Lost World

[hman]

Got a new review up:

www.geocities.com/drngor/lostworld.html

[Xenorama ™]

an excellent review, as always.

i wonder how many PD versions of this movie are actually out?

[hman]

PD? Public Domain? Perfect Dark?

[Torgaman]

I got a joke for the "PD" thing but I don't think David would like me to post it here.

[Xenorama ™]

good thinking, Raul! i use it to mean "Public Domain" and there are a ton of DVDs of this movie out there.
ask Cory.

David

[hman]

There was a VHS that I used to see years and years ago that said it contained the 100 minute version. I wonder who the distributor was and if it was just that.

[Torgaman]

I heard that some unscrupulous video company released a version which was said to contain a scene with a man eating chicken.Turned out it was a man eating hamburger.

[Xenorama ™]

i've got the nice one in my queue, so i am looking forward to that.

[Cory]

Damned if I know how many PD versions are out there... But there shouldn't be any of the 100 minute versions around except the Image DVD and the Eastman film print. The only way I could see a PD 100 minute version is if someone cut out the sound from the Image DVD and rerestored the original title cards (which were mercilessly and bothersomely "updated" by Image). As for DVD's, the only one I know of is the Image one, and those few PD companies that are starting to switch over to DVD (like Buyer's Gallery on Ebay).

Anyways, good review of the film!

[Xenorama ™]

well, i've got a LumaVision disc, which appears to be about 62 minutes long, decent color, etc. i'll be looking for the Image one though. they do have the original title cards, though.

this one does have several O'Brian shorts at the end, the trailer and a weird "Pathe Review- Monsters of the Past" which is definately NOT an O'Brian animated thing. i'm glad your site is about, Cory, since it helps to decipher which is the best version extant so far.

what's the LONGEST version out? the image?

David

[stareater]

Why wife picked it up on a $1 double feature DVD (along with Giant Gila Monster) today at Best Buy. I already had the Image disc, but it's the thought that counts, I guess. Figured I'd give a heads-up on another cheapie, anyway. I'd imagine they have other genre films in the bin too.

[Zone Fighter]

I watched The Lost World this evenng, but it did not have the scenes with Gladys. It started at the newspaper office. Nor does it have that bit you described with the map and the mising Challenger.

I didn't care for the ape-man but I suppose the film needed a villain, I mean other than Challenger. The apeman looked fake, especially when standing by a real chimp. On the other hand I thoughjt the stop action animation of the dinosaurs was very good. That was one mean Alosaurus(?). Not content with just killing a tricertops it has to grab a pterodactyl out of the air.

The version I have dubbed in someone playing Scott Joplin's ragtime themes, including "The Entertainer" on piano.

I have the film in a 9 film, 3 disc collection called "Tales From The Future". The other silent film in this set is 'Metropolis".

BTW Doyle thought his Challenger stories were better than his Sherlock holmes stories.

[Xenorama ™]

i've only read (most of) "The Lost World" and it was enjoyable. i wonder how many Challenger stories there were?

Doyle also thought, upon first viewing the dinosaur footage, that they were real! it sure was a great idea for a story though.

[Torgaman]

My local library has a handful of Challenger stories in the
shelves.And I've read ALL of the LOST WORLD.

[Cory]

Hey yo! It's my quarter-yearly check-in!

admin said:

i've only read (most of) "The Lost World" and it was enjoyable. i wonder how many Challenger stories there were?

There were 5 altogether: 4 "canonical" and 1 "apocryphal". The 4 canonical ones are The Lost World, The Poison Belt, The Disintegration Machine and When the World Screamed. The apocryphal one is The Land of Mist, which was really just a platform for promoting spiritualism and which Conan Doyle "undid" in the latter two canonical Challenger stories.

Doyle also thought, upon first viewing the dinosaur footage, that they were real! it sure was a great idea for a story though.

[/color][/quote]

I'm not sure about Conan Doyle himself thinking they were real. However, they were good enough to fool the Society of American Magicians.

I'll just quote myself here, from an article I'm currently writing about the film:

In 1922, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was on a lecture series in America, trumpeting the cause of Spiritualism. During this tour, he was invited to the annual meeting of the Society of American Magicians. For a good many years, Conan Doyle nurtured a tenuous friendship with the great escape artist Harry Houndini. Though their camaraderie was sincere, it was also regularly tested by Houndini’s active skeptical attitude towards Spiritualism. It was so active, in fact, that Houdini was often one of Conan Doyle’s most vocal critics, prefiguring modern magicians like James Randi and Penn and Teller by utilizing stage magic to replicate the “evidence” brought forth by believers.

Anticipating further skepticism at the Society’s meeting, Conan Doyle prepared a trick of his own. Bringing in a movie projector, he offered no explanation of what the magicians were about to see except the following: "These pictures are not occult, but they are psychic because everything that emanates from the human spirit or human brain is psychic. It is not supernatural; nothing is. It is preternatural in the sense that it is not known to our ordinary senses. It is the effect of the joining on the one hand of imagination, and on the other hand of some power of materialization. The imagination, I may say, comes from me – the materializing power from elsewhere."

The “materializing power” came from the hand of Willis O’Brien. The following day, the New York Times would run the following headline: “DINOSAURS CAVORT IN FILM FOR DOYLE: SPIRITIST MYSTIFIES WORLD-FAMED MAGICIANS WITH PICTURES OF PREHISTORIC BEASTS--KEEPS ORIGIN A SECRET--MONSTERS OF OTHER AGES SHOWN, SOME FIGHTING, SOME AT PLAY, IN THEIR NATIVE JUNGLES “ (June 3, 1922)

The reporter concluded that these "monsters of the ancient world, or of the new world, which he has discovered in the ether, were extraordinarily life-like. If fakes, they were masterpieces." Following this front page uproar, Conan Doyle explained that the footage was from the upcoming adaptation of his novel The Lost World, the film received much publicity, and O’Bie was vindicated.

As an update on my own activities, the portion above is from my contribution to a centennial edition of the novel that myself and several others are working on, to be published in 2012. I'm covering the various adaptations of the novel, focussing on the silent film.

In May, I'm going down to LA for a graduation vacation (I will be "Cory, BA"!) and hoping to get in some research for the article. I'm going to try and track down the film's stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, visit Forrest J Ackerman and if at all possible, visit the actual studios where the movie was filmed. Hopefully it all pans out!

[Xenorama ™]

nice to see you again Cory! let me know when you will be in LA, i may be able to come up and see ya (if you have the time).

i just re-read the entire Lost World which was great. i can't believe none of the versions i've seen have ever used the war of the Indians/apemen. that seems like such a natural.

sorry i got the story wrong, but i figured you'd be around to help out. fascinating article, too!

[Shonokin]

If you count other writers' into it, there's also the novel Sherlock Holmes' War of the Worlds by Manly Wade Wellman (and son Wade Wellman), which has Holmes and Challenger fighting da Martians.

[Cory]

admin said:

nice to see you again Cory! let me know when you will be in LA, i may be able to come up and see ya (if you have the time).

Shoot me a private message or something!

I'll be in LA from May 10 to 16, most of which is going to be spent at Disneyland, actually. The plan is pretty much Disneyland on the 10th, 11th and12th, then on Saturday the 13th we're doing some sightseeing and visiting Forry, and then DL again on the 14th and 15th. I'm flying out around noonish on the 16th.

It would be great to have your company at DL or for dinner some evening after DL closes (9pm on weeknights!?). w00t!

i just re-read the entire Lost World which was great. i can't believe none of the versions i've seen have ever used the war of the Indians/apemen. that seems like such a natural.

It's been a while, but I think the BBC mini-series actually does have that.

[Xenorama ™]

the Image disc is just great, no question about it.

[Xenorama ™]

i've been watching the tv series version of this show, and it's not bad, if you think of it as an adventure series rather than an adaption of the book.

[Shonokin]

It used to come on in the morning and I'd watch it before going to work, it was pretty good for what it was!