The Lost World
About The Lost World
Paula White brings her father Maple White's dinosaur sketches to Professor Challenger in London. The Zoological Society jeers, a newspaper funds a rescue expedition, and Challenger sets out with Paula, Sir John Roxton, reporter Edward Malone, and Professor Summerlee. A brontosaurus knocks down their tree bridge on a South American plateau. They fight an allosaurus and an ape-man, then climb out during a volcanic stampede. Challenger ships a live brontosaurus to London. It breaks loose near Tower Bridge, wrecks the streets, and swims off down the Thames. Malone, whose fiancée has married someone else, leaves with Paula.
Cast & crew
More about The Lost World
Earl Hudson produced it for First National, with Walter R. Rothacker also credited as producer. Willis H. O'Brien was technical director. The dinosaur models followed Charles R. Knight's paintings and were animated in stop-motion, then combined with the actors. The original release ran 9,700 feet, about ten reels.
Themes
Background
Doyle's novel had been serialized in The Strand Magazine in 1912. First National opened the film at the Astor Theatre in New York on February 8, 1925.
In film history
O'Brien's plateau animals led directly into the ape and dinosaur work on King Kong (1933). Michael Crichton used Doyle's title for the sequel novel to Jurassic Park. The Library of Congress placed the film on the National Film Registry in 1998.
Making
Marion Fairfax adapted Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel. George McGuire edited. O'Brien had already animated a dinosaur for The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918). Early composite shots used a split screen; later shots put models and actors in the same frame.
Reviews
In White Wolf Inphobia no. 56 (June 1995), James Lowder wrote that the real stars were O'Brien's dinosaurs and singled out the stampede and the brontosaurus in the city.
Look
Arthur Edeson photographed the live action. The George Eastman Museum restoration replicates the original tinting with the Desmet method.
Technique
It was the first American feature built around stop-motion model animation as the main effect. The Eastman Museum lists the original at 9,700 feet (108 minutes at the speed they cite) and its own restoration at 6,796 feet, about 100 minutes.
Music
Silent on release. The 2017 Flicker Alley Blu-ray carries a new orchestral score by Robert Israel.
Preservation
The George Eastman Museum restored a tinted version under Edward E. Stratmann, with funding that included the National Endowment for the Arts and Hugh M. Hefner. In 2016 Lobster Films and Blackhawk Films made a 2K restoration, adding about eight minutes, issued by Flicker Alley in 2017 and dedicated to David Shepard. The Library of Congress selected it for the National Film Registry in 1998.
Notes
- Arthur Conan Doyle appears in a frontispiece that is missing from some prints.
- In 1922 Doyle showed an O'Brien test reel to the Society of American Magicians, Harry Houdini among them, and would not say how the animals were done.
- In April 1925 Imperial Airways screened it for passengers on a London–Paris flight, on nitrate stock aboard a Handley Page O/400.
- An open sewer behind the MGM studio in Los Angeles stood in for a river in the live-action scenes.
- Effects cameramen on the stop-motion included Homer Scott, J. D. Jennings, Floyd Jackman, and Perry Evans. Fred Jackman was chief technician. Milton Menasco handled art direction.
- Some of the models later went to collector Forrest J Ackerman.
- The United States copyright was not renewed, and the 1925 release entered the public domain on January 1, 1954.
Scenes
- A brontosaurus knocks the tree bridge into the chasm and strands the party.
- Edward Malone drives an allosaurus off the camp with a torch.
- The volcano erupts and the animals stampede.
- The captive brontosaurus breaks loose in London and swims down the Thames.
Influenced by
- Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World
Influenced
- King Kong (1933)
Also available
- Internet Archive (lost_world)
- Flicker Alley Blu-ray (2017)
