The Lost World (Special Edition) - 1960 & 1925 versions
by Irwin Allen
from Fox Home Entertainment
The Lost World (Special Edition) is a terrific two-fer that includes Irwin Allen's glossy, 1960 adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's novel as well as the fantastic, 1925 silent version of the same story. In essence, The Lost World is Doyle's tale of an expedition to a mysterious plateau deep in the Amazon rainforest, where cantankerous adventurer Professor Challenger leads an expedition to prove the existence of prehistoric creatures living far from the civilized world. Allen's film, as with his many movie and television productions focusing on disasters (The Poseidon Adventure) and science fiction (Land of the Giants), is full of relationship complications within a large ensemble of characters, creating drama and tension even before terror strikes. An attractive cast including Claude Rains as Challenger, Michael Rennie, David Hedison, Jill St. John, and Fernando Lamas makes Allen's The Lost World fun to watch, especially if one self-consciously overlooks the cast's persistently clean and pressed wardrobe (and perfect hair) despite the jungle heat and assaults by cannibals.
Part of the film's charm is also its most ludicrous element: "dinosaurs" played by various, wriggling tropical lizards, a far cry from the stop-motion animation creatures--that actually look like dinosaurs--in Harry O. Hoyt's amazing take on The Lost World 35 years before Allen's. An impressive spectacle that conveys a certain beautiful wildness, the film stars Wallace Beery as an imposing Challenger, trapped with his team on the aforementioned plateau. In constant danger from carnivorous monsters (as well as flesh-eating monkey-men), the group's relationship strains have greater poignancy and the stakes seem higher all around. Where Allen's film is lulling, Hoyt's is galvanizing, but each is unique and well worth a visit. --Tom Keogh
An eccentric scientist (Claude Rains) returns from the Amazon with news of a distant plateau where creatures from the dawn of time still prowl the jungle. To prove his story, he gathers a team of explorers, including a journalist (David Hedison), a playboy-adventurer )Michael Rennie), a beautiful socialite (Jill St. John), and a pilot (Fernando Lamas) with a secret plan of revenge. But an unexpected attack on their camp leaves the group stranded in a world of dinosaurs and other exotic creatures, where humans are no longer the lords of the earth¿they are helpless prey.
Lost in Space - The Complete First Season
by Jus Addiss
from CBS Television
Lost in Space began life in 1965 as a science-fiction take on The Swiss Family Robinson. Produced by Irwin Allen, then in the midst of his run of spectacular-but-childish TV sci-fi (before he became the master of big-screen disaster movies), the show featured a family of all-American space colonists cast away on a mysterious planet. Gradually the whole thing devolved into a silly (but sometimes fun) exercise in childish camp. This boxed set includes all 29 black and white episodes from the first season (with a burst of color at the end of the last show--a foretaste of the garish look of the remaining two seasons) along with "No Place to Hide," the expensive pilot show that sold the series but prompted Allen to revamp the whole premise in comic mode when network execs responded best to its unintended humor.
"No Place to Hide" has action scenes that cropped up in the first six regular episodes but is missing several of the show's trademark aspects, most notably that infectious theme from Johnny Williams (later, John Williams of Star Wars fame) and the scheming presence of Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris) and his alternately menacing and comical robot ("It does not compute"). As the series progresses (or degenerates, depending on your taste), Harris's Smith changes from pantomime villain, a saboteur who is trying to kill the family, into pantomime idiot whose foolishness, cowardice, and avarice are an endless source of plots. It mostly makes do with the regular cast plus an array of shaggy-suited, snarling aliens, but you do get sterling ham from visiting astronauts such as Warren Oates ("Welcome Stranger"), Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet ("War of the Robots"), and a very young Kurt Russell ("The Challenge"). Stories about surviving on an alien world give way to lifts from fairy tale, myth, and old movies as Smith gets hold of a wishing cap, becomes a giant, is chosen as a sacrificial king, turns the children over to an alien zoo, squeaks in fright as a werewolf approaches, or is cursed with a platinum Midas touch. --Kim Newman
Season 1 of the 1965 sci-fi favorite.
Lost in Space - Season 3, Vol. 2
by Jus Addiss
from CBS Television
It's the third and final season of the far-out tales of TV's most lovable space crew! Complete your mission with these intergalactic adventures! Join in as the Jupiter 2 crew attempts to finally return home to Earth, with more help from the wily Robot B-9, more antics from master meddler Dr. Zachary Smith, and of course, more "Danger, Will Robinson!" Along with out-of-this-world extras not available anywhere else, this collectable DVD installment of Irwin Allen's LOST IN SPACE presents the final 9 episodes of America's favorite space family.
Lost in Space - Season 3, Vol. 1
by Jus Addiss
from CBS Television
Irwin Allen's LOST IN SPACE is classic sci-fi adventure at its best. Take the journey to this inspiring, intergalactic space odyssey with America's favorite space family in the 60's TV classic - LOST IN SPACE!
Continue your collection with the first volume of LOST IN SPACE SEASON 3 on DVD today! Watch for LOST IN SPACE SEASON 3 VOLUME 2 coming in June 2005.
Lost in Space - Season 2, Vol. 2
by Jus Addiss
from CBS Television
As its second season progressed, and as these 14 episodes from 1967 attest, Lost in Space continued to swap science fiction for comic fantasy, and the show's ratings went into orbit. While Star Trek satisfied a smaller audience of serious sci-fi fans on NBC, Lost in Space (airing Wednesday nights on CBS) delighted a younger audience with the cheesy adventures of "Space Family Robinson," stranded on an isolated planet that nevertheless played host to an abundance of alien visitors. Here they include operatic Vikings, a disembodied mechanical head, a spacefaring buccaneer, a Scottish bagpiper in a haunted castle, and, in the deliriously entertaining episode "Revolt of the Androids," a silver-painted super-being whose primary purpose is to "Crush...Kill...Destroy!!" It's all harmless family fun, offering equal amounts of tongue-in-cheek whimsy and some scary highlights that kids, then and now, will find instantly unforgettable.
Yes, it all looks quaint and innocent by present-day standards, and it's painfully obvious that series creator Irwin Allen didn't know what to do with the Robinson clan, a wooden variant of Ozzie & Harriett in V-necked velour, with June Lockhart playing happy homemaker while patriarch Guy Williams spent most of his time repairing damaged equipment. It's just as well, since season 2 is dominated by the scene-stealing duo of Dr. Smith (played by Jonathan Harris in the role he was born to play) and the sarcastic Robot B-9, who plays a scolding R2D2 to Harris's duplicitous, flamboyantly feckless C3PO, the latter delivering alliterative insults (like "you ingot of ingratitude!" and "you nickel-plated nincompoop!") in virtually every episode. Guest stars like Albert Salmi, Al "Grandpa Munster" Lewis, and John Carradine are in on the game, adding weekly flavor to a series that shares much in common with such later kid-stuff as H.R. Pufnstuf and Land of the Lost. Some may find it hopelessly ridiculous in retrospect, but Lost in Space still offers fun aplenty for those who enjoy its anything-goes approach to low-budget fantasy for the young and young-at-heart. Unfortunately for devoted fans, vintage 1966 radio interviews with Lockhart, Williams, and Harris are the only extras in this well-mastered four-disc set. --Jeff Shannon
The Towering Inferno (Special Edition)
by Irwin Allen
from 20th Century Fox
A dedication ceremony at the world's tallest skyscraper turns into a high-rise catastrophe when a defective wire in its systems-control panel causes an electrical flare-up. Within minutes the gala event turns into a hellish inferno as a raging fire traps society's most prominent citizens on the top floor. Winner of three Academy Awards this sepctacular suspense thriller features dazzling special effects and a star studded cast including Paul Newman Steve McQueen William Holden and Faye Dunaway.System Requirements:Running Time: 335 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: PG UPC: 024543231707 Manufacturer No: 2233171
Disaster movies used to work because there was little certainty as to who would survive. Not so in this film, really an amalgam of two original stories, about a group of well-to-do celebrants at the top floor of a skyscraper. Cheapo electrical wiring and bad construction management cause an enormous blaze at the lower floors, steadily rising to consume the revelers. Newman's an architect, McQueen a firefighter, and Fred Astaire a kind old gentleman, for which he was Oscar-nominated. O.J. Simpson plays a security guard who rescues a cat. Now that's a disaster. --Keith Simanton
Lost in Space - Season 2, Vol. 1
by Jus Addiss
from CBS Television
While Lost in Space may never enter the pantheon of great television programming, the 1960s sci-fi show certainly has its charms, all of them in evidence on this first volume of episodes from the second season. Produced by Irwin Allen, who would later be responsible for blockbuster disaster films like The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure, these 16 episodes from 1966-67 (spread out over four DVDs) find the show undergoing some changes, both technically (from black & white into color) and in terms of tone (more campy and tongue-in-cheek, especially as the season goes on). The latter is due in large part to the performance of Jonathan Harris as Dr. Zachary Smith, who puts the "arch" in archvillain (it was his meddling that got them all lost in the first place). Harris's portrayal of Smith as cowardly, duplicitous, pompous, and not a little fey often goes right over the top, but the other characters (including Guy Williams as Prof. John Robinson, June Lockhart as his wife Maureen, and young Bill Mumy as Will) are so bland and generic that Harris, the family robot, and guest stars like Strother Martin and Wally Cox offer the only available relief.
The Lost in Space storylines are predictable (almost always involving some alien-related jeopardy prompted by Smith's greed and foolishness) and the special effects and production values won't excite anyone used to the wonders of the digital age. Still, this is television, where budgets are smaller and schedules much tighter, so lowered expectations are in order anyway. Some users may feel shortchanged by the absence of extra features, or by the fact that the set doesn't include the entire season (the second part is available separately). But the transfers are good and the DVD menus easily navigable. But on the whole Lost in Space devotees--and there are many of them--should be well satisfied. --Sam Graham
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (Global Warming Edition)
by Irwin Allen
from 20th Century Fox
On its maiden voyage the crew of the Seaview discovers a radiation belt has caught fire and they must battle enemy ships and a giant squid to launch a missile from an exact location to send the radiation into space to save the planet.
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: NR
Release Date: 5-JUN-2007
Media Type: DVD
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea gets a dose of On the Beach in Irwin Allen's visually impressive but scientifically silly Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. While the Seaview, the world's most advanced experimental submarine, maneuvers under the North Pole, the Van Allen radiation belt catches fire, giving the concept "global warming" an entirely new dimension. As the Earth broils in temperatures approaching 170 degrees F, Walter Pidgeon's maniacally driven Admiral Nelson hijacks the Seaview and plays tag with the world's combined naval forces on a race to the South Pacific, where he plans to extinguish the interstellar fire with a well-placed nuclear missile. But first he has to fight a mutinous crew, an alarmingly effective saboteur, not one but two giant squid attacks, and a host of design flaws that nearly cripple the mission (note to Nelson: think backup generators). Barbara Eden shimmies to Frankie Avalon's trumpet solos in the most formfitting naval uniform you've ever seen, fish-loving Peter Lorre plays in the shark tank, gloomy religious fanatic Michael Ansara preaches Armageddon, and Joan Fontaine looks very uncomfortable playing an armchair psychoanalyst. It's all pretty absurd, but Allen pumps it up with larger-than-life spectacle and lovely miniature work. --Sean Axmaker
The Towering Inferno
by Irwin Allen
from 20th Century Fox
Disaster movies used to work because there was little certainty as to who would survive. Not so in this film, really an amalgam of two original stories, about a group of well-to-do celebrants at the top floor of a skyscraper. Cheapo electrical wiring and bad construction management cause an enormous blaze at the lower floors, steadily rising to consume the revelers. Newman's an architect, McQueen a firefighter, and Fred Astaire a kind old gentleman, for which he was Oscar-nominated. O.J. Simpson plays a security guard who rescues a cat. Now that's a disaster. --Keith Simanton
Beyond the Poseidon Adventure
by Irwin Allen
from Warner Home Video
A monstrous tidal has left the luxury liner Poseidon capsized mid-ocean and its few survivors struggling to reach safety in an upside-down world. But The Poseidon Adventure was only the thrilling start. You must go Beyond the Poseidon Adventure to complete the white-knuckle suspense. Under producer/director Irwin Allen Michael Caine and Sally Field head an all-star cast caught in the crippled craft's flaming corridors and bursting bulwarks. Tug skipper Caine first mate Karl Malden and passenger Field enter the foundering vessel hoping for salvage rights miraclulously finding more survivors. But others have come aboard led by sinister Dr. Stefan Svevo (Telly Savalas). He wants a priceless cargo of plutonium - and will kill for his plunder!Running Time: 114 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569751644 Manufacturer No: 75164
When Maureen McGovern sang the torchy hit "The Morning After" in the original Poseidon Adventure, this probably wasn't what she had in mind. But for viewers, this post-disaster disaster film--which takes place immediately after the original Poseidon capsized--is fearlessly campy and surprisingly entertaining. As per the recipe for '70s catastrophe movies, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (directed and produced by the original's Irwin Allen) boasts a top-notch ensemble cast. Michael Caine is the crusty, opportunistic tug captain who comes across the wreck of the Poseidon and immediately declares, "Salvage! Salvage is our salvation." Along for the ride on Caine's tug are Karl Malden and a still ingénue-ish Sally Field. They meet up mid-ocean with the suave doctor/rescuer Telly Savalas, who may not be all he says he is. And inside the wreck, incredibly, there are survivors. The film may follow a fairly predictable formula by this time (1979), but it's fun nonetheless. The effects are just right, there's plenty of treachery and tension to keep things moving along merrily, and the capsizing of the boat means the set consists of upside-down ship innards (blessedly, this also means the shag carpeting is on the ceiling, rarely seen). Families and couples are wrenched apart, unscrupulous bastards reveal hearts of gold, and the plucky ones (almost) always survive. Among the rest of the cast are Shirley Jones as the Poseidon's nurse, Peter Boyle as a passenger and concerned dad, and a baby-faced Mark Harmon as a farming kid from "back home" in Iowa, cute as the early-years Beatles. Extras include a vintage making-of featurette (perms! elephant bells!) and a montage of the era's disaster-film trailers, a movie-buff time capsule in itself. --A.T. Hurley
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