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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Thursday, September 10, 2020

Lost Continent (1951)

Starring Cesar Romero, Hillary Brooke, Chick Chandler, John Hoyt, Acquanetta, Sid Melton
Directed by Samuel Newfield
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A search for a runaway rocket brings a team of military and scientists to a volcanic island where they discover a prehistoric world atop a tall mountain.

I'm very fond of this film, with a fine cast playing different character types including Romero as the no-nonsense major leading the party, Chandler as his cynical cohort, Hoyt as a cold-seeming Russian scientist, Sid Melton as the comic relief sergeant who talks to his plane and his parachute, and Hugh Beaumont and Whit Bissell as the other scientists.  The picture involves a long scale of the mountain and trek through the jungle in which their personalities and backstories are brought to light in an unobtrusive fashion, a credit to the script and the actors.  The film also showcases some stop-motion sequences in its second half which are well-done and look impressive.  Directed by Sam Newfield, who was working for Lippert, after many prolific years at the poverty row studio PRC, I believe this was his only science fiction film.

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