unbrokenmetal
For 1948, "Unknown Island" is pretty good: shot in colour which was not going to be possible for most monster movies of the next decade, the only problem is the men in monster suits. They move slowly and clumsily and never seem more dangerous than the Muppet Show critters, but then again, also stop-motion and especially "enlarged" lizards have their disadvantages and nothing else was possible at the time.The story goes like this: a photographer wants to visit an island full of dinosaurs he spotted from a plane. His fiancé agrees to charter a ship. The only man who ever returned alive from the dinosaurs encourages them with the words: "I'll blow my brains out first before I go back to that island!" However, not the creatures become the biggest danger, but the conflicts between the crew, the captain, the photographer, his fiancé and the above mentioned adventurer. Shall they just take pictures, capture one of the monsters - or just run for their lives? "Unknown Island" does wisely not just to rely on the dinosaurs, but also create serious reasons (love, greed, superstition) for arguments and fights between the human beings. Thus it becomes an adventure still worth watching 60 years later even if the effects don't impress anyone anymore. Today we have many movies whose effects do impress - but nothing else does, and that's hardly better.
ferbs54
"Unknown Island" (1948) is just the kind of movie that I would imagine thrilled the kids at Saturday afternoon matinees way back when; kind of like a 1940s "Jurassic Park." In this one, scientist Philip Reed wants to explore a seemingly prehistoric Pacific island that he'd once seen from the air, so he and his fiancée, yummy redhead Virginia Grey, hire a tramp steamer captain (Barton MacLane) and his crew of mutinous lascars to take them there. Shanghaied into coming along for the ride is Richard Denning, hunkyman favorite of '50s sci-fi fans, who had washed up on this same island years before and is now an alcoholic wreck as a result. The film, to its credit, wastes little time in getting us to the island and treating us to brontos, herds of T. Rex, spiny-backed lizards AND a giant upright sloth that looks more like a death's-head gorilla. The dino FX, it must be admitted, are so-so at best, but honestly...were you really expecting Spielbergian ILM effects from a 1940s B picture? (I've actually seen worse in Japanese monster movies made 20 years later.) The film is as pulpy as can be--that's its paramount charm--and all the characters in it follow the '40s formula and get precisely what they deserve; no surprises there. MacLane is his usual growling self, and is actually very fine as a villain when alcohol, jungle fever and Virginia lust make him go a tad whacko. "Unknown Island" is a perfect movie to watch with the kiddies or with your 8-year-old nephew, and would make a perfect double feature paired with 1954's "Target Earth," also starring Denning and Grey. The Maltin book calls it boring, but they're wrong again; it never is. And the fine-looking DVD from Image Entertainment that I just watched shows off the 1940s Cinecolor extremely well. Thanks, guys, for rescuing this fun and little-seen flick from comparative oblivion and giving it a nice treatment.
MartianOctocretr5
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.I love the creatures in this film. They're not as scary as others you've seen, but they're certainly a novelty to see. They move slowly and stare with curiosity at panicky human characters who like to shoot at them. In a couple of scenes, one of the grinning dinosaurs even looks like he's about to sing the Barney song, "I Love You, You Love Me." Be on the lookout for Kong's toothy cousin, who stages the obligatory rematch with one of Barney's more vicious relatives.It's all some good dinosaur fun, which was probably quite cool for its time, and it certainly can still entertain today, if you look past the cheap effects. The actors approach their characters with enthusiasm, and there is a good balance of character development, action, and plot development. A decent watch, for some fun drive-in nostalgia.
howden
A lousy movie, but one that scared the hell out of me as a 10 year old. Paid 25 cents to attend a Saturday Matinee to see this, + 6 cartoons and a serial (something about Tim Tyler and his jungle car?). Spent most of my time peeking between my fingers, at what I now realize, having recently viewed it again, is truly a terrible excuse for a movie!
AD
