Michael Rennie - Lord John Roxton
Jill St. John - Jennifer Holmes
David Hedison - Ed Malone
Claude Rains - Professor Challenger
Fernando Lamas - Manuel Gomez
Vitina Marcus - Native Girl
Produced by Irwin Allen
Directed by Irwin Allen
Written by Irwin Allen and Charles Bennett,
based on the book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Costume Design by Paul Zastupnevich
Special Photographic Effects by L.B. Abbott
US Release - July 1960
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I had met with Irwin Allen and he liked me a
lot. Then I read the script and thought, "I don't want to do
this. Jill St. John in pink tights and that silly little dog and …"
There was no reality to any of it. It started out interestingly
enough, but then we got into the dinosaurs and all that …
But I had already talked to this one and to that one and I really did not want
to go on suspension. (what happened to uncooperative contract
players in those days)
They did have a very good cast. Good people like Claude Rains and
Michael Rennie. If they were going to do it, I’d join the team. So I
did it, and I was very unhappy making this film. I had read the novel in
school but it had really changed a lot in our script. It might have
worked better as a period piece, but the budget wasn’t there to do
that, I guess.
It was shot entirely on the Fox lot, which was then a huge lot. The
jungle was all on the back lot -- in fact, the whole film was shot
on the lot. The cave was a set which I think was used in an early
film, Journey to the Center of the Earth. Fox would always recycle
their sets and redress them so they would look like another set.
 I enjoyed working with Claude Rains. He would let me visit with him
in his dressing Room and bombard him with questions as to what it
was like working at Warner Brothers in the 1940’s. Warner’s was my
favorite movie studio growing up. I loved all of those actors -
James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet,
Betty Davis and Ida Lupino; Max Steiner and Franz Waxman…
In 1956 when I was getting all kinds of
offers for screen tests, I was very disappointed that it narrowed
down to Fox. I had always dreamed of being with Warner Bros. Rains
would tell me great stories of those days so I kept talking to him.
He was wonderful, a terrific actor, and didn't seem to mind at all.
The 1960 actor strike was called in the middle of the picture, so we
had to work long hours after the strike to get the picture over with
so it could be released by a certain date. The strike didn't affect
me because I was under contract, but some of the other actors were
not being paid during the strike and didn’t get paid until we
resumed production.
Irwin Allen sent me out on tour to plug the film, a little junket. I
don’t think I’ve seen the entire film. I’ve seen parts of it, but I
don't like to watch myself. I'll put on the TV and it will be on and
I'll stand there and watch for about for about five minutes and then
I flip it off. People seem to like it, but it's never been a
favorite of mine.
David Hedison
Science Fiction Confidential 2002
COURTESY OF DAVID HEDISON
According to
the New York Times, at the start of production in
mid- February 1960 David was signed to work with
co-stars Clifton Webb, Orson Welles and Robert Morley in
THE LOST WORLD.
Obviously that casting didn't last long. |
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Recycling, Irwin
Allen style....
      
In the first season episode "Turn Back the Clock"
of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Captain Crane suddenly
changes from his standard uniform to a stylish khaki jumpsuit and
neckerchief before entering the bathysphere. No explanation for this
is offered onscreen, but the reason was simple - Irwin Allen was
going to use footage from Lost World and Captain Crane's
outfit needed to match Ed Malone's costume to reuse the scenes of Ed
and Jennifer being menaced by dinosaurs as the same scenes with Lee
Crane and Carol Denning (Yvonne Craig )!
By this same tight focus on the bottom line,
Irwin reused the Vitina Marcus chase scene from Lost World, bringing Vitina to the studio in the same costume for
the episode (But still no name for the poor lovesick native).
The dinosaurs would also return for the second
season episode "Terror on Dinosaur Island" to menace Admiral Nelson
and Chief Sharkey.
And to make sure he got his money's worth from
her wardrobe, Vitina would return again in "Return of the Phantom"
at the end of the second season, as a Polynesian dancer who is
identical to Krueger's lost love Lani and therefore must die so Lani
can live again. |
For the Dinosaur fight we used a
Cayman alligator from the Caribbean and a monitor lizard
from Singapore. They were about matched for size.
We dressed the reptiles in foam rubber to produce the
prehistoric effect. The gecko played it straight.
