The Island of the Lost
About The Island of the Lost
Professor McClelland, played by Erich Kaiser-Titz, keeps a laboratory on an empty island and works, with his assistant Fung-Lu, at making new creatures by grafts on animals. He wants an artificial human and needs a human heart. A young woman is brought to the island for that. Dr. Robert Marston, played by Alf Blütecher, and his friend Dr. Ted Fowlen come after her. The island also holds a buyer of monsters for Barnum & Bailey, and the things already made in the workshop.
Cast & crew
More about The Island of the Lost
Urban Gad directed this loose, unauthorized film of H. G. Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau. Wells is said not to have known it existed. Willy Hameister photographed. Robert A. Dietrich designed the sets. A Lichtbild-Bühne notice of 3 December 1921 calls it a Corona film and reports the premiere at the Terra-Theater. Censorship certificate B.04757, 19 November 1921, with a youth ban. Premiere 21 November 1921. Original length 2,128 metres. Wikipedia lists 90 minutes. Wikidata lists 78. Terra Film is the distributor on the Wikidata record. Hanni Weisse plays Jane Crawford, Marston's former fiancée. Ludmilla Hell plays Evelyn Wilkinson. Nien Tso Ling plays Fung-Lu. Hans Behrendt plays Pat Quickly, the monster buyer. Umberto Guarracino plays a product of the workshop. Louis Brody plays the king of the island. Desdemona Schlichting is billed as a last survivor.
Themes
Making
Gad staged Wells's island story without the author's consent, which was a common practice in European silent production. Murnau's Der Januskopf and Nosferatu are the examples usually set beside it.
Reviews
Lichtbild-Bühne of 3 December 1921 said the story is fantastic, that a good dose of humor is mixed in, and that the events are not always logical. It credited Gad with taste and cleanliness, singled out Kaiser-Titz, and called Hameister's photography satisfactory.
Look
Willy Hameister photographed the island laboratory. Lichtbild-Bühne called the photography satisfactory.
Preservation
A print is at the Bundesarchiv in Berlin. It was treated as lost before that copy surfaced. Another copy is on the Internet Archive.
Notes
- The German title is Die Insel der Verschollenen.
- A 1913 film, The Island of Terror, had already used the Wells novel.
- Lichtbild-Bühne says Fung-Lu is kept on the island by an opium dependence.
- The novel's doctor is Moreau. This film names the scientist McClelland.
- A print at the Bundesarchiv in Berlin was shown in the United States for the first time at a Monster Bash convention in 2014.
Scenes
- McClelland's workshop already holds a creature made there, played by Umberto Guarracino.
- Marston's party reaches the island after the woman taken for the experiment.
Influenced by
- The Island of Doctor Moreau
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-the-island-of-the-lost)
