The Lost World (1925)

Truly Dreadful Film

Thanks for the memories!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is a superbly cast and well acted sci-fi adventure yarn based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's sci-fi fantasy of the same name. The main draws of this silent film are a well integrated cast of fine actors, all working with much chemistry with one another; and of course, Willis O'Brien's once-famous stop motion special effects where the dinosaurs tear at each other in several scenes (most quite short though). Of course the special effects now seem quite primitive, but during its time it was trailblazing, and some of it still works quite work, and without O'Brien's creative works the movie would never come into fruition.The movie had been subjected to cuts and has only been quite recently restored and re-edited to about 110 minutes of length which is as close as the original version as we could possibly see in the 21st century. The first one-third of the film, where human interests prevail and when the main characters are introduced, are expertly done. The main characters, the irascible Professor Challenger (Wallace Beery), the young, dauntless reporter Malone (Lloyd Hughes), damsel in distress Paula White (Bessie Love) and suave gentleman gamehunter Sir John Roxton (Lewis Stone), could hardly been bettered.Some people might be less interested in adventure and sci fi fantasy and might find the human interest ebb away after the party lands in Brazil and the Amazon. That is when O'Brien's stop motion animation takes over. Admittedly some of them may seem a bit primitive compared to the CGI we see in, say, "Jurassic Park". But taken in the context of the period many of the special effects are still quite amazing, not to say possessing much quaint cuteness to it.Sad to say I watched the older 93 minutes cut of the film but it still made an impression as a silent film classic, particularly the last reel when the Brontosaurus escapes to rampage London, prefiguring the apocalyptic scenes of "King Kong" six years later.

I knew that movie is great and this helped Willis O'Brien be hired to work on the original KING KONG. This is the first adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel. What caused me to watch this movie was that there was this episode of MUPPET BABIES called "Out of this World History." In that episode, there were clips from the 1925 version THE LOST WORLD. I was seven years old. This was out of the ordinary. I couldn't identify the movie until I was nine or then years old when I read the book "When Dinosaur s Ruled the Screen" by Mark Shapiro. This was the book that inspired be to track down monster movies. What makes this extraordinary was because nobody in 1925 never seen a dinosaur before. Even for people who saw scenes from this movie for the first time in the years that followed the release of the 1925 classic never seen anything like it. The dinosaurs were made by Willis O'Brien and Marcel Delgado and animated by Obie and Joseph L. Roop (who would later do the parody, THE LOST WHIRL from 1926). Clips of this show were featured in other TV shows and commercials in the 80's and 90's because it is in the public domain. However, as of 2017, a new version of the film came out with a longer length and never before seen footage. There is no word weather the new version is copyrighted or not. Give it a watch and spread the word. If you think black and white (silent) movies are boring, guess again. Not rated, but a PG would work despite the violence and blood courtesy of the stop-motion dinosaurs. The brontosaurus attacking London might scare the kiddies.

This version greatly improves upon the previous Image Entertainment DVD release. Not only is it a new HD film scan masterfully done by Lobster Films in Paris, but there are many special features, including a new stereo orchestral score by Robert Israel, deleted scenes, a couple of short films directed by special effects master Willis O'Brien, an image gallery and a booklet chronicling the restoration of this important film that made the classic King Kong possible.

I love silent films, and I have really enjoyed this one. But, that's not the point. Now, I was a really small fragments of this film as a kid, and I keep asked myself, "where can I find this film?" thanks to internet, I found it, and it was really a pleasure. The film is based upon Arthur Conan Doyle's famous novel, which was adapted more than once, but I think this version is the best. I also think that it presents a complete realization about a subject that is acceptable and attractive even today.It is a story about an island, past this world, a large plateau in South America that is filled with dinosaurs and all other prehistoric things. And it was founded by fierce professor Challenger (played by brilliant Wallace Beery), who returns with the expedition to do research and document.From my perspective, the movie ending is very significant in the history of cinema. Challenger brought a large Brontosaurus in London which escapes and started a riot in the town. And remember, this was before King Kong and Godzilla. King Kong and Godzilla, eat your heart out, Brontosaurus beat you to it! The special effects, for which I think that they were of great importance, were very good, that stop motion was always cool. Oh, and there's also the first usage of combination of animated and live-motion picture material. Awesome... Now, today there are not a lot of people who would watch silent films, but for those who are fans and who enjoy it, don't miss this.