Unknown Island (1948) – Review

If you happen to have an “adventure seeker” for a friend you have my sympathy as this can lead to all kinds of problems, such as them never shutting up about their latest adventure, but worst of all is the possibility that they will somehow manage to get you to go along on one of these so-called adventures, which will more than likely end badly. Now, in the case of Unknown Island, this dilemma is made trickier by the adventurer in question dragging along his poor fiancé to an uncharted island for what must be the worst pre-honeymoon in history.

Who exactly would bring their fiancé on a trip to an uncharted island that is believed to be inhabited by dinosaurs? This question is the plot of Unknown Island which kicks off when Ted Osborne (Phillip Reed) brings his fiancée Carole (Virginia Grey) to a local watering hole in Singapore, a dive populated by your basic riffraff and criminals, and they are there to find Captain Tarnowski (Barton MacLane) a gruff and no-nonsense seaman who they hope will allow them to charter his ship in their search of a “Dinosaur Island” that Ted claims to have seen while a pilot during WWII. Tarnowski is initially reticent to take on such a charter, as it sounds like a plan by a lunatic, but when Osborne shows him a photo that could actually be a dinosaur he changes his tune, that, and the fact that Osborne’s story jibes with that of John Fairbanks (Richard Denning) a man who claims to have been shipwrecked on an island full of prehistoric beasts.

“Have you heard of Kong?”

Unfortunately, Fairbanks isn’t interested in returning to the island where he witnessed his friends being torn apart by prehistoric monsters, stating that “I’d blow my brains out first before I’d go back to that island” but this doesn’t deter Tarnowski who just orders his First Mate (Dick Wessel) to shanghai the poor man and set sail the next night. Sure, bringing along a man who is using alcohol to wipe out the terrors he witnessed may seem like a bad idea, but things get even worse as we discover that Tarnowski is keeping their destination secret from the crew, a superstitious lot of natives and who make up the bulk of the crew, and once they find out they immediately decide that mutiny is a better option then visiting a taboo island inhabited by forbidden beasts, citing such rhetoric as “If we die, we must see the blood of our master” but the mutiny is quickly quelled by Tarnowski, who actually gives them back their knives stating, “If they try that again they’ll be shark bait for they’re a day older.”  Which one has to admit is rather badass, if a bit psychotic.

Shark bait or dinosaur bait, basically these guys are screwed.

The only real sensible person in the group turns out to be Fairbanks, who now sober becomes the voice of reason and is more interested in seeing the bastard Tarnowski get what’s coming to him as he informs the captain that “I’ve changed my mind, I think I’ll go along, I want to hear you when you start screaming.” When they eventually spot the island our brave band of “heroes” row ashore and quickly set up camp, despite seeing with their own eyes that dinosaurs such as Brontosaurus, Dimetrodon and Tyrannosaurus Rex are roaming freely all over the island. Needless to say, things do not go well for the group as we’ve got Osborne focusing on the fame and fortune he’ll achieve with photographic proof of living dinosaurs, the fact that this expedition was funded by his fiancé could be a factor as to why he becomes so obsessed with making a name for himself, and with Tarnowski going mad with jungle fever and putting everyone’s life in jeopardy with his insane desire to capture one of these prehistoric monsters alive things get worse and worse, oh, and he also tries to sexual assault poor Carole.

That he meets his end via a Giant Sloth is a bit of poetic justice.

Stray Observations:

• The island is described as ten miles square which isn’t big enough to support much in the way of animal life let alone creatures as large as dinosaurs.
• As proof that there is an island full of dinosaurs Osborne shows Captain Tarnowski a photo he took from his plane but the picture he displays looks like a child simply drawing a T-Rex with a crayon on top of a photograph.
• Actor Richard Denning knows enough to avoid monsters having starred in The Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Black Scorpion.
• Ray “Crash” Corrigan plays the Giant Sloth in this movie which was only slight a departure from playing a gorilla in Tarzan and His Mate and an “orangopoid” in the first Flash Gordon serial.
• This movie does get bonus points for not gluing fins to the back of some poor iguana to make a dinosaur, the puppets and dino-suites they created may have looked a bit goofy but at least it wasn’t animal cruelty.

This dinosaur comes SPCA-approved.

The dinosaurs on display in Unknown Island may have been goofy looking but the screenplay by Robert T. Shannon has a collection of well-rounded characters that you rarely find in films of this calibre, we’ve got adventure-seeker Ted Osborne who is more interested in proving dinosaurs exist “In the name of science” while not caring who dies in the process, including his fiancé who he doesn’t even seem all that concerned about when she is kidnapped by the crazed Captain, as for Captain Tarnowski himself, well he goes from being simply a two-fisted bar fighter and a man who can easily break up a mutiny, to a sexual predator who becomes obsessed with bringing back alive one of the dinosaurs, and finally we have John Fairbanks as the one pragmatic man in the cast, he had no desire to go to the island in the first place and once there is all about getting Carole out of danger. The only real weak character in the cast is that of Carole herself who is nothing more than your typical damsel in distress, that she actually kills a dinosaur is one of the most surprising moments in the script and she does provide the film with a bit of romance to help pad out its meagre 72-minute running time, but it’s as predictable as one might expect.

Who can’t love a film with these guys lumbering around?

Basically, Unknown Island was a well-crafted “lost world” movie that is not only populated by a variety of cool if silly-looking dinosaurs it also has a cast of characters that are far beyond what you often find in a low-budget adventure film of this type, which goes to prove that even with little money a good script and can make up for a lot, and Shannon’s screenplay is ably aided by a talented cast of actors who all do excellent work here, with Barton MacLane and Richard Denning providing especially standout performances, and even the low-rent dinosaurs on display have their own special charm. If you are a fan of dinosaur movies this one is a fun adventure film that is worth hunting down and checking out.