PreCommentary: "Lost Continent"?: there isn't one: just a mountain on an island. Footage from this was used later in a Twilight Zone segment. The following summary contains bracketed asides from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment of the film (#208). E.g., [Joel: "Lost Continent? I lost my keys once but that's ridiculous!"].

Notes: Robert L. Lippert presents
Cesar Romero
Whit Bissell
Sid Melton
Hugh Beaumont
John Hoyt
Chick Chandler
Hillary Brooke
Acquanetta [Tom Servo: "snot is running down her nose."]
"the title star from 'Rocketship X-M,'
and lots of rock climbing."

Screenplay: Richard Landau
Story: Carroll Young
Producer: Sigmund Neufeld
Director: Samuel Newfield

Summary: At the White Sands, New Mexico Proving Grounds--a government military base--a rocket launching yields masculine numerical blab about mph and so on. "She's right on course." We get shots of machinery which presumably served as aphrodisiacs to young men of 1951 (and the Top Gun '80s). But the rocket (presumably stock footage from the film Rocketship X-M, also treated by MST3K, #201) does not turn back when it should, and crashes somewhere vaguely South Pacificky. ["So that's what Ward does at the office."]

Cut to Cesar Romero (Major Nolan) chatting up Hillary Brooke, the hideous shoulder-padded dyed-blonde from so many Abbott and Costello films who archetypally repulsed me against '40s semi-women since I was 7. [Crow: "Mrs. Roosevelt's lookin' fine!"] She keeps him drooling about "the boys" and we listen to him drone on about how much "brain power" is required of aeronautic murderers these days, equivalent to MIT and Carnegie Tech. The dynamics between these two is irrational. She wants him to keep blabbing about military crap instead of anything else at 2:30 in the morning, yet they soon dance to a record. [Joel: "Give to Cesar what is Cesar's." Crow: "Oh, you taste like Bud Abbot!"] Romancus interruptus as a sergeant announces he must report back to the base.

We now get the series of experts all being summoned similarly. One guy kisses his uniform prematurely before being called back. [Tom Servo: "Everyone talks to inanimate objects in this movie."] Sid Melton (Willie) chats to his "sweetheart," the plane to which he is the mechanic before being summoned. Three scientists (Hugh Beaumont, a Wally-Cox-looking guy, and Rostov who seems to have a German accent which would make a lot of sense but whose accent it turns out is supposed to be Russian) and the military idiots all appear on a plane, Willie serving coffee. When they fly over the area where the rocket disappeared, the pilots lose control of the plane and it crash lands on an island. ["Hey, we landed on a witch. Maybe the film will be in color. . . ." "Let's form a soccer team and eat each other!"]

On first emerging from the plane, the German who thinks he's a Russian says, "Doesn't look too forbidding; seems rather peaceful." Goddamned nature-loving Kraut-Commie! Nolan responds bitchily: "Talk to some of our guys who crashed in New Guinea during the war. Headhunters, cannibals. This place might be a park, but I'm not gonna depend on it. Break out the guns and ammunition. ["It's time for a celebration."] Sergeant, round up what food we have. . . . Take only the essential things. Looks like we might be camping out for a while." Note the priorities.

These six Elmer Fudds warily wander thwough the jungle and come upon a shabby grass hut village. ["If you don't understand it, shoot it."] "What do you make of that?" "Maybe we're being set up for pigeons." How is this supposed to have worked? Natives with grass hut technology somehow mystically crashed their plane on this island and are waiting with their deadly Indonesian chickens?

Only Acquanetta and her fat younger brother inhabit the village. ["It's a Gaugin still-life! Shoot it!"] Daddy died and the rest are gone because "fire bird fly over village. . . . People frightened; leave in boats." The patronizing Americans find out roughly where the rocket crashed, but "sacred mountain taboo. . . . You will not come back. Home of gods."

Rock climbing! More rock climbing! [Crow: "Why are we watching this dull mountain climbing sequence?" Joel: "Well, because it's there."] At night from the shelter of an overhang, the Russian sees a little lizard which we're supposed to think is big. Nolan doesn't believe in this "monster I've never seen before."

Rock climbing. [Tom: "You know, even rock climbing movies don't have this much rock climbing."] The out-of-shape Wally Cox scientist falls into the clouds despite Rostov's attempt to help him. Now Cesar Romero really really doesn't trust this guy. More rock climbing.

We finally reach the land of greenish tinting which Willie says is "sort of like a, a, lost continent!" Hugh Beaumont's geiger counter indicates that this rock pile passing for a continent is full of uranium. The subterranean pressure is "as powerful as a stockpile of hydrogen bombs." And there is pontless comment that the whole mission regarding this rocket will send us all "back into a world such as this one." The futuristic/prehistoric connection is common in Cold War allegory, such as the '80s Transformers cartoon opening credits.

We're supposed to think Willie is a hoot. Swatting a mosquito, he says, "I'm starving to death and that thing's been feeding off of me for four hours like I was somethin' sent up from room service."

We find dinosaur tracks. Ward Cleaver says, "I've seen tracks like these before . . . at a museum." The Joker is in nasty denial. But then we see a brontosaurus which trumpets like an elephant and charges the humans for no reason. [Joel: "Turns out I'm an herbivore. These guys got nothin' to worry about." Tom: "I see a dinosaur but I hear an elephant."] They run, but Ward is slower and climbs a tree, prompting my standard question: when you're running from a vegetarian, is it a good idea to try to hide in the salad bar? The rest shoot repeatedly at the dino. Nolan: "That thing's got more armor than a tank." With bloodied head the dinosaur runs off. [Tom: "Hey, does this movie have a continental breakfast?" Crow: "No, they lost the continental breakfast."]

So there really are dinosaurs. Snarkiness ensues. "What's the matter with it; doesn't it know it's supposed to be dead?" Willie has erotic and vocally articulated dreams of a plane when he is supposed to be on guard. Rostov and Cleaver (okay, Phillips) have disappeared, but we soon find out that Ward has trapped his leg among some rocks and Rostov is trying to help him silently, and not kill him after all, despite a dangerous triceratops nearby. [Crow: "It's the mother-lovin' rubber dinosaur of them all!"] The animal discovers them and charges. Nolan shouts, "Shoot for the eyes." But another triceratops appears in the periphery and the two fight instantly for no reason until one is fatally stabbed in the neck.

Nolan acknowledges without apologizing that he owes Rostov an apology. It turns out the Russian has a tragic story regarding prison camps and dead family. Vague non-political sanctimony somehow reinforces the militaristic bullet-headed Saxon mother's-son mentality of the film. Joe (whoever) swaggeringly says, "If I see any more of those fugitives from the zoo, I just walk up to 'em and kill 'em with spit." We all question giving up the search and don't.

A pterodactyl appears and Willie says, "Say, I wonder if a piece of that big buzzard would make good eatin'." So they shoot it. They can't find where its corpse landed but stumble upon the rocket with two brontos and a triceratops loitering nearby. "Big slob. Get away from there." [Crow: "Brain the size of a walnut." Joel: "What the dinosaurs?" Crow: "No, the director."] They're low on ammo, but shoot meaninglessly into the air until the dinos wander off. The two remaining scientists climb inside and retrieve deep junk. But a triceratops has snuck up on Willie from behind and gores him despite more shooting.

Quick cut ["That was a short mourning period!"] to the four remaining men about to climb rocks, downwards this time. An earthquake begins to shower rocks down on them: "The whole mountain's blowing up under us." The camera jiggles and they run to a boat (don't ask) and row. [Tom: "Hey, didn't they come by plane?"] The island blows up to the tune of stock footage of atomic blasts. [Crow: "Get away! The stock footage is erupting!] The final lines include the phrase, "The world coming to an end," and something else indecipherable. The End.

Commentary: Sucks.