Review of The Lost World (1960) by Bheema D — 19 Feb 2016

Irwin Allen was never that subtle as a director and his solution to making a dinosaur movie is typical. All he does is stick rubber horns onto a couple of lizards and get them to fight on miniature sets while Jill St.

John is chromakeyed into the background behind a polystyrene rock. It really is a very sorry affair. The updating of Conan Doyle's classic story to set it in the late 1950's really does the story no favours at all.

Claude Raines dons a preposterous wig and beard and hams things up dreadfully as Professor Challenger while Michael Rennie and David Hedison try to out machismo each other. Jill St. John set woman's lib back to the stone age with her hysterical screaming although she manages an impressively symmetrical bustline, even when being chased by an overgrown goanna.

Neither exciting nor terribly interesting, this is a very shoddy adaptation of a much loved fantasy novel which seems woefully dated and distinctly cheesy.