Monday, April 6, 2009

TWO LOST WORLDS - Alex Alexander - "Not Just One, But Two" (1951)

Rodan gave you "Lost World" last night, well, that wasn't nothing!! Tonight we double the stakes and the action with not just one, but SOUNDCLIP NO LONGER AVAILABLE First off, this movie was done 9 years before "Lost World," now how is that possible? Two came before one, only in the movies!!

"Two Lost Worlds" stars James Arness, and around these parts, it just don't get no better than that! A lot of people hear the name James Arness, and they immediately think "Gunsmoke" but if you think about the man's contributions to classic Sci-Fi, seems it's some kind of 'T' thing, "Two Lost Worlds", "The Thing", "Them", need I go on?

So James ends up in Australia and falls for Elaine Jeffries played by Kasey Rogers. Kasey had a long and varied career, as a stewardess in "When World's Collide," in a multitude of TV westerns before settling in on as Julie Anderson from 1964 to 1966 in 80 episodes of "Peyton Place!" That'd burn you out! She did a few more small things after than, and just passed away a couple of years ago!!

So James as Kirk Hamilton tells the locals how they do stuff back in America!!

This is why, whatever you do, you don't let pirates come on land! Where do you think the word cutthroat came from anyhow?? Pirates are some mean S.O.B.'s!!!

So the pirates got the girls, now it's up to James and Martin Shannon, the guy in the middle, who is just a little pissed off at James, because He was the only real man Kasey had ever known and was scheduled to get married to! Martin was played the great actor Bill Kennedy who had the esteemed job of being The Announcer for 104 "Adventures Of Superman" episodes from 1951-1958! Wow!! James also does a lot of awesome standing around looking studly in this movie!!

Besides being mean S.O.B.'s, these pirates swim like freakin' frogs, this is a truly amazing sight and leads right up to one of the best fight scenes ever!!!

This is a raucous scene with guys flying in from all over the place, but with the fog and all the action, it's hard to get a good still, you'll just have to rent it to see for yourself!!

Washed up on shore just in time to be lost again!!

No longer all prim and proper, you now get a chance to see Kasey with her hair down, and Bill, well, he's hurt now, and still pissed!! This is her reaction to seeing that famous dinosaur made popular in the 50's that looks like a baby alligator with a large dorsal fin attatched to it's back, before they became wiped out from making too many movies!!

They really could have used a Willis O'Brien or a Ray Harryhausen, but instead it's the special effects of Jack R. Glass, who was quite gifted, and has his own history, but whose work lent itself better to TV where he also did a ton of work!!

The music for this amazing film was done by none other than the man with the double name, Alex Alexander in one of his very few outings!!

I'm sorry, and forgive me, but is this not the most classic 'The End' shot ever! Just like the art teacher you never had a chance to have, said, My Word, look at that prefect composition!!!

1 comment:

  1. This was a failed pilot for a TV series, padded out with extra footage. Dinos come from ONE MILLION BC, IIRC.

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