Atlantis: The Lost Continent (1961)

(On Cable TV, April 2020) After several spectacular science fiction films, legendary director-producer George Pal goes back in time to Atlantean mythology in Atlantis: The Lost Continent, which purports to tell the Greek-classics-inspired story of how Atlantis was destroyed. Before we get there, however, our Greek hero must travel to Atlantis, witness its retro-science fictional technology, experience its sword-and-sandal excesses (sometimes via stock footage from other films) and then run away as the third act’s climactic destruction sequence wows audiences. But what may have looked like a nice change of pace on paper ends up considerably blander than expected. It feels less like a Pal spectacle than a Hollywood-on-the-Tiber epic with funny hats. Fortunately, the film gets better as it makes its way to the expected third-act ending destruction sequence with landscape-altering earthquakes and lava flows. The rest, unfortunately, is surprisingly dull—and ludicrous at times, starting with some very bad science. Clearly, Atlantis: The Lost Continent is not the best known of Pal movies, and understandably so: despite the different setting, it lacks that spark that made his other films special. Alas, the rest of his filmography wouldn’t get any better—the 1950s were truly his best decade, and this is the film that would announce his downward path.