An adventure seeker and his fiancée visit an uncharted island, only to find that it is inhabited by deadly dinosaurs and other creatures ready to attack.An adventure seeker and his fiancée visit an uncharted island, only to find that it is inhabited by deadly dinosaurs and other creatures ready to attack.An adventure seeker and his fiancée visit an uncharted island, only to find that it is inhabited by deadly dinosaurs and other creatures ready to attack.
Phillip Reed
- Ted Osborne
- (as Philip Reed)
Dick Wessel
- Sanderson - 1st Mate
- (as Richard Wessel)
Dan White
- Edwards - Crewman Edwards
- (as Daniel White)
Phil Nazir
- Golab - Crewman
- (as Philip Nazir)
Ray Corrigan
- Gorilla
- (uncredited)
Harry Wilson
- Barfly
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe two-legged dinosaurs (ceratosaurs) were rubber suits worn by actors in the desert of Palmdale, CA. When the explorers shoot grenades at them, one of the beasts falls down, apparently dead. The actor inside the suit had passed out and later died due to extreme heat exhaustion, and the director decided to use the footage of the actor collapsing to his death in the final film.
- Quotes
John Fairbanks: John Fairbanks, All-American Boy. That's me. Good to my parents, kind to animals, love children. Probably make some girl a fine husband.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
Featured review
Interesting story with super-lame dinosaurs.
"Unknown Island" is a horror/fantasy film made in Cinecolor. I mention this because Cinecolor is not a true color process but one made up of two colors instead of the three colors in Technicolor. The colors were much more garish and intense than Technicolor and over time, the films tended to look very orangy-red and greenish-blue....and many colors in the spectrum simply weren't present at all (such as yellows and purples). So why did folks use this inferior two-color process? Price! It was cheap to buy...about the same price as black & white film....whereas Technicolor was very expensive by comparison. I mention this because you might wonder why "Unknown Island" looks the way it does.
The story begins in Singapore. A young couple (Phillip Reed and Virginia Grey) approach Captain Tarnowski (Barton MacLane) with a strange proposition. They want to hire him and his boat to take them to an island which supposedly has living dinosaurs!! Apparently, Ted (Reed) saw dinosaurs when he flew over the island during the war...and now he wants to return to capitalize on this. Naturally, bad things are gonna happen, as the story is quite similar to "King Kong"...and you know it's best they leave these creatures alone!
So is it any good? Well, yes and no. The actors are quite good and the moments when they aren't encountering dinosaurs are also good. But the dinosaurs themselves are pretty limp. Many look like plastic dinosaurs and others are folks wearing clumsy dinosaur costumes...and they all look pretty bad. With a bigger budget might have come better looking creatures. Because of this, while the movie is worth seeing, the film is uneven and the dinosaurs pretty lame.
By the way, early in the film a sailor points out Tarnowski for the couple. That sailor is played by Snub Pollard, a gifted silent comedian whose career changed dramatically when the sound era arrived. Now in the talkies, he was no longer a star or co-star but made a career out of playing various bit parts...possibly because he was an Aussie and perhaps his accent stood in his way...though when he spoke, I never noticed his accent being all that strong.
The story begins in Singapore. A young couple (Phillip Reed and Virginia Grey) approach Captain Tarnowski (Barton MacLane) with a strange proposition. They want to hire him and his boat to take them to an island which supposedly has living dinosaurs!! Apparently, Ted (Reed) saw dinosaurs when he flew over the island during the war...and now he wants to return to capitalize on this. Naturally, bad things are gonna happen, as the story is quite similar to "King Kong"...and you know it's best they leave these creatures alone!
So is it any good? Well, yes and no. The actors are quite good and the moments when they aren't encountering dinosaurs are also good. But the dinosaurs themselves are pretty limp. Many look like plastic dinosaurs and others are folks wearing clumsy dinosaur costumes...and they all look pretty bad. With a bigger budget might have come better looking creatures. Because of this, while the movie is worth seeing, the film is uneven and the dinosaurs pretty lame.
By the way, early in the film a sailor points out Tarnowski for the couple. That sailor is played by Snub Pollard, a gifted silent comedian whose career changed dramatically when the sound era arrived. Now in the talkies, he was no longer a star or co-star but made a career out of playing various bit parts...possibly because he was an Aussie and perhaps his accent stood in his way...though when he spoke, I never noticed his accent being all that strong.
helpful•122
- planktonrules
- Dec 3, 2020
- How long is Unknown Island?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 15 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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