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Original Film Script: The Unknown Continent / released as Unknown Island, 1948 ///// Hollywood: Jack Bernard / Film Classics, 1948 Writers: Robert T. Shannon & Jack Harvey ///// Final Shooting Script, March 15, 1948. Director Jack Bernhard s copy, bound in leather with his name in gilt at lower right front cover. Mimeographed on yellow paper with blue revision inserts. With thirty-five 8x10 b/w set stills [photographs] interleaved. Two additional 8x10 b/w photos of cast and director laid in. Unknown Island is a 1948 fantasy/adventure film directed by Jack Bernhard and starring Virginia Grey, Phillip Reed, Barton MacLane and Richard Denning. Often cited as the worst dinosaur movie ever made, once you get past the tacky men-in-rubber-suit dinosaurs and hairy ape suits, it has a good cast, a great atmosphere, and a decent script with well-rounded characters. The script borrows liberally from both The Lost World [1925] and King Kong [1933], particularly the latter, with its uncharted mysterious island, rampaging prehistoric creatures, a damsel in distress, dueling male protagonists, and a crew of vicious, rowdy seamen. ///// Collation: Title page, [1] 2-9, 10-11A [blue], 12-28, 29 [blue], 30, 31-32 [blue], 33 34, 35-35c [blue] 36-38, 30 [blue], 40-51, 52 [blue], 53, 54=55a [blue], 56, 57-58a [blue]59-61, 62-62a [blue], 63-67, 68-70 [blue], 71-82, 83 blue, 84, 85-86 blue, 86-87, 88-0- [blue], 91, 92 [blue], 93-97, 98 [blue] 99-100, 101-103 [blue] 104-107] ///// BONUS: Twenty-five additional 8x10 b/w lobby photographs with release information at bottom only four of the photos are duplicated in the bound script, making 60 different photos in all, with those in the bound script possibly the only copies extant. ///// CONDITION: Text block is Very Good-Near Fine with occasional yellowing at page margins. Inserted photos are all Fine. Covers are fair only with substantial wear to edges and spine, front hinge severely cracked, loss of leather at top and bottom of spine. ///// SCARCE: No other copies of the script currently online; no record of prior sales. Individual lobby stills occasionally appear at auction and on Ebay, but we have found no record of complete sets. A copy of the script, photos, and a manuscript archive are in the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences but we are aware of no other institutional holdings. ///// PLOT: Adventure-seeker Ted Osborne and his fiancée Carole are at a cafe in Singapore, looking for a charter to an island supposedly inhabited by dinosaurs. They retain the two fisted, alcohol-suffering Captain Tarnowski and set off to a Polynesian island, where they encounter numerous dinosaurs, many of them suspiciously looking like actors wobbling along in heavy rubber suits. The dinosaurs attack, our heroes fight them off with guns, grenades and fire but a few of the crew get eaten. The captain decides he is going to capture one of the beasts and bring it back to civilization. All is, set up for a showdown between heroes, villains, and dinosaurs with the requisite damsel in distress in the middle. Also, an epic battle between a dinosaur and a giant sloth , played by stuntman Ray Crash Corrigan. ///// Unknown Island was the first lost world film to be released in color. And, despite the oft-dismissed merits of the film, it jump-started a genre that had laid dormant since Son of Kong was fast-tracked in 1933. [E.g. Two Lost Worlds (1950), Lost Continent (1951] and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953, and Godzilla (1954). ///// Director Jack Bernhard previously directed the noir film Decoy (1946), as well as Sweetheart of Sigma Chi (1946), Violence (1947), Perilous Waters (1948), The Hunted (1948), and Blonde Ice (1948).
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