'Brien, before bringing back to London a baby that grows to menace the entire city. With "Journey to the Center of the Earth" still in production, 20th Century-Fox tried their luck at another family friendly sci fi adventure, securing director Irwin Allen for a remake of the O'Brien original, even retaining his services though not for stop motion animation, merely the cheapest effects possible, ordinary lizards posing as dinosaurs. What became an even bigger box office bonanza than "Journey" sadly looks quite pedestrian these days, the lone human cast member who offers any spark is the 70 year old Claude Rains in the central role of Professor Challenger, barnstorming to such a degree that he even lets out an Invisible Man laugh on one occasion. Top Billed Michael Rennie ("The Day the Earth Stood Still") also fares well as a big game hunter, but the remainder simply leave little impression, particularly Jill St. John, whose annoying poodle should have gone the way of Gertrude the duck. We finally reach the South American plateau at the half hour mark, a few 'dinosaurs' creeping through the dense forest, one man eating plant who finds Jill a more tasty treat, and not one but two giant spiders who look more feeble than those concocted by Bert I. Gordon. The one hour point shows off an epic battle of monsters, lasting nearly two minutes before tumbling to their doom off a cliff, after which only a tribe of cannibals and volcanic lava present more danger for the party. Monitor lizards, an ordinary alligator, a tokay gecko and an iguana make poor substitutes for Willis O'Brien's genius, and the whole thing screeches to a halt with the hatching of the baby dinosaur (Tyrannosaurus Rex, of course) without returning to London. Allen's box office clout continued with "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" and "Five Weeks in a Balloon," then TV series such as VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (utilizing stock footage from the feature film), LOST IN SPACE, THE TIME TUNNEL, and LAND OF THE GIANTS, switching gears for the new decade with mass destruction on a grand scale, the 'Master of Disaster' at the helm for "The Poseidon Adventure," "The Towering Inferno," "The Swarm," "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure," and "When Time Ran Out."
Review of The Lost World
