Island of Lost Women (1959)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Absolutely brilliant

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

I have to admit that I was looking forward to watching "Island of Lost Women". The 1950s and 1960 were full of movies about lost women missing male companionship (like "Queen of Outer Space"), and a lot of them were frequently and unintentionally hilarious. I thought I would be in store for more of the same. Also, the fact that a major Hollywood studio picked up this independently made feature interested me. But after watching the movie, I wonder why the studio in question thought this was worthy. The low budget is pretty evident throughout, for one thing. As for if the movie is unintentionally funny, for the most part it isn't. There are some chuckles here and there, but the characters are somewhat smarter and less dopey than usual, so they don't do many things that would be considered unintentionally funny. And the story unfolds not only at a pretty uneventful pace for the most part, what happens in the climax is telegraphed early on, so there is no surprise when it happens. A pretty disappointing quickie.

ISLAND OF LOST WOMEN – 1959This low budget film seems to have been a make work project for several of Alan Ladd's friends. Produced by Ladd's "Jaguar Productions", it employs veteran director Frank Tuttle and cinematographer John F.Seitz. Tuttle directed Ladd in his breakout role, THIS GUN FOR HIRE and worked with Ladd on several other films. Director of photography Seitz was the cinematographer on an even two dozen Ladd films. Anyways, to get back to the film, a couple of men, pilot, John Smith and reporter, Jeff Richards, are lost. They were flying to Australia in a small two engine aircraft. They ran into a storm and were thrown off course. Now they are having trouble with the aircraft and are running low on fuel.They see an island and head for it. Suddenly a voice booms out of their radio, "Turn back, do not land!" Smith and Richards though have no choice and land the aircraft on the beach. While taking a quick look around, the pair are approached by a man. The fellow, Alan Napier tells them to take off as it is a private island. After a few words are exchanged, Richards and Smith promise to leave as soon as they repair the aircraft. Now out of the jungle pop three babes in short shirts. The girls, Venetia Stevenson, June Blair and Diane Jergens are the daughters of Napier.The boys, Smith and Richards are invited back to Napier's underground home for dinner. Reporter Richards soon gets the story of who these people are. Napier was an atomic science specialist who had worked on the Manhattan Project. After seeing the power of the bomb, he had grabbed his wife and three small daughters and vanished. He had then set up a lab and a home for them on this uncharted island. The wife has since died and the daughters are now grown up. Needless to say they have never seen a man other than their father, Napier. Napier now decides it would be better if the two men stayed, so he destroys their aircraft. He does not want word of his location known.Needless to say, the girls fall for the two lugs. They now plan on building a raft and leaving the island. Of course the girls also want to see the outside world. The very world Napier wants to shield them from.Napier has managed to build himself an atomic reactor on the Island. Of course there is now an accident which causes an overload. Everyone scurries down to the beach and hides behind a few rocks. BOOM! (Thank goodness for those rocks shielding them from the radioactive dust) The government notices the blast and send aircraft to investigate. Everyone is rescued and returned to civilization. This film is nowhere near as bad as I make it sound. It does have that certain charm that some of these low budget quickies have. The look of the film is quite good, which it should be with Tuttle and Seitz handling the camera-work. All in all, it will kill a rainy day when you have an hour and bit to kill. Miss Stevenson was the daughter of actress Anna Lee and director Robert Stevenson. Noir fans know Stevenson as the director of, TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, THE WOMAN ON PIER 13, WALK SOFTLY STRANGER and LAS VEGAS STORY.

This movie is one of the B&W semi-horror films of the 50's and early 60's. Granted, the premise is totally absurd.....2 hunka hunka's running around an island with 3 babe-a-licious honeys and not one case of hanky-panky? The guys seemed more interested in each other and themselves -- swimming in those horrid 1950's spandex trunks (is that a potato in your swimwear or are you just happy to see me?), rubbing lotion on each other's backs, reminiscing about close friendships, --- hmmm --- maybe this should have been called "BROKEBACK ISLAND?" I liked the movie although it is totally predictable. I DID keep waiting for Godzilla or some other camera enlarged creature to come around and scare the swimwear off the guys, (looks like the girls would have defended the island against the killer beast while the boys were screaming little pansies scampering off into the forest), but no monster. Heck, enjoy it for what it's worth, a piece of B&W film history.

It's not just the plot or the bad acting. It's not even the cheesy sets. It's the incredibly bad flamenco guitar soundtrack. One simply cannot imagine the overall effect, with the swimsuit-clad actresses cavorting amongst the potted plants, with the off-key, amateurish flamenco guitar. There must be a story there...