Wonderful character development!

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The acting in this movie is really good.

A photographer seeing big money hires a rough tough boat crew to take his group to a prehistoric island where he wants to film monsters. Misadventures ensue. Good to catch up with this little flick again after 60-years. It was awesome then, now it's still pretty good. Oh sure, no Oscar bait here, but I will nominate the great Barton MacLane for a Big Personality award. In fact, he carries the movie in gruff tough style, with no backtalk. Seems even the headliners pale in his presence, though the shirtless Denning shows why he moved to Hawaii. And catch the luscious Virginia Grey as the damsel in occasional distress. Her big-eyed opening scenes had me wanting to crawl through the screen. All in all, it's a superior cast, including the luckless Laskars who add exotic color.Good thing those monsters move with all the speed of garden slugs, otherwise it would be a short movie. Still, those toothy close-ups are enough to give a dentist the terminal shudders. And how about that movie critters' death match, where anything goes. No pre-historic flick is complete without that. But I'm still wondering at the monsters' desert background in a jungle-type movie. I guess that was because of special effects. My favorite part is the waterfront dive where everyone gets together at the beginning. It's well stocked and colorful for an indie production, while Captain MacLane gets to show his stuff, along with bulldog first mate, Dick Wessel. I guess my only gripe is with that cheesy gorilla. For some reason a lot of horror movies from that period liked dressed up gorillas as a goofy menace.Anyhow, my kid's dime was well spent then, and my 80-minutes was well spent now. Too bad my wife says I'm hopeless.

(Get it? Adult noir on a Kiddie Saturday afternoon)... Some of the lines from this true classic (a product of its time and place)bear repeating for any who question whether or not they should watch it with a young boy: "Men have been killed before in 'the interest of science'." ' "Cordite Shells..." ' "Grenades? We could use field artillery and still not be sure..." ' "I think I'll go for a little walk..." - "I don't think that's such a good idea..." ' And finally a line from captain Tarnowski - the great supporting heavy, Barton McLaine: "After all, there's some MEN going along..." ' "I want to hear you when you start screaming!" ' The FX Technician, Ellis Burman, fathered TWO namesakes who are both fine achievers in their own right. See their profiles and involvements here at IMDb. The grenades in this movie are launched by the M-1 Garand grenade launching attachment and are novel to watch. There is at least one very good crane tracking shot on a dinosaur track. ' And finally, see the film for the fine work of the Howard A. Anderson Co. - process shot-masters extra-ordinaire! They also did "Target: Earth!" which, as we learn from another fine poster here, also stars Denning and Grey! YAY! I plan to watch them as a double feature with my 6 and 7-year old grandsons, as soon as they attain those ages . . . .

For 1948, "Unknown Island" is pretty good: shot in colour which was not going to be possible for most monster movies of the next decade, the only problem is the men in monster suits. They move slowly and clumsily and never seem more dangerous than the Muppet Show critters, but then again, also stop-motion and especially "enlarged" lizards have their disadvantages and nothing else was possible at the time.The story goes like this: a photographer wants to visit an island full of dinosaurs he spotted from a plane. His fiancé agrees to charter a ship. The only man who ever returned alive from the dinosaurs encourages them with the words: "I'll blow my brains out first before I go back to that island!" However, not the creatures become the biggest danger, but the conflicts between the crew, the captain, the photographer, his fiancé and the above mentioned adventurer. Shall they just take pictures, capture one of the monsters - or just run for their lives? "Unknown Island" does wisely not just to rely on the dinosaurs, but also create serious reasons (love, greed, superstition) for arguments and fights between the human beings. Thus it becomes an adventure still worth watching 60 years later even if the effects don't impress anyone anymore. Today we have many movies whose effects do impress - but nothing else does, and that's hardly better.

The year was 1948 and by this time Willis O'Brien had already had much success with the prehistoric special effects in "King Kong." Wasn't he around during this filming? The dinosaurs in this film look like mechanical toys with licorice for arms. Actually they were men in rubber suits with licorice for arms. Man, what a waste of time and money! And the "sloth man!"(?) When he appeared for the first time I said, "What the hell...?!"Was this Richard Denning's encore film or something? He must've been actually drunk to play this part (he plays a drunken, trauma-stricken sailor who is hired by horny drunk Barton MacLane to sail to this Unknown Island with a reject from the Three Stooges shorts, an air-headed photographer and an equally air-headed female accomplice (couldn't they have chosen a cockatoo instead?).The only sensible characters in the film were the "native" crew, and they all sounded like they had Brooklyn accents. They sail to the island, find these brand-X dinosaurs and this excuse of a cross between the abominable snowman and the Cyclops in "Sinbad," called a "sloth-man." Whatever it was supposed to be, the makeup sucked. I wasn't born at the time, but when I was old enough to see monster flicks at the movies, I certainly wouldn't have wasted my time with this junk. I caught it on American Movie Classics (I thought they showed classics, not crap) because I got tired of the early morning news (all bad); when I saw Richard Denning I thought it would be a pretty good horror flick on the lines of "The Creature from the Black Lagoon." It was worth a few giggles, though. I guess all wasn't wasted. But next time I'll opt for Johnny Bravo on the Cartoon Network.