Notes: Irwin Allen's Production of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. 97 minutes.
Lord Roxton: Michael Rennie
Jennifer Holmes: Jill St. John
Ed Malone: David Hedison
George Edward Challenger: Claude Rains
Gomez: Fernando Lamas (he doesn't look marvelous)
Professor Summerlee: Richard Haydn (the guy who introduces the Von Trapps)
Burton White: :Ian Wolfe (Mama Carlson's butler Hirsh on WKRP)
David Holmes: Ray Stricklyn
Costa: Jay Novello
Native Girl: Vitina Marcus
Stuart Holmes: John Graham
Professor Waldron: Colin Campbell

Produced and Directed: Irwin Allen
Screenplay: Charles Bennett and Irwin Allen
Special Effects: L.B. Abbott, James B. Gordon, Emil Kosa, Jr.
Effects Technician: Willis O'Brien
Music: Bert Shefter and Paul Sawtell

Summary: After the fire and lava behind the credits, we see an airplane landing (initially, one thinks, anachronistically in The Lost World, so, what? a "Technosaur"?) and reporters, BBC and others, swarming Professor George Edward Challenger, who decks Ed Malone and bitches about not having privacy. A poodle, Frosty, comes over to Malone but we cut to owner Jennifer Holmes, the boss's daughter, before we see get to the animal possibly urinate on Mr. Slick. Off we motor to the Zoological Institute's presentation of Challenger. His rival Summerlee introduces Challenger at witty length, and Challenger ranks his recent discovery among those of "Columbus, Edison, and Einstein." He has found a plateau sufficiently cut off from its surroundings "as to insulate the area from the laws of evolution." Native superstition involves "Curipuri--the terrible spirits of the woods . . . in other words, live dinosaurs!" Challenger wants another expedition. Skeptical Summerlee will go. Sir John Roxton, big game hunter and playboy volunteers. When Jennifer Holmes gets turned down, Malone whispers, "It's a man's world," whereupon she asks, "Why don't you volunteer?" which Malone does. When Stuart Holmes, the owner of the newspaper Malone works for, puts up the money for the expedition, Malone is accepted.

The party meets up with Gomez, the helicopter pilot, along with another South American guide. Gomez has brought Jennifer, her younger brother David, and the poodle, despite the dismay of Challenger and others; and we learn that Jennifer is after Roxton, for his title he claims. We copter to the plateau, "cut off from the march of time . . . a land where monsters live . . . George Edward Challenger's Lost World!"

That night, roars near the campsite prompt the humans to wander aimlessly in the woods. We see a lizard go by with fins crazy-glued to him. Challenger says it's a Brontosaurus. Whatever. It smashes the helicopter, stranding us all.

Summerlee nearly gets eaten by a prehistoric cabbage, and Challenger taunts, "Well Summerlee, you may not like vegetables, but they certainly like you." A dino-track is discovered, and the poodle and Jennifer encounter a large iguana eating sprouts and roaring. All witness the existence of this "dinosaur," vindicating Challenger.

Next a native woman is sighted, usually called a "creature" from now on: "After her Malone! Catch her! She's invaluable!" She enters an icecave and whisks past a giant dayglo spider which Malone shoots. It is decided that this woman is not aboriginal, and that therefore there must be a way up to the plateau from below. Malone and Roxton come to blows over women issues, and Roxton finds a book in the shrubbery where his jaw came to rest. This is Burton White's diary from three years ago; you see, Roxton was supposed to help this previous expedition in search of diamonds but never bothered trying to find White, some other ijjits, and Santiago. All presumably were eaten. Hm, think the Spaniards, diamonds! Oh, thinks Jennifer, forget about that whole marriage thing I was angling for. Scumbag, thinks Malone.

That "night" (night is suspiciously sunny throughout this film), creature-girl is nearly raped by Spaniard 2 (not Fernando) and runs to escape. Young David "Feckless Idiot" Holmes captures her: "Why don't we try some sign language, huh? Do you know what this is? It's a rifle. It shoots. Bang, bang." (He didn't get the Mister Rogers part some years later.) Summerlee is suddenly grazed by a bullet, the girl runs, Gomez says he was conked from behind and his gun taken, David tries to tell everyone someone taught the girl about rifles before him, and we all decide one of the original expedition party is still alive.

Malone and Jennifer wander out and have to run from a Slurpasaurus (lizard with fake headdress and backplates). Malone shoots it in the mouth and the two hide among rocks. Another fake dinosaur and the original one fight viciously (where the hell is the ASPCA? I thought this crap was outlawed after One Million B.C. in 1940!). Malone tries shooting but alas, his gun: "It's like a toy against them." The lizards fall off a cliff.

The two return to an empty camp. Natives must have captured everyone. Except the poodle. And except David who explains that they appeared from above--oops, there's more. These remaining campers are taken prisoner, join the others in a cave, and prepare to die in a cannibalistic ritual after the drum solo. Creature-girl offers a way out, so off through a cavern of wind with natives in lukewarm pursuit we go. We stumble on Burton White, now blind, who doesn't want to go with us and who tells Gomez that Santiago is dead. White gives out more guns and instructs us on directions through the caves to escape the altar of sacrifice to the fire god. We trek through lava caves and through the tendrils of grasping slime, into the graveyard of the damned, where dinosaur eggs and diamonds are discovered. Gomez pulls a gun, saying Santiago was his brother and he wants to kill Roxton. A dinosaur appears out of a lake and eats the other Spaniard, and somehow Roxton saves Gomez, who then runs to sacrifice his life yanking on a log which somehow unleashes rocks and lava onto the dinosaur (but wouldn't the log . . . never mind). Gomez falls into the sea of hot goo.

The rest emerge in time to see the plateau blow up volcanically. Challenger laments: "My lost world, lost forever." However, they did manage to save proof of their adventure: Roxton has diamonds which he gives to Malone and Jennifer who now are on the marriage track somehow ("Mrs. is still the best 'title' for a girl"); and the dinosaur egg hatches a tyrannosaur which Challenger predicts will grow big enough to wreak havoc on London, at whcih point they should all move out. Ho ho ho. The End.

Commentary: Beyond the character names, the film bears little resemblance to the Doyle tale. Too damned many people are along for the ride, and we just don't need half of them. All the plot changes are simply screwy and come blurting forth in premise-spasms randomly throughout the film. Though colorful, the film is irritating to sit through.

The dinosaurs are photographically enlarged lizards, and are enjoyable to see eating and slurping the air, but distressing to see encumbered with all the glued-on crap to make them into things that look like dinosaurs only insofar as they don't look like lizards anymore. Pitting the two lizards against each other for the fight scene is inexcusable. More humans need to be killed instead.