The Lost World (1960)

Director:

Irwin Allen

Writers:

Irwin Allen (screenplay)
Charles Bennett (screenplay)

Release Date:

13 July 1960 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

In the middle of the twentieth century, you fall off the brink of time!

Plot:

Professor Challenger leads an expedition of scientists and adventurers to a remote plateau deep in the Amazonian jungle to verify his claim that dinosaurs still live there.

Plot Keywords:

Giant Spider | Helicopter | Lizards Used As Dinosaurs | Beautiful Woman | Remake

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Michael Rennie	...	Lord John Roxton
Jill St. John	...	Jennifer Holmes (as Jill St.John)
David Hedison	...	Ed Malone
Claude Rains	...	Professor George Edward Challenger
Fernando Lamas	...	Manuel Gomez
Richard Haydn	...	Professor Summerlee
Ray Stricklyn	...	David Holmes
Jay Novello	...	Costa
Vitina Marcus	...	Native Girl
Ian Wolfe	...	Burton White

Also Known As:

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System) | 4-Track Stereo (35 mm mag-optical prints)

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | USA:Approved (certificate #19503) | Finland:K-12

Company:

Irwin Allen Productions

Trivia:

Irwin Allen used real-life lizards (mainly monitor lizards) to portray the dinosaurs. Horns and spikes were attached to the lizards to make them look a bit like more like dinosaurs.

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Gomez walks out into the jungle to scout around, he's suddenly heard calling out for help - but he's still seen walking calmly in the distance, unharmed and clearly not calling out at all.

Quotes:

Professor George Edward Challenger: [to the people at the Zoological Institute] Live dinosaurs!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Boom! Hollywood's Greatest Disaster Movies (2000) (V)

Entertaining As A Child

This film was shown a couple of times in the " Saturday Night At The Movies " slot on BBC 1 in the early 1970s and being a young child at the time I enjoyed it immensely . Come on lads if you're six years old any movie featuring dinosaurs in the present day is a movie highlight

It goes without saying that my enthusiasim for THE LOST WORLD has waned in later life . It has a totally B movie quality to it and is rather unsophisticated . There is still some amusement to be had at the special effects . Nowadays thanks to the power of technology we can watch convincing dinosaurs thudding around but in the 1960s we had to put up with actors standing in front of some back projection pretending they're frightened of a couple of giant lizards with massive fins stuck on them . Oh well at least the cheese factor means it's more entertaining than JURASSIC PARK: THE LOST WORLD