TxMike This movie was shown on the Movies! network. It came out in 1960 when I was only 14 years old. I don't remember this one specifically, I may have seen it back then, but it certainly is typical of the 1960s Sci-Fi genre.Simple enough story, a team of scientists travel to a deep Amazon location to investigate reports of dinosaurs still living there. When a few had gone off then returned to camp they found what "looked like a cyclone had hit" the campsite and the rest were missing. Soon they found them, captured by an unknown native tribe, seemingly intent on eating them.In the cave of the volcanic mountain they found a long-lost professor, now blind, and a well-meaning native lady who would help them find a way out. Which they did, with difficulty, barely escaping the chasing natives. Along with a few nice diamonds and a large egg, a dinosaur egg. It is a very "campy" movie, fun entertainment for an afternoon with nothing else to do. Stars included Michael Rennie, Jill St. John (only 19 or 20, just eye candy), Claude Rains, and Fernando Lamas. They did encounter a live dinosaur, the "special effect" for this was to film extreme close-ups of a lizard. It works pretty well.

Neil Welch I was 8 in 1960. And here was a big, colourful, widescreen film with adventure, excitement, dinosaurs, giant spiders, natives, cliff edge escapes, volcanoes - wow! Now, pushing 60, I am not so demanding as to insist that movies from 50 years ago should have effects executed to the same standard as the best of today's - far from it. In fact, I still have huge affection for the best effects movies of my childhood (by which, of course, I mean those by Ray Harryhausen).But hindsight illuminates the offerings of Irwin Allen as very much missing something on the effects side. I'm not entirely sure what or why, but they never quite go as far as they need to for the suspension of disbelief. Perhaps it's errors of scale, perhaps it's messy matte lines, and for sure it is lizards with fins glued on them. But there is something about Allen's films which always disappoints.And the funny thing is that I was aware of it when I was 8, too.

cal reid This 1960 retelling of the novel has many good points and far more bad points. The characters are more or less the same just updated in social class and occupation to suit the modern setting. All the explorers led by Challenger visit a plateau that Challenger claims to be inhabited by prehistoric monsters. They end up having their helicopter smashed by a brontosaurus (in reality a monitor lizard with a large frill and Godzilla style spikes on it's back ) so they have to find a way out of the mountain. Along the way the encounter natives more dinosaurs which include the creature that destroyed their helicopter , a baby alligator and another monitor lizard all of which have fins glued on. The acting isn't great but it certainly isn't bad just fairly average , the dinosaurs are goofy but they do look quite cool and sometimes fierce like during the fight between two of them , they are lizards but it is kind of fun to watch. I wouldn't recommend it but i wouldn't prohibit it either , it's a Marmite movie you love it or hate it. The only thing i'm not happy with is certain scenes of animal cruelty involving the lizards.

moonspinner55 Dinosaurs, diamonds, cannibals, Jill St. John! Having had big success the year before with "Journey to the Center of the Earth", 20th Century-Fox repeated the expedition-into-the-unknown formula with this school kid's fantasy adapted from the original tale by Arthur Conan Doyle (previously filmed in 1925). Claude Rains is an ill-tempered, impatient professor who boasts to the British press that he has found Jurassic monsters on an island plateau in the Amazon; with funding from a wealthy newspaperman, Rains returns to the creatures along with a reporter and a natty adventurer (the newspaperman's feisty daughter, along with her dog and younger brother, join the troupe later). Producer-director Irwin Allen co-wrote the script as well, and his cartoony, tongue-in-cheek style is all over this colorful saga. The special effects aren't bad for 1960, and there's enough amusingly dopey dialogue and disparate characterizations to make the film a minor treat. Rains steals the acting honors, while St. John (who boasts about being able to shoot better than any man, but who never gets the opportunity to prove it) carries around her pup in a wicker basket! Non-think entertainment benefits from excellent art direction and design, though Allen's pacing is a bit lax. **1/2 from ****