Island of the Lost
Entry updated 4 April 2017. Tagged: Film.
Made-for-tv film (1967; vt Dangerous Island). Ivan Tors Productions for ABC-TV. Produced by Ivan Tors. Directed by John Florea. Written by Richard Carlson from an original story by Carlson and Tors. Cast includes Jose De Vega, Richard Greene, Luke Halpin, Robin Mattson and Sheila Welles. 92 minutes. Colour.
Anthropologist Josh MacRae (Greene) rashly takes his family – two daughters (Welles, Mattson) and a son (Halpin) – plus a couple of research assistants on an expedition to a South Pacific Island where he believes he may find the "missing link". Shipwrecked on arrival, the group discovers a Lost World with unlikely prehistoric creatures including a dog-like animal with sabre-fanged teeth and large birds with bony spines (that is, ostriches with horns glued on). A Neanderthaloid man is indeed present, as is Tupuna (De Vega), a young boy left on the island by his tribe as part of a survival ritual. A tribe of headhunters, however, proves to be the primary menace. After considerable adventure and didactic lecturing from MacRae, the visitors construct a raft and escape to safety.
An early example of made-for-television movies of the week, this mild offering marked what seems to be the last involvement of Tors with sf film or television, after working on such films as Gog (1954) the previous decade. Island of the Lost was given a theatrical release after its debut on ABC. [GSt/DRL]
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