1960 - THE LOST WORLD, pretty bad even by Irwin Allen standards.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World is a great book that people have been stealing from for years.  The Jurassic Park films are probably the latest example.  However this seems to be a story that no one can make a decent film out.  Probably giving it to Irwin Allen wasn't going to result in any kind of quality product.  Even as cheesy fun the film is not entertaining.

Everything should be in place for another Irwin Allen camp classic.   An odd eclectic cast that runs the gamut from distinguished actor Claude Rains to 1960's cheese cake actress Jill St John who never could act.  The sets are phony looking.  Everything was clearly shot in the studio which probably made it nice for the cast and crew.  They could get home at a decent hour after a long day of hiding behind paper mache rocks and plastic ferns.  The dinosaur effects were the old cheap standby of using lizards with stuff glued on them and photographed up close as they fought with each other.

So what was the problem with this film.  Well talk.  Everyone in this film is constantly talking, talking, talking.  There are a lot of very boring dialog scenes and they are everywhere.  Irwin Allen was no Ozu when it came to directing actors, he just stuck the camera in front of them and let them ramble on.

This film continues Irwin Allen's association with three time academy award winning photographer Winton Hoch who had worked with John Ford prior to his association with Allen.  The film is very pretty to look at.

97 minutes, screenplay by Irwin Allen and Charles Bennett.