Unknown Island (1948) User Reviews

Interesting story with super-lame dinosaurs.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 3 December 2020]

"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.

OK Entertainment

[Space_Mafune · 5/10 · 24 September 2002]

No this is no masterpiece, it isn't even all that good really. But it is entertaining enough to occupy 72 minutes of your time if you have some time to waste. The acting is fine and the special FX have a certain surprising charm except for the disappointing giant sloth. I enjoyed the romantic interest undertone of the film centering around Carole Lane(Virginia Grey) and the three men who desire her. All in all, this is a fun time waster.

Cheap special effects, but entertaining

[MartianOctocretr5 · 6/10 · 3 March 2007]

A lot of this movie looks like a re-do of some elements of King Kong, which had been released 15 years earlier. The stop-motion technology of Kong was here replaced by a forced-perspective split-screen approach to animate the ferocious gigantic beasts. Compared to today's CGI, the effects may seem as primitive as the dinosaurs it shows, but it's a fun movie to watch.

There's a bunch of tough sea dogs, one pretty girl, and some others introduced in pre-adventure bar room brawls and so on. Some explorer guy hears legends of the existence of the mysterious uncharted island, where prehistoric life has somehow avoided extinction, and books the sea dogs for a voyage to the island. Sound familiar? Apparently, this guy had heard about horrible deaths in the earlier film, and had aspirations to get killed in the same way.

I love the creatures in this film. They're not as scary as others you've seen, but they're certainly a novelty to see. They move slowly and stare with curiosity at panicky human characters who like to shoot at them. In a couple of scenes, one of the grinning dinosaurs even looks like he's about to sing the Barney song, "I Love You, You Love Me." Be on the lookout for Kong's toothy cousin, who stages the obligatory rematch with one of Barney's more vicious relatives.

It's all some good dinosaur fun, which was probably quite cool for its time, and it certainly can still entertain today, if you look past the cheap effects. The actors approach their characters with enthusiasm, and there is a good balance of character development, action, and plot development. A decent watch, for some fun drive-in nostalgia.

You can't go home again, or to a Saturday matinee for twenty-five cents either.

[jamesashford · 6 March 2004]

I saw Unknown Island when I was eight years old, packed into a Saturday matinee in a tiny theater in a little California town with a bunch of my buddies. The movie didn't drive us from the theater in fear, but it was scary enough, and fun enough, that its plot devices became themes for a summer of children's pretend games of dinosaur hunts and battles against giant sloths. The sexual undercurrents of the film were lost on us: bring on the prehistoric beasts!

I never expected to see it again, but a browse through the Netflix library turned it up, and I couldn't wait to be disappointed! Of course I was, but so what? It was worth the repeat viewing just to be reminded that there was a time when my imagination could overcome cheesy production values, silly dialogue, and incoherent plotting. Movies are magic, especially for the young. Unknown Island made me long again, if only briefly, for a bag of stale popcorn, a Big Hunk candy bar, and a Captain Marvel serial.

And for another summer of games in the woods, running after, or away from, those pesky dinosaurs.

Not bad for an indie

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 3 July 2012]

Unknown Island was a film often shown when I was a kid on Saturday morning. Being an independent film it was probably sold to television very early before the big studios started selling off their libraries. For the time the special effects were pretty good, especially when you realize that this is an independent without big studio special effects department available.

Philip Reed and Virginia Grey go into a Singapore dive looking for the notorious Captain Tarnowski played by Barton MacLane. They're looking to charter his tramp freighter which is primarily used by trappers for the wild animals they capture. There's this Unknown Island reputed to have prehistoric beasts on it and Reed wants to photograph them.

Of course with Grey around everybody's hormones go into overdrive. Among those others are Richard Denning who has been to the island before and has barely drawn a sober breath since. As for MacLane he develops plans for the dinosaurs and for Grey.

Not too much research was used as prehistoric animals from all eras get to appear here. Including the giant megatherium sloth which was one of the largest prehistoric mammals. Of course the fact that they were primarily vegetarian didn't get in the way. I suppose they had to learn to eat meat especially with all the T-Rexes around. The fight between the giant sloth and a T-Rex is a beauty.

And of the human players Barton MacLane looks like he's having a ball doing a fabulous job of overacting as a man gone crazy with chronic malaria and drink. The other humans in the cast also get in the spirit of the project.

Unknown Island is not bad for an independent film and it's a lot of fun.

"It is not right for mortal man to be here!"

[henri sauvage · 4/10 · 8 January 2009]

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.

Half Of KING KONG On The Cheap

[boblipton · 5/10 · 17 February 2022]

Phillip Reed wants to charter Barton MacLane's boat, with the backing of Virginia Grey. When he was a flier during the war, he spotted an island with prehistoric dinosaurs roaming it. Maclane believes him, because Richard Denning landed on the island. No one else made it out alive. So they all go to the island, where there are lots of the critters, and their launch is wrecked.

It starts out like KING KONG, but MacLane turns into Wolf Larsen and once there, it never gets off the island of the rubber-suited monsters; one of performers passed out from heat exhaustion and later died. With that snarked, the performers are excellent, and manage to carry it off. With Ray Corrigan as a gorilla, Snub Pollard as a barfly, it's a decent B movie.

Pair It With "Target Earth" For A Perfect Double Feature!!!

[ferbs54 · 6/10 · 29 October 2007]

"Unknown Island" (1948) is just the kind of movie that I would imagine thrilled the kids at Saturday afternoon matinees way back when; kind of like a 1940s "Jurassic Park." In this one, scientist Philip Reed wants to explore a seemingly prehistoric Pacific island that he'd once seen from the air, so he and his fiancée, yummy redhead Virginia Grey, hire a tramp steamer captain (Barton MacLane) and his crew of mutinous lascars to take them there. Shanghaied into coming along for the ride is Richard Denning, hunkyman favorite of '50s sci-fi fans, who had washed up on this same island years before and is now an alcoholic wreck as a result. The film, to its credit, wastes little time in getting us to the island and treating us to brontos, herds of T. Rex, spiny-backed lizards AND a giant upright sloth that looks more like a death's-head gorilla. The dino FX, it must be admitted, are so-so at best, but honestly...were you really expecting Spielbergian ILM effects from a 1940s B picture? (I've actually seen worse in Japanese monster movies made 20 years later.) The film is as pulpy as can be--that's its paramount charm--and all the characters in it follow the '40s formula and get precisely what they deserve; no surprises there. MacLane is his usual growling self, and is actually very fine as a villain when alcohol, jungle fever and Virginia lust make him go a tad whacko. "Unknown Island" is a perfect movie to watch with the kiddies or with your 8-year-old nephew, and would make a perfect double feature paired with 1954's "Target Earth," also starring Denning and Grey. The Maltin book calls it boring, but they're wrong again; it never is. And the fine-looking DVD from Image Entertainment that I just watched shows off the 1940s Cinecolor extremely well. Thanks, guys, for rescuing this fun and little-seen flick from comparative oblivion and giving it a nice treatment.

The worst dinosaur island movie

[13Funbags · 1/10 · 28 September 2018]

I don't mind the men in t- Rex suits or the plastic brontosaurus's on wheels, I do mind that there is no plot. They never even explain why they went there. Nothing they do makes sense and it's easy to predict what is going to happen.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale...

[banse · 7/10 · 12 December 2001]

...a tale of a fateful trip. Only this tale is from a 1948 outrageous B flick about scientists who hire a corrupt skipper for a voyage to a strange Island. Once the passengers and crew arrive they encounter prehistoric beasts of which some are laughable due to poor special effects. Although when I saw this film as a kid I was impressed with it. Surprisingly the tagline says it took a year to produce while the film "King Kong" was made 15 years prior with superior special effects. The inhabitants include lovely Virginia Grey, Philip Reed, Richard Denning and Barton MacLane. Filmed in Cinecolor it is fun to watch and has been shown on AMC. It's also available on VHS and DVD so it can't be all that bad.

Unknown Island: only known to Ted, John and the entire crew of the S.S. Pelican.

[BA_Harrison · 5/10 · 24 April 2022]

Adventurer Ted Osborne embarks on an expedition that he hopes will make him famous, the project funded by his beautiful fiancé Carole Lane (Virginia Grey): together, they charter the S. S. Pelican, owned by unscrupulous Captain Tarnowski (Barton MacLane), to sail to a remote island in South-East Asia, where Ted spotted live dinosaurs while flying across the area during the war. Ted's plan: to capture a prehistoric animal on film. Tarnowski's objective: to capture a prehistoric animal alive!

Unknown Island was one of the first (if not the first) monster movies to be filmed in colour, but the process used isn't great, with nearly everything a dirty shade of red or green. Still, it's in keeping with other technical aspects of this film: this is one hell of a shoddy B-movie, with unconvincing studio sets standing in for a tropical island, and some of the cruddiest monsters ever to waddle awkwardly across the silver screen. Also, there is little to no interaction between the humans and the creatures, all encounters achieved using back projection, which makes the film a rather dull experience when it should be a thrill-ride.

Of course, for many monster movie fans, the clumsiness of the whole thing only adds to the fun, and there is no shortage of silliness to amuse and delight those who dig trashy creature features: toy brontosauruses swim in a model lake, plastic puppet dimetrodons are pulled through the undergrowth on strings, and men in rubber ceratosaur costumes shuffle aimlessly at a snail's pace (except for the one that falls over, the actor inside dying of heat exhaustion while filming!). Meanwhile, ape actor Ray 'Crash' Corrigan stumbles through the jungle in a modified gorilla costume, supposedly a prehistoric sloth.

As far as performances are concerned, everyone does a decent enough job in their stereotypical roles, with Barton MacLane making for a particularly fine villain (who goes crazy from jungle fever and booze), and Richard Denning suitably heroic as hunky John Fairbanks, whose prior experience with the island comes in useful. Lane is fine as the spunky heroine, but I didn't like the way she became annoyed at Ted and ran off with John, just because her fiancé was keen to capture the monsters on film. I mean, that WAS the whole point of the expedition in the first place!

A memorable production

[rayerigby · 10/10 · 21 December 2021]

My father took me to see this on it's release when I was 4 and my mother was in hospital birthing my sister. I had nightmares and have never forgotten it. I just found it on utube and it is hilarious. But for a 4 year old in 1948 it was terror inducing.

Does not just rely on the dinosaurs

[unbrokenmetal · 6/10 · 15 September 2008]

For 1948, "Unknown Island" is pretty good: shot in colour which was not going to be possible for most monster movies of the next decade, the only problem is the men in monster suits. They move slowly and clumsily and never seem more dangerous than the Muppet Show critters, but then again, also stop-motion and especially "enlarged" lizards have their disadvantages and nothing else was possible at the time.

The story goes like this: a photographer wants to visit an island full of dinosaurs he spotted from a plane. His fiancé agrees to charter a ship. The only man who ever returned alive from the dinosaurs encourages them with the words: "I'll blow my brains out first before I go back to that island!" However, not the creatures become the biggest danger, but the conflicts between the crew, the captain, the photographer, his fiancé and the above mentioned adventurer. Shall they just take pictures, capture one of the monsters - or just run for their lives? "Unknown Island" does wisely not just to rely on the dinosaurs, but also create serious reasons (love, greed, superstition) for arguments and fights between the human beings. Thus it becomes an adventure still worth watching 60 years later even if the effects don't impress anyone anymore. Today we have many movies whose effects do impress - but nothing else does, and that's hardly better.

I can sum up this movie in one three-letter word

[lordzedd-2 · 1/10 · 1 November 2003]

Bad. Really bad!! But it's not one thing wrong with it; it's many, many little things that turn this into garbage. The acting in this film was very good. But if the Captain had a disease like malaria then he should have been in a hospital and not on this trip. The goofy effects and dinosaur costumes were just lame. Now I know what the people who like this movie are saying to themselves. It's 1948, give them some slack, the technology was around. But take a look at King Kong of 1933 and tell me they could have done better if they tried.

Enjoyable prehistoric monster flick.

[youroldpaljim · 25 December 2001]

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

"Here on Dinosaur's Isle."

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 20 December 2020]

This silly adventure appears to be taking place on a painted island occupied by slow moving brontosaurus toys being pulled along by strings in dirty water, men in rubber T-Rex suits barely waddling, a toothy lizard that seems to be on wheels and a man in a gorilla suit with a fanged head described as a giant sloth. Then there's the boat captain (Barton MacLane) who sneers, leering constantly at Virginia Grey, girlfriend assistant to filmmaker Phillip Reed, and the drunken Richard Denning who is basically forced to go back to the island, warning Reed and Grey of the dangers there that are indeed a living nightmare.

If it isn't the ridiculousness of the ancient creatures that will make you laugh, it's the absurdity of the performance of MacLane, one of the most ridiculous villains in film history. The paunchy and obnoxious MacLane claims from his first appearance that he will land Grey, ogling her every chance he gets, and trying to insight Denning to get drunk so he'll be able to manipulate him. A group of native men as his crew attempt a mutiny, and are threatened to be made shark food so by the time they get onto the island, you long to see MacLane become dino chow. This is laughably bad in every way, obviously not a film that influenced "Jurassic Park" at all other than for Spielberg to know how not to make it.

The Worst of The Worst

[Ted-101 · 2/10 · 1 June 2001]

Most of us have heard the expression, "That film is so bad it's good," but truth be told, it really is hard to identify any film that's "So bad it's good." The grim truth about "Unknown Island" is that it's "So bad it stinks." In this regard "Unknown Island can join "Robot Monster" and "Plan 9 From Outer Space" among the worst films ever made, and in each case they too, are "So bad they stink."

What prevents "Unknown Island" from being "So bad it's good," are the same problems that plague films like "Robot Monster" and "Plan 9". "Unknown Island" has a ridiculous script, tedious pace, sub-mediocre cast, pedestrian direction and in the case of the latter, the most absurd looking dinosaurs in film history.

The plot involves a scientist, Ted Osborne (Philip Reed) and his scrawny fiancee Carol Lane (Virginia Grey) inexplicably chartering a ship from a man who's a complete lout, (Barton Maclane) for the purpose of going to an island to take photos of prehistoric creatures somewhere in the Pacific. A local drunk, John Fairbanks, (Richard Denning) is hijacked by the captain because he's already been to the island, and so might prove to be valuable as a guide.

There's an interminable scene to start the film in a decadent cafe where Osborne & Lane charter the ship from Capt. Tarnowski, whose lewd behavior toward Virginia Grey is so exaggerated, that it's hard to believe this young couple went through with the charter. Denning sobers up fast, and proves to know every nook and cranny of the prehistoric island so well, you'd think he lived there for years. Denning is supposed to be the good guy, who is concerned about the safety of Virginia Grey, when Reed inexplicably begins focusing more on his photographs than her safety. But Denning can't help coming across as a snidy, snippy guy, as usual. No matter what he does in films, Denning is always a short-tempered, sneering character. He gives an identical performance in "Creature From The Black Lagoon", but at least there he's supposed to be the villain.

It is impossible to have a kind word about the dinosaurs. I know some viewers are going to say, "Well, at least they're not iguanas," but, and it pains me to say this, give me the iguanas. These men-in-suits Tyranosaurs are almost completely immobile, and an ambitious group of kindergarten children could have put together a more credible looking beast. When one considers that "Godzilla, King of The Monsters" is a man-in-a-dinosaur suit, we KNOW that it's possible to achieve good results. But what we have here can only be described as pathetic. The DVD price for this film is $9.00 or $10.00, but although that sounds like a fair price, in this case it's way too much money.

UNKNOWN ISLAND (Jack Bernhard, 1948) **

[Bunuel1976 · 5/10 · 21 October 2011]

Little-known 'prehistoric monster' flick whose sole distinction (much more, in fact, than the actual creatures, which are quite shoddy!) is the fact that it was shot in pleasant Cinecolor. Incidentally, the plot is so similar to genre prototypes THE LOST WORLD (1925; the expedition to an uncharted modern-day dinosaur-infested location) and KING KONG (1933; an ape battles a prehistoric beast) that I assume the film-makers of this one were not sued only because it went under everybody's radar! On the other hand, the later THE LAND UNKNOWN (1957) would not only do so once again but it even had a very similar title to the movie under review!

Anyway, I had previously watched two noirs from director Bernhard, the bizarre DECOY (1946) and the more ordinary BLONDE ICE (1948). Indeed, here we have one woman contended by a trio of potential suitors (again, creating more tension than the dinosaur footage itself!), with much hard-boiled dialogue and male/female sparring (especially between her and nominal hero Richard Denning, a young man whose experiences while stranded on the island had driven him to drink and is subsequently recruited to act as a guide). The other man in the equation is a photographer, the heroine's fiancé, who had seen the island from a plane during the war and became obsessed with the idea of checking it out and 'capture' the wild-life with his camera (and neglecting his girl in the process). More trouble arises when the crew, comprised of superstitious natives, rebels and/or runs away – especially after they begin to fall prey to the carnivorous monsters.

Apart from the afore-mentioned Denning, the more notable cast members are leading lady Virginia Grey and Barton MacLane as the burly steamship captain who fancies himself a lady-killer(!) and also determines to catch one of the creatures (which even sees him arguing with his first-mate, who gets a knife in the back from one of the 'sailors' actually intended for the captain!). Surprisingly, the girl is not coveted by the ape (which looks a bit like the alien from TV's ALF!), nor is she menaced in any particular manner by the other monsters – MacLane and company do get to fight them off with hand-grenades, downing a few dinos in the process. As is to be expected, MacLane is killed, the photographer eventually contents himself with his shots (some of which were destroyed in a fire), while Grey and Denning have settled their differences enough to hook up for the finale.

King Kong Noir

[retrorocketx · 7/10 · 20 November 2008]

Unknown Island (1948) has a similar character structure to King Kong (1933). It also features a few elements of noir movies.

In King Kong, a movie maker hires a girl and a ship and heads off to Skull Island, hoping to become rich and famous. In Unknown Island, a scientist/movie maker and his girl hire a ship and head off to an unknown island, hoping to become rich and famous. From here, the respective plots go off in different directions. The big question in any 'Lost World' movie is how will the explorers react when thrown into a primeval world? What I like about Unknown Island is that it tells a story about a seriously dysfunctional and aggressive group of explorers, at each others throats from the start of the movie to the finish. It's quite a contrast to the adventurous, charming, loyal, and naive group that sets sail in King Kong. Fifteen years and a world war have changed the nature of the game considerably!

The attitudes of the characters are so violent, cynical and opportunistic I think they can be fairly called a noir characters. Another noir feature is shady morals, and boy does this movie have those! Wow! Some examples include, shooting a guy surrounded by T-rexes instead of charging in to save him, abandoning a beaten, sick man to be killed by an orange ape-sloth thing, and constant verbal and physical abuse of each other. One of the subplots is a love triangle involving Carole (Virginia Grey) and two rivals Ted (Phillip Reed) and John (Richard Denning). This triangle smacks of noir, as love is portrayed in a corrupt and cynical light.

It's hard to like any of the characters. Compare the movie producer character in King Kong to Unknown Island. Carl Denim is eccentric and obsessed maybe, but he is lovable and beloved by the other explorers. Here, Ted Osborne, the supposed organizer of this expedition, is harassed at every moment and ridiculed constantly for expressing more interest in filming than his fiancée - and this on the very first day on the island! It does not get any better for the poor guy, he is duped throughout the movie. His fiancée Carole Lane, is some sort of rich society woman but underneath that polished exterior she is aggressive, opportunistic, and not shy or timid at all about going after what she wants. Compare her character with Anne Darrow of King Kong, the difference is like night and day. The hunky John Fairbanks is a recovering alcoholic, bitter, cynical, slimy, and just plain nasty. Compare him to the hero in King Kong, they both do whatever it takes to get the girl, but in very different senses. By far my favorite character is the captain of the ship. Watching him in action is what makes this movie worthwhile. He and his first mate are two-fisted, violent bullies who surely have gotten drunk in, and fought their way out of, every bar in every port along the South China Seas. The captain's personality so dominates this movie that only a recurring bout of malaria and a major drinking binge can level the playing field for the other characters.

Unknown Island would be much improved if the underlying noir-feel were ramped up to a greater extent. A claustrophobic, dark, fatalistic atmosphere would kick this movie into uber-coolness, but the opportunity is missed. The dinosaurs are played for horror, at least that is how the characters typically react to them and talk about them. This would be a great angle for the movie, but at no time does the movie deliver a lurking sense of danger, or a brutal attack by any of the dinosaurs. Only one guy is killed because of dinosaurs and that only at the end of the movie. Big let down! The dinosaurs themselves are not anywhere near the bar set by Lost World (1925) or King Kong (1933), but that's okay. What is annoying is that they are not used to any great effect.

Unknown Island is interesting to watch because of the 1940s post-war, noir-style take on a 'Lost World' type movie. It could have been a brilliant film. But even with its missed opportunities, I like this movie.

More smirks than screams

[VADigger · 4/10 · 19 December 2021]

One of countless movies that followed the "King Kong" formula and, like all those others, fails completely In recreating the wonder of that film. The pacing is lousy, the story ludicrously illogical ("Well, I think I'll go for a walk in this dinosaur infested jungle." "OK, honey, stick to the path!") The monsters are laughable instead of terrifying - they are so obviously men in rubber suits just flailing about. Still, there is some charm in all this amateurness - it's as if Ed Wood had made a monster movie.

If you have any fondness at all for the unintentionally bad, give it a shot.

Creature Feature

[richardchatten · 7/10 · 25 June 2022]

A semi-remake of in glorious Cinecolor of 'King Kong' with the emphasis on the dinosaurs rather than the gorilla and rather good creatures. The human cast certainly don't treat them with the respect they deserve, going after them with machine-guns and hand grenades; while Barton MacLane although technically the baddie is easily the most interesting character.

Unknown Island

[CinemaSerf · 5/10 · 5 January 2023]

Phillip Reed ("Osborne") is determined to charter a boat and return to a mysterious island he accidentally discovered during his wartime exploits. With the help of some cash from girlfriend "Carole" (Virginia Lane) off they set, and upon arrival we get a sort of "Lost World" (1925) derivative as the crew struggle to survive the beasties they discover and the avaricious antics of their dipso captain "Tarnowski" (Barton MacLane). The animation for the creatures they discover is adequate - rather static and one dimensional, and the dialogue and pacing of the 75 minutes or so make it quite a long watch. It's fun for about twenty minutes towards the end, but otherwise this is sadly just an unremarkable feature.

Unknown Island (1948)

[trimbolicelia · 8/10 · 14 April 2018]

Like this film greatly. A late 40's B-grade adventure with good actors, not a bad story, and in color which was unusual for a film of this type at the time. A conglomeration of characters go on a photo safari to a lost island chock full of Z-grade, sluggish dinosaurs. The characters are a selfish obsessed photographer, his moneyed fiancé, a traumatized survivor of the island, a lecherous out of control ship's captain, and a shipload of blood-thirsty Lascars. The best part is when the crazed captain gets his from what is called a giant sloth but is best described as a gigantopithecus. The color is surprisingly good. At 73 minutes it doesn't wear out its welcome. The Image Entertainment DVD is very good. Probably the best quality that's available. Highly recommended.

Enjoyable

[EdgarST · 6/10 · 14 June 2021]

Funny, enjoyable little film... During the first 15 minutes I kept asking myself, "why do I keep on watching this, if I know how it is going to be and how it is going to end"? But I could not stop watching this silly adventure movie, with too many deaths, too many macho characters and the typical racist stereotypes of its day. I found interesting the men in animal suits, and the animal fights that reminded me of "King Kong vs. Godzilla" and a few other similar Japanese movies. It ends quickly, sculptor Ellis Burman's animals are better than average, so if you take it for what it is, you might enjoy it.

This movie will leave you Dino-sore.

[theshadow1963 · 3/10 · 8 October 2020]

Unknown Island is a low budget lost world movie that aspires to be King Kong, but lacks the script to make the story interesting and the budget to make its dinosaurs exciting. Photographer Ted Osborne and his rich fiancee Carole hire a shifty freighter captain to take them to an island where Osborne claims to have seen living dinosaurs while flying over the island during "the war" - presumably World War II. Also along for the trip is John Fairbanks, a down-on-his-luck ex-marine left shell-shocked after once being stranded on the island and seeing his crew killed.

Almost from the start, the viewer can see the problems brewing. Captain Tarnowski is a hard-drinking, violent bully. Any sane person can see he can't be trusted. Both he and Fairbanks spend a lot of time sniffing around Carole like two dogs in heat, sometimes right in front of her fiancee. Tarnowski's crew is made up mostly of indigenous South Sea Islanders who consider the island "taboo" and try to mutiny barely a half-hour into the movie. Once the expedition reaches the island, Osborne becomes obsessed with getting pictures of the dinosaurs, to the exclusion of all other concerns, including Carole's growing distaste with this sweaty tropical paradise. Then Captain Tarnowski comes down with a sudden case of insanity apparently provoked by malaria.

But I know what you're thinking: what about the dinosaurs? Well, they're about as cheap as they come. The best thing that can be said about the dinosaurs is that the filmmakers opted not to use caimans and monitor lizards pimped out with rubber horns and force to fight.

There's some sauropods that look like models being pulled through swamp water like toy boats, and some Dimetrodons that are nearly-immobile rubber puppets. The primary threat is large therapods called Tyrannosauruses, but they look more like Ceratosaurs with horns on their noses. They are played by men in suits only slightly less stiff than the one used in the similarly-titled The Land Unknown. Ray "Crash" Corrigan also has an uncredited supporting role playing a monster that someone calls a "giant sloth" but which looks more like a saber-tooth orangutan. There's not much on-screen interaction between humans and dinosaurs, as all their scenes together are accomplished with rear projection and forced-perspective close-ups.

This movie would be more enjoyable, in spite of the cheap effects, if the director had made an effort to make at least a few of the characters likable. Osborne, Fairbanks and Tarnowski all rapidly succumb to their worst character traits (monomania, narcissism and the need to dominate, respectively). Carole puts up a brave front as a tough city girl who can handle anything, but crumbles into a whiny debutante ready to dump the man she was planning to marry the minute he starts focusing on something other than her. Tarnowski's crew are called "Lascars", but show none of the discipline or courage of the famous sailors from the Indian subcontinent. The only character who seems relatable is Sanderson, Tarnowski's pragmatic First Mate. Spoiler Warning: don't get too attached him.

This isn't the worst dinosaur movie I've ever seen, but it's a lot closer to the bottom of the barrel than the top. The King Kong references are rampant, with the lost island, the filmmaker-blonde beauty-sailor character dynamic, and a climactic battle between the sloth-ape and a dinosaur. But unlike the similar scene in King Kong, the human observers have no role in the action and are merely relieved that the island's two biggest threats basically eliminated each other. The 1940's depiction of extinct reptiles is mildly humorous in light of the fresh interpretations of today. If you are a dinosaur movie completist, this movie is worth a view and might provide a few laughs. For anyone else, give it a pass.