SuperHeroBooks - The Lost World [Region 2]
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Starring: Bessie Love, Lewis Stone, Wallace Beery, Lloyd Hughes, Alma Bennett
Directed By: Harry O. Hoyt
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 5060000400038
Format: PAL
Number Of Discs: 1
Region Code: 2
Theatrical Release Date: 1925-06-22
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A Revolutionary Film for Its Time
Comment: "The Lost World" was the "Jurassic Park" of the silent film age. While the plot of adventureres finding a South American plateau inhabited by dinosaurs may seem far fetched today, just sit back and let suspended disbelief sink in while enjoying a well made picture. There are plenty of dinosaurs and dinosaur confrontations in the atmospheric jungle/volcanic setting. The stop motion animation and even inflatible stomachs (to simulate breathing) gave the creatures a realism unmatched at the time. True, it lacks the modern special effects of "Jurassic park" or "Walking with Dinosaurs" but viewers should remember just how painstaking the processes that brought these beast "to life" were in the 1920s. The film contains a number of memorable scenes from fierce dinosaur battles to a volcanic eruption to a brontosaurs stomping around London. Overall, an enjoyable and revolutionary silent film.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Slingshot version is not the one to buy
Comment: I bought the Slingshot DVD, and it's bad. The images are clean and clear enogh for a movie made in 1925 (this is what saves this from a 1-star grade), but virtually none of the features advertised is present on the disc.
Also, this is not a 90-minute cut, but a 66-minute cut. There's action here which barely makes any sense at all; having read the Arthur Conan Doyle novel, I can at least piece things together, but a viewer shouldn't have to do that.
To top it off, some engineer on a mission added sound effects -- why? More than anything else, they're just a distraction.
I have yet to see this movie at full-length. My thought is that at full length, it'll probably make more sense, at least I hope so. As such, I'm still in the market for a good version of this film.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The first "Jurassic Park" blockbuster
Comment: It might come as a surprise to today's general movie-goer that back in 1925 audiences were already thrilled and delighted by a special effects action/romance/adventure spectacle not at all unlike the modern-day "Jurassic Park" type of films. This DVD really brings back the glory days of the silent era when all the genres of movies we have today actually developed and even reached their peak of sophistication, and "The Lost World" is a good example of how talented and skilled filmmakers already were back in the 1920s. Based on the famous novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Lost World" is a fictional adventure story based on a few facts, such as the discovery of a high mountain plateau in an unexplored jungle where unknown plants and animals were believed to exist. But then fancy and fantasy take over, and the explorers find aggressive, prehistoric dinosaurs roaming the plateau, and that's when the fun and excitement begins, culminating in a grand climax of a captured dinosaur wreaking havoc in the streets of London with scenes that could rival those of "King Kong" made only several years later. Watching these scenes, it is obvious that a great deal of dedicated effort went into the lengthy animation scenes, especially as many different kinds of prehistoric animals are featured in "The Lost World".
It is fortunate that we now have a nearly completely restored version (minus about 10 minutes) of this special film which was a worldwide sensation in 1925, and can still stand up to modern-day movies of the same genre. While some scenes are obvious props or paintings, and sometimes the animals' movements and volcanic eruptions are just a little less realistic than modern digital or computer-generated images, the overall impression of "The Lost World" is that it was a great achievement and landmark in cinema, and paved the way for King Kong, Godzilla, Jurassic Park and many other similar movies along the way. There are two excellent musical accompaniments to choose from on this DVD; a traditional orchestral score, and a more adventurous score by the Alloy Orchestra with unusual sound effects which I actually found to be more suitable at times, such as in the action scenes with the dinosaurs. Along with excellent music and near-perfect picture quality, there are also some bonuses such as the reproduction of the original souvenir program booklet with various interesting articles and pictures, as well as a good audio commentary by an expert on Arthur Conan Doyle. His commentary gives in-depth insight into Doyle's story, how the book differs from the film, but also explanations about how the special effects and animations were done. Even for those of us not especially crazy about dinosaurs, "The Lost World" is still an exciting and fun adventure, and an important, historically significant film for all sincere film enthusiasts.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Image Entertainment version is very good
Comment: There had been dinosaurs in films before this 1925 feature, such as "The Dinosaur and the Missing Link" and "The Ghost of Slumber Mountain", both made before 1920. However, this was the first film to feature realistic looking dinosaurs on a large scale, setting the ground work for "King Kong" eight years later. Apparently, there are several versions of this film in circulation. In this case it pays to get the more expensive version from Image Entertainment. It has the longest running version of the film to date, and for all of the splicing that likely went into compiling it, the film actually flows quite smoothly. For all the abuse the original went through over the years, this version is pretty clear with only a few scratches in the film here and there. Plus you get a couple of treats you probably don't get on cheaper versions - a running commentary and the roughly 15 minutes of omitted scenes of dinosaur animation. When you view the omitted scenes you can quickly find the one flaw that caused their deletion - the cameraman has caught a frame or two of someone actually moving the dinosaurs through the stop-animation process. Otherwise they are very clear close-ups of the creatures.
Besides being a pretty good silent picture, this film is interesting for several reasons. First, it is interesting to see what people thought that the various dinosaurs looked like in 1925. Plus, for me, it was interesting to see Lewis Stone in an early film and to notice that he looks the same age - approximately 50 - in every film role I've ever seen him in, from this film up through the Andy Hardy pictures. The one real annoying feature of the film is the presence of the solitary caveman in the lost world. Why is he alone? Is he the last of his kind? The first? Is his chimpanzee companion a "relative" or just a companion? Nothing is ever said about it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great special effects for the time
Comment: I'm not even going to bother nitpicking about how inaccurate the dinosaurs are or how rough the picture quality is; it was 1925. There is no point in comparing it to a modern film. For those who insist on complaining about the unconvincing dinosaurs: This was one of the first feature-length movies to employ stop-motion animation. It was the first movie to combine stop-motion animation effects with living actors. Cut it some slack. (It was also shown as the first in-flight movie.)
It's _Jurassic Park_, Version I.
I'm aware that the plot of this film was panned even when it was new, and it deserved it. The story line is somewhere between weak and nonsensical. There are some unpleasant racial stereotypes that, unfortunately, were more common at the time. The filmmaking is beyond dated; the movie was released in 1925 so that shouldn't surprise anyone.
The stop-motion dinosaurs look like home movies in comparison to today's computer animation, but they were state-of-the-art at the time and are still surprisingly effective if you watch the movie with the technological limitations of the silent era in mind and are forgiving. Even if the movie itself is unimpressive by modern standards, it's very interesting from a historical perspective.
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Editorial Reviews:
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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
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