208 - LOST CONTINENT

Don’s Synopsis:  This dated Robert L. Lippert produced movie opens with stock footage of a government top-secret V2 rocket launch.  The rocket then goes haywire and crashes on an island somewhere.  So a group of scientists and pilots, including Cesar “The Joker” Romero, Hugh “Mr. Cleaver” Beaumont, a Werner Von Braun like scientist with a funny accent and his assistant Dr. Deadmeat.  And as the annoyingly unfunny comedy relief, Sid “Monkey Boy” Melton from The Danny Thomas Show also tags along (please, please, let him die!).  When their plane gets near the rocket’s crash site, the plane also goes haywire and must crash land on the island.  Unfortunately, no one is killed in the crash.  The group then happens across a village with only two young broken-English-speaking natives living there.  The two natives tell the group that the rocket landed on their sacred mountain and anyone who goes there is certain of death.  But, once the natives meet Monkey Boy, they eagerly give the group directions to this mountain of death.  The group then climbs (and climbs and climbs and climbs and climbs and climbs and climbs) to the top of the flat mountain, pausing only briefly for Dr. Deadmeat’s obligatory death scene (unfortunately, Monkey Boy survives the climb).  On top of the uranium-rich mountain, they end up in a backlot set – I mean, primitive jungle – that’s millions of years old and full of stop-motion animated plant-eating dinosaurs.  The first dinosaur to see the men is a herbivore Brontosaurus (okay, Apatosaurus) that confuses the men for walking plants and tries to eat them.  The men then wander around looking for the rocket and eventually find it, but Monkey Boy is finally killed when a herbivore Triceratops confuses him for a tasty plant.  The remaining men take a piece of paper out of the rocket and start climbing back down the mountain.  At that moment, the mountain starts to self-destruct when an earthquake hits, causing a lot of rocks to fall near the descending men, but unfortunately all of the rocks miss hitting the men entirely.  They get back down, steal a native canoe and row out to sea before the island completely self-destructs.

Don’s Review:  This was a heavily-padded and amazingly dull sci-fi movie from the early ’50s that seems like it was partially inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World.  While the stop-motion effects of the dinosaurs are actually pretty good, this movie is most infamously known for its drawn-out, 20+ minute long monotonous rock-climbing sequence.  And Sid Melton couldn’t die fast enough in this movie!  The riffing by J&tBs is game but, for some reason, just wasn’t as fun as expected... maybe because the movie itself is so boring.  Except for a silly “Cool Thing Out the Window” contest kickoff, the host segments are all pretty enjoyable, in particular, a hilarious visit from Hugh Beaumont as a horseman of the apocalypse and a funny little bit by Joel crediting producer Lippert with inventing movie padding.  So, overall, this is an enjoyable episode and well worth-seeing, but it’s not one of my favorites.

Don’s Rating: 

Related Link:
   (1) Mighty Jack’s MST3K Review (Episode Review)