ClassyWas
Excellent, smart action film.
Stellead
Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful
SincereFinest
disgusting, overrated, pointless
StyleSk8r
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Leofwine_draca
TWO LOST WORLDS is an amusing little adventure flick made on an obviously low budget. The story is about settlers versus pirates, with strapping James Arness the hero of the hour who spends most of his time in a love triangle with a pretty magistrate's daughter and her ranch-owning lover. The film has a low rent but exotic feel to it with a light, action-focused plot to keep youngsters entertained. Late on in the proceedings, the heroine is kidnapped by dastardly pirates and taken to a 'lost world' inhabited by erupting volcanoes and dinosaurs. The dinosaur footage is brief and ripped off from earlier films and features a couple of lizards with glued-on fins fighting. High art this ain't, but old B-movie fans will get a kick out of it.
José Luis Rivera Mendoza (jluis1984)
During the 40s and the 50s many sci-fi and adventure movies were produced about giant monsters fighting brave adventurers. "One Million B.C." (1940) is probably the best known example and the one that started the trend, but there were many low-budget films that tried to emulate the success of that film with less than spectacular results. "Two Lost Worlds" may be one of those lesser known films, but what makes it "different" from the rest is the fact that it contains basically every element of the action-adventure sub genre to tell its story. From pirates to dinosaurs, and from naval fights to cowboys, this one has it all.James Arness is young Kirk Hamilton, a brave captain who is severely injured after being attacked by pirates on their travel to Asia. While his ship continues the trip, he is left in Queensland, Australia to recover, where he'll find the beautiful Elaine Jeffries (Kasey Rogers) and her precocious sister Nancy (Jane Harlan), as well as earning the enmity of Martin Shannon (Bill Kennedy), a man who is also in love with Elaine. But adventure calls him even there, as the pirates return and raid Queensland, kidnapping Elaine and Nancy and taking James and Martin to adventure. In their rescue trip they'll fight not only the pirates, but the strange creatures of a nearby island.Well, this film is basically an epic adventure that includes basically every element necessary to be classified as "adventure". While this is indeed as messy as it sounds, it has an explanation: "Two Lost Worlds" was made of two episodes (maybe three) of a failed TV series project blend together to work as a B-Movie. The origins of the film are very notorious, as the movie changes of "theme" as it changes of setting (aided by some rather poor use of stock footage), as the film goes from one adventure to another the pace feels at times disjointed and the constant narration doesn't help to make it better.The movie's most notorious "detail" is the use of the famous footage "One Million B.C.", and while it is in fact sold as the hook of the film, the actual scenes used are rather short (due mostly to the previously discussed factors). Technically, the film is rather poor and it probably would had worked a lot better as a TV show (as it was intended). This was director Norman Dawn's final movie after directing a long series of adventure movies, some of them rather infamous like "Wild Women" (1951) and "Tundra" (1936).If there is a redeeming feature in this movie (and one that's worth a lot), is the acting. A pre-"Gunsmoke" James Arness carries the film with grace and makes charming a character that otherwise would be poor and stereotypical. Kasey Rogers (who would participate in an iconic scene later that year in "Strangers on a Train") is equally effective although her character may be "too 50s" for today's standards. Bill Kennedy is also good as the Kirk's rival and has very good scenes (his character was probably the most developed of the cast).It would be easy to point out the many problems of "Two Lost Worlds", but one has to consider that it was a low-budget production (for TV) on a time where special effects were a novelty (it wasn't the only movie to use ""One Million B.C."'s stock footage) and while this is no excuse for its disjointed storyline, the film is considerably more enjoyable than most films of its era."Two Lost Worlds" is by no means a classic. It may not even be a good movie. But at least it entertains, and for most movies that's something. People looking for classy horror and adventure better look elsewhere, those interested in a strange novelty and/or the career of a young James Arness will find "Two Lost Worlds" an interesting piece of film. 5/10
jim riecken (youroldpaljim)
My research indicates that TWO LOST WORLDS is made up of two episodes of an un-aired T.V. series. Perhaps the producers of this T.V. series thought these pilot episodes were so spiffy that they decided to edit them into a feature film and release it to theaters. Perhaps not. It is more likely the series just did not sell. This explains the films bifurcated structure. The dinosaur sequences come from that often mined film ONE MILLION B.C.Other films made from unsold T.V. shows include PROJECT MOON BASE; JUNGLE HELL; TARZAN AND THE TRAPPERS; and INVISIBLE AVENGER. I'm sure there are a least a dozen more examples of films made from unsold pilots that could be found.
Vigilante-407
Two Lost Worlds is one of those movies that I remember seeing as a very young child...well, at least I remembered one part of the movie, not knowing which one it was from. The scene where the cavegirl is caught in the lava flow was one of those pivotal images with me for some unknown reason. The scene was also repeated (I'm not sure if it was the exact same shot, but it could have been) in Valley of the Dragons.While this movie has special effects and "dinosaurs" (lizards in make-up), it is very hard to classify this as a real science fiction movie, even under the very un-demanding criteria of the time. For the most part, this movie is a pirate-style adventure. James Arness is as stoic as ever in it, and there isn't much else to really recommend the film.