The Lost World

Every larger-than-life creature feature, from King Kong to Godzilla to Jurassic Park, owes a debt to the original Lost World, the granddaddy of giant monster movies. Based on an adventure fantasy by Arthur Conan Doyle, it's the story of a maverick scientist (Wallace Beery, under a bushy beard) who finds a land that time forgot on a plateau deep within the South American jungles and comes back to London with a captured brontosaur to prove it. His expedition includes Bessie Love, the daughter of an explorer who disappeared on the previous expedition, and big-game hunter Lewis Stone. The ostensible stars of the picture are all upstaged by Willis O'Brien's dinosaurs, simple models brought to life with primitive stop-motion animation. Hardly realistic by any measure, these pioneering special effects are still a sight to behold, especially the lumbering brontosaur (which receives the most care from O'Brien, both foraging in his jungle and rampaging through the streets of London).

The Lost World was truncated for rerelease in the 1930s and the original negative was subsequently lost. David Shepard meticulously "rebuilt" the film using material from eight different surviving prints from all over the world, cleaning and restoring along the way. The result, which is 50 percent longer than previously extant prints, is still not complete but closer than any version since its 1925 debut. The difference is not merely in restored scenes but in a rediscovered sense of grace in scenes filled out to their original detail and pace. The film moves and breathes once again like a silent film.

The disc features the choice of an original, modern score by the Alloy Orchestra and a classic orchestral score compiled and conducted by Robert Israel (both enjoyable and effective), 13 minutes of O'Brien's animation outtakes (including a couple of isolated frames that capture O'Brien manipulating his models), and rudimentary commentary by Arthur Conan Doyle historian Roy Pilot. --Sean Axmaker

Reportedly seven years in the making, this silent adventure based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic 1912 novel was a watershed mark in special effects filmmaking. Willis H. O'Brien's stop-motion work, which would reach near-perfection in King Kong (1933), was much admired in its day and although primitive by modern standards remains visually engaging. So does Wallace Beery, complete with a theatrical beard, as Professor Challenger, whose theory of prehistoric dinosaurs surviving on a secluded plateau in the Amazonian jungle has made him the target of ridicule. Intrepid reporter Ed Malone (Lloyd Hughes) offers the professor a chance to redeem himself, and with Big Game hunter Sir John Roxton (Lewis Stone) and pretty Paula White (Bessie Love) in tow, they are off on a perilous expedition to South America. Paula, who is returning to the jungle in search of her missing scientist father, falls in love with the handsome reporter, much to the chagrin of Sir John. This triangle drama continues up the perilous climb to the plateau where Professor Challenger's theories are terrifyingly substantiated by all kinds of prehistoric fauna. Soon, a flesh-eating Tyranosaurus is attacking a family of more benign Triceratopses right in front of the astounded humans, who also have to contend with an erupting volcano, the dried-up bones of Paula's poor father, and the bizarre spectacle of stunt-man Bull Montana in a gorilla suit. But with the able assistance of a lovesick pet monkey, the expedition not only makes it safely down from the plateau but returns to England complete with a captured brontosaurus. Unfortunately, the beast is soon loose on Piccadilly Circus (where a theater marquee is advertising The Sea Hawk, 1924, also produced by First National), on Tower Bridge, and in sundry other picturesque London locations before apparently drowning in the River Thames. Originally released in 10 reels, The Lost World was cut to the bone in 1930 and it is this 62 minute version that exists today, beautifully restored by the George Eastman House. Missing, however, are subplots involving Alma Bennett as Lloyd Hughes' demanding London fianc, Virginia Brown Faire as a Brazilian half-caste tempting Lewis Stone and a rendezvous with a tribe of cannibals. Left intact, however, are a few uncomfortable sequences with comic actor Jules Cowles appearing in blackface as Stone's pidgin-accented servant. Willis H. O'Brien's monsters may not frighten contemporary kids, with today's high special effects standards, but they certainly hold up well in comparison to some of the tacky creatures let lose in the 1950s and early 1960s. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide