User reviews

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

Two Lost Worlds and I only counted one of them is a cheap knockoff of a film with stock footage from One Million BC and Captain Caution thrown together fill out a film where a Yankee sailor finds love and romance and dinosaurs and volcanoes and kangaroos in one sixty minute film. If you like all those things you got your money's worth.

This low budget independent casts James Arness in the lead as the Yankee sailor who after a firefight with some pirates in the New Hebrides island is dropped off in Queensland in Australia to recover from wounds. Where he falls in love with Laura Elliot who is engaged to rancher Bill Kennedy. That's your romance.

But the pirates aren't done yet, they capture Elliot and her little sister as hostages after a raid and Arness and Kennedy lead a rescue attempt. After another pirate firefight they get stranded on a volcanic island with some dinosaurs. I think you can figure the rest out.

I saw this when I was about 8 years old on Million Dollar Movie in New York. I thought it was hot stuff then, but my ardor for this film has considerably cooled. It's half romance novel, half science fiction and not done well in either department. And absolutely no one talks like they're from Australia.

Soon after America gained its independence, a new-fangled clipper sets sail from Boston to the East Indies. Attacked by pirates off the Hebrides, the ship's builder, James Arness, is wounded, and landed to recover at the ship's next port of call, in Australia. There he falls in love with Elaine Jeffries, and she with him. She is due to be engaged to Bill Kennedy, who scowls at the thought. However, other things are going on, particularly pirates. Arness is commissioned to build a ship to clear the sea of pirates. On its maiden voyage, with Miss Jeffries, her kid sister Gloria Petroff, and Kennedy, they run into a pirate ship and give battle. Both ships are sunk, but our main players escape by raft to a small island with dinosaurs from One Million B. C.

If, like me, you gave up hope of any of this making sense at the second sentence, be reassured! Dan Riss narrates about a third of the movie, and whoever wrote his lines never saw a noun that didn't need at least two adjectives and a dependent clause. The battle scenes with the second pirate ship are nicely shot by DP Harry Neumann. Arness and Miss Jeffries changed their names after appearing in this. With Pierre Watkins, Fred Kohler Jr. And Hank Mann.

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.

According to the review by youroldpaljim, two episodes of a television series were edited together to make this movie. Additionally, some footage (often reused in other films) of 'dinosaurs' fighting was inserted from the 1940 film "One Million BC"! To make this all a semi-coherent film, there is LOTS of narration...filling in the gaps in the stories! Talk about a cheap and cynical way of film making!!

Jame Arness stars as Kirk Hamilton, an American sailor who is injured in a pirate attack at sea and is left by his ship to recuperate in 1830s Australia. There he falls in love with a local girl AND assists the locals in fighting these same pirates that attacked his ship. Later, after any semblance to a real movie is lost and dinosaurs, volcanic explosions and more are unleashed on the audience....along with LOTS of stock footage.

I guess the mantra for this film is 'if you can get it for nothing or very little, shove it into this movie'...and it shows. Although parts of the story are good and Arness tries his best, chopping it all apart and shoving all sorts of crap into the film completely ruins it. It's also funny how NONE of the Australians sound the least bit Australian, but American! Overall, a dopey and cynical film that starts well and eventually degenerates into an incomprehensible mess.

Pirates attack the ship carrying Kirk Hamilton (Jim Aurness aka James Arness), scion of a ship-building family, in the New Hebrides forcing the ship to take refuge in Australia (in a part of Queensland where everyone has an American accent). When the pirates begin ransacking the local villages, Hamilton convinces a Royal Navy captain (Tom Monroe) to pursue their ship. Both the navy ship and the pirate ship are sunk in the ensuing battle but a small group of survivors (including Hamilton) escape in a lifeboat only to find themselves marooned on a volcanic island populated by gigantic beasts. The low-budget film, directed by Norman Dawn, is an uneven mix of sea-adventure and fantasy with little to connect the two elements. This is particularly noticeable on the island, when the narrator (Dan Riss) excitedly describes the castaways' search for water, and later food, while making no comments whatsoever about the 'dinosaur' fight that occurs in front of them, almost killing them. Typical for a low-budget B-film 'Two Lost Worlds' liberally borrows from earlier films, notably One Million B.C. (1940) for the 'dinosaurs' and 'Captain Caution' (1940) for the climatic fight with the pirates. Discounting the repurposed footage, the film has the production values of a '50's TV show and none of the cast do much with the trite storyline and script. Since there is nothing novel or interesting in the new material, the sum of the film is worse than its parts.

Filmed at Red Rock Canyon State Park - Highway 14, Cantil, California, USA, the South Seas has some pretty strange desert plants.

It's in 1830. The clipper ship "The Queen" gets clipped by pirates. An Australian rancher's girl Elaine Jeffries (Kasey Rogers) gets pilfered by pirates. The rescue ship gets dispatched by pirates. Pirates get replaced by dinosaurs as a threat. Dinosaurs get replaced by the volcano as a threat. Will this ever end?

Even though this film has popular actors like James Arness in several popular themes with borrowed footage from other films you will still be glad that there is a fast-forward button.

This was terrible , borrowed shots from Victor Mature 1000 BC movie with the lizard dinosaurs - even the girl getting washed over by Lava from volcano - quick clip so couldn't see she was wearing a black prehistoric bear skin instead of that character's ripped black dress - sorry pathetic freebie - narration like From 6th grade history book from 1950's - a- sorry.very - bad , terrible - James A most have kept his copy to show at parties too see how bad his acting was back then- all ship battles lifted from other movies too - I loved the guy - WW2 hero as well -badly wounded by German machine gun bullets at Anzio in foot - thus that Western limp /gait of his -RIP a great man ..

This movie is available on video, and I recommend buying it. A problem with the bad movie genre (subgenre? metagenre?) is that it is dominated by science fiction and horror. Well, this movie has elements of both, but it is mainly an adventure film gone horribly wrong. So, it is often overlooked as a source of unintentional laughs. Here's 10 good reasons to see it:

1. Look at the tattoos in the opening and closing title sequence.

2. Is it a historical drama? A pirate adventure? A monster movie? Who knows?

3. Bad narration -- lots of it! Could be missing pieces of soundtrack.

4. James Aurness (sic) -- He was more expressive as the carrot in "The Thing"

5. Bill Kennedy -- the grouchy costar was later a popular TV movie host in the Detroit area -- a special Michigan connection

6. Fight montage sequence -- there must be stuff from 10 movies in here!

7. You know, you can MOVE that camera! But this cinematographer obviously wasn't aware -- he just turned the camera on, and people walked in and out of the shot. Guess he was in the can a lot.

8. The monsters fight each other, but pose no threat to the humans. They should get guest star billing!

9. If you can tell the two lead women apart, you're doing better than me.

10. Last but not least -- the finale features the world's most powerful handheld telescope as a side-splitting topper.

I've said enough -- and last but not least -- it's SHORT! The best quality a bad movie can have. This one's a winner, folks.

Two Lost Worlds is more of an adventure movie than a sci-fi but I still quite enjoyed this.

After being attacked by pirates, the clipper ship The Queen settles in Queensland, Austrlia while its captain recovers from injuries received during the attack. He falls in love with one of the local girls there and pirates then raid the colony and they escape. After the ship is attacked again and set on fire, the few survivors end up on an uncharted island where they encounter dinosaurs and then a volcanic eruption and earthquake and are then rescued.

The dinosaur footage in this movie is the fight from One Million BC, as is the disaster footage, where we get to see more enlarged lizards from that movie too.

The only member of the cast I've heard of in this is James Arness (The Thing From Another World, Them!).

Despite the low budget, Two Lost Worlds is worth watching. Not bad at all.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

This movie really feels like 3 incomplete movie ideas that got glued together. The major annoyance is there is way too much narration which is really over done.

What starts as a seagoing adventure, morphs into romance on an Australian sheep farm, and then becomes a pirate attack, only to be followed by a Sci-Fi baby alligators with glued on fins doing their best dinosaur impersonation. If I was 10 and it was an easy going Saturday this one would be just right.

The same year that he played the rampaging alien in "The Thing from Another World" a studly young James Arness is our jut-jawed hero in this agreeable adventure. Arness plays Kirk Hamilton, a mate on a 19th century clipper ship who, after a skirmish with pirates, spends some time in Australia getting his wounds treated. After helping the locals deal with this pirate problem, he and several other characters end up marooned on an uncharted island that is frozen in time, complete with oversized lizards.

This film is a little misrepresented by ad copy. Much more of an adventure film (dividing its time between action on land and action at sea) than sci-fi, it only spends its final third on this island. And we never get to see very many prehistoric animals, only the aforementioned lizards that are stock footage from "One Million B.C." ("Two Lost Worlds" didn't shoot any of its own creature scenes.) Also, while a fair amount of time is spent with Australian characters, NONE of them have Australian accents!

Still, this minor but agreeable feature shows its audience a reasonable time. At the very least, it has a very brief running time of 62 minutes. Much like many a fun B movie, it doesn't waste too much time. That is, except for portraying a love triangle between Kirk, Queensland native Elaine Jeffries (Kasey Rogers), and a resentful rancher named Martin Shannon (Bill Kennedy). The supporting cast is filled out by capable character actors such as Pierre Watkin, Tom Monroe, Michael Rye as the evil pirate leader (you'll have a good time hating this guy), Fred Kohler Jr., Tim Graham, and Richard Bartell. Young co-star Gloria Petroff is the daughter of producer Boris Petroff (a.k.a. Brooke L. Peters). Co-star Tom Hubbard (who plays John Hartley) also helped to adapt the story by Petroff and wrote the screenplay.

The movie does give its viewers an exciting finish with a volcanic eruption (more stock footage), and features some hilariously florid narration written by Bill Shaw and spoken by Dan Riss. All in all, it's amusing stuff.

Six out of 10.

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.

Two Lost Worlds is a solid, if rarther curious, Jamaica Inn / Jurassic Park amalgamation that is compentently scripted, if rather unremarkable. The appeal is routed in the odd crossover genre premise ... most will probably be wondering while watching 'when are we going to get to these two lost worlds'? Since the bulk of the picture concerns a love triangle between Willard "Bill" Kennedy, Kasey Rogers (Laura Elliott) and of course James 'Gunsmoke' Arness (Jim Aurness). Both Arness and Kasey Rogers give surprisingly strong performances for a movie of such tawdid calibre ... the already sultry Rogers becoming even sexier as the movie progresses in glamourously torn clothing! The only real blot in this movie is the relenless and unnecessary voice over narration of Bill Shaw.

Before he became James Arness, James Aurness was captain of the Clipper ship "the Queen" sailing in the Pacific where he encounters pirates which leads to a trip to the hospital which in 1830 couldn't do much for his health but was an unusual setting for a romantic encounter with another mans girl.

Just sit right back And you'll hear a tale A tale of a fateful trip, That started from this tropic port. The skipper was a Marshal brave and sure. the weather was fine but pirates attacked. The ship's aground on the shore Of this uncharted desert isle.

So this is the tale of our castaways, They're here for a long, long time. The first mate and his Skipper, Chester and Festus, too!

with recycled film from a dozen other movies. too try and keep things interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtC6lu1sxOw

Sure, lots of stock footage, blah, blah, but its got an unusual setting with early 19th century Australia mixed with south seas piracy and better than average character development. Go into it for the adventure rather than the lizards in make-up and you'll enjoy it.