Unknown Island (1948) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Carole Lane (Virginia Grey) agrees to finance her fiancés (Philip Reed) trip to a tropical island where there are rumors of prehistoric monsters. They hired Captain Tarnowski (Carton MacLane) to take them there but he forces an alcoholic (Richard Denning) into going with them because at one point he claimed to have been on the island and saw the monsters.I stumbling into this movie because I was looking for Unknown WORLD but this one came up. I'm really shocked that I hadn't seen it before since I had seen a lot of these KING KONG inspired movies but I'm glad I got around to this one because it was a lot better than I was expecting it to be. Obviously they were working on a very small budget but the screenplay offered up some entertaining character and the rubber monsters are certainly fun as well.The main reason people are going to be watching this movie are for the monsters and for my money they certainly delivered. The monsters were played by actors in rubber suits and this is quite obvious as the movements are very slow and it's obvious that the people inside are having trouble walking in them. There's also a large ape, which is obvious a rip of KING KONG but I actually liked the costume and its rat face. Again, the rubber suits are rather laughable but there's plenty of action with the ape and the dinosaurs, which help keep the entertainment high.When the monsters aren't on the screen we're also entertained by the very good cast. Bruce is certainly as lovely as ever and MacLane is perfect as the snake Captain who I'm sure people hissed at when this was first released. The supporting players are strong as well. With all the silly action and good characters, UNKNOWN ISLAND is a real winner for such a low-budget movie.

This 40s flick is overly long and annoyingly filled with boring people bickering.Virginia Grey, resembling a lower-rent Lauren Bacall, seemed distractingly to be doing a Bette Davis imitation throughout this poorly plotted and written film. OK, we got it that the ruffian ship captain lusted after her and wanted to rape her. We didn't have to see evidence of this over and over again.The story line is beyond stupid. Why would dinosaurs survive on only one tiny island? And even the Neanderthal ship captain should have realized that trying to get one of these prehistoric monsters on the ship would have doomed everyone on board. (I really dislike movies like this that assume the audience is an imbecile.) And the dinosaurs were tacky, tacky -- so plastic-toy-looking as to repeatedly evoke yawns.The only interesting twist was hunky actor's Richard Denning getting the girl in the end. I found the final frame to be mildly satisfying.I saw this movie, on the usually intelligent TV station of the City University of New York, while I worked through a stultifying mass of paperwork. Even that was more compelling than this stinker.

Filmed in gloriously murky Cinecolor, Barton MacLane dominates this 1948 entry in the "Lost World" genre as a rough, tough, sea captain who likes to hang out down by the pier and dress in women's clothing.OK, I stole the cross-dressing bit from Monty Python, but MacLane's character is definitely several hotcakes shy of a full stack, with a disturbing habit of cackling wildly over things that aren't very funny at all. I wouldn't hire this obvious psycho for a day-cruise on a koi pond, but even though Laughing Boy scarcely bothers to hide his lecherous intentions toward Virginia Grey, she and her fiancé Phillip Reed seem to have few qualms about chartering his ship for an expedition to the Unknown Island.We learn that back during WWII, former fighter pilot Reed was on a solo recon mission in this part of the Pacific, when he flew over an island where he spotted a dinosaur cavorting in the bush. Naturally, he kept this incident to himself, although he did note his position and snap a photo for evidence. Now that the war's over, he's itching to cash in on his discovery.Richard Denning -- a beachcomber and alcoholic who's bumming drinks at the very same low dive where Grey and Reed rendezvous with Laughing Boy to discuss hiring his ship -- is the lone survivor of a group of war buddies who got shipwrecked on the title island. Seeing his friends devoured by prehistoric beasties and then spending a week adrift on a raft with no shelter or provisions has understandably left him a basket case. After seeing Reed's photo, MacLane -- who may be nuts but he isn't stupid -- realizes that Denning's crazy story about dinosaurs scarfing down his mates must be true. Figuring his experience on the island might come in handy, they try to sign him up for the expedition. Denning sensibly wants nothing to do with it, but MacLane's one of those "Getting to 'Yes!'" types, so he has the bartender slip Richard a mickey and shanghais him.The voyage to the island gives Denning a chance to dry out and clean up nicely. MacLane gets an opportunity to try out his beefy, blustering charms on Grey, and there's also a quickly-put-down mutiny among his Laskar crew thrown in for some needed padding (the film's only got an hour-and-a-quarter running time) and to underscore just how rough and tough he is.They finally arrive at Unknown Island, to find it populated by a grab-bag of rubbery puppets, guys in very uncomfortable-looking Ceratosaur (kind of like a T-Rex, with a horn on its nose) suits, and special guest star Ray "Crash" Corrigan as a Giant Sloth. (Unfortunately, his costume looks even less like a Giant Sloth than the other guys' suits look like Ceratosaurs, which is to say, "Not much at all.") I'll give them this much: At least they didn't go for the standard old school cut-rate dinosaur effect of gluing fins on lizards.I confess the Ceratosaurs scared the spit out of me when I first saw this film on TV, but I *was* only six years old at the time. Even though the suits are an interesting design -- early versions of the sort of thing which would later make Toho Studios famous -- the best their poor operators can manage is to lurch about and waddle stiffly toward their prey. A moderately spry 90-year-old with a walker could easily outdistance these fearsome predators.After one of their slower-moving shipmates is fatally mauled by a couple of Ceratosaurs, the Laskars abscond with the ship's boat, leaving our protagonists stranded on the island. A carelessly discarded cigarette starts a fire which destroys their provisions and ammo. Reed turns out to be a money-obsessed jerk, and Grey falls for Denning. After Laughing Boy -- who's now lost a bit of his sunny disposition -- finds a boat, he plans to kidnap Grey and leave the other two men to end up as dino kibbles.But Laughing Boy's treacherous scheme is foiled at the last moment by Denning, and in one of the few truly entertaining scenes in this not-so-very-gracefully aging low-budget thriller MacLane gets eaten by the Giant Sloth.This is 1948, so he's not devoured on-screen, but I'll say this much for MacLane: His reaction shots did a fair job of making me believe he's about to get savaged by a monster ape ... er, I mean, "sloth". Unless you've watched the movie to this point, it's difficult to convey just how immensely satisfying it is to hear Captain Chuckles shriek like a little girl right before the sloth chews his insufferable face off.Now, there are worse movies in this genre (e.g. "The Lost Continent"). Being the first color film of its sort gives it a certain historical cachet. Some of the effects, like the Brontosaurs, are halfway convincing; the Dimetrodon puppets don't look too bad the first time you see them (though I guarantee you that won't last). Besides having a natural warmth and some ability as an actress, Virginia Grey isn't hard on the eyes, either. Richard Denning has been in so many B-films, his presence here fits like a comfortable old sneaker.With some better supporting actors, a better script, and a bigger fx budget, this one might have been considerably more memorable. But if you're not a die-hard fan of this type of adventure, it's more likely to convince you that some worlds should remain lost.

This minor little prehistoric monster flick used to be shown on local TV quite often back in sixties when I was a kid. It was the first monster flick I saw in colour on TV. I enjoyed it back then when I was a kid and I've have seen it on video a couple of time recently. (Several badly transfered copies with faded colour have been around for years, but my favorite video store recently got in a newly restored version with excellent quality colour.) I have to admit I still enjoy watching this lively, island full of prehistoric monsters flick.The monsters, with exception of a pair of what looks stop motion brontasaurus shown briefly, are men in suits, ala Godzilla. I didn't think that they looked all that bad when I was a kid, but seeing them today they look awfully stiff. The creature often called an ape monster, is supposed to be according to the press kit from this film, a giant sloth. Whatever it was supposed to be, I thought it was pretty creepy when I saw this film as a kid. One major complaint I have about the use of men in suits as they are used here, is that unlike stop motion dinosaurs or photographically enlarged lizards, it could be very easy using this method, even in a film of this budget level, to have dinosaurs interact with the actors. The cast never seems directly menaced by the dinosaurs. In fact, with exception of the giant sloth, most of the time they never get near them! In fact I have always felt that the only advantage to using this method (along with full scale models ala THEM!)is that allows easy interaction with the actors with out any expensive split screens, traveling matte etc. that would jack a films budget up.UNKNOWN ISLAND has a decent cast, including Barton MacLane, who is quite entertaining as the lecherous sea captain. Director Jack Bernhard keeps things moving. The film also avoids one of the most often over used plot contrivances that often turn up in these "lost world" type films; the island doesn't suddenly blow up and then sink beneath the waves. Overall, I still find UNKNOWN ISLAND an entertaining, enjoyable monster romp. Perhaps because the film has "quaintness" about it that I still find appealing today, despite the derision voiced in this forum by cheap cynics. Despite its faults, I'll take this over most of todays over produced CGI special effects films any day.See Ya! Youroldpaljim