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The Lost World - 1925
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NEWS

The Lost World, 1925, One-Sheet A, The Apatosaurus The Lost World - 1925

|| Restoration News and Views by Year || 2001 || 2000 || 1999|| 1998 || 1997 ||

2001
  March 28, 2001
Excitement Builds for New DVD Release

Personal Statement from David Shepard on The Lost World restored!

The Lost World 1925 - Restored in 2001. You can order it now.In a spectacular statement non-exclusive to the Dinosaur Interplanetary Gazette (which is sometimes the last to know and shares it's tardiness with our faithful readers) that was posted in the alt.movies.silent Usenet newsgroup, Mr. Shepard -- the driving force behind the spectacular new Lost World DVD -- tells all!

It's time to announce to a waiting world that my French colleague Serge
Bromberg and I have completed a new reconstruction of THE LOST WORLD (1925).

The first public performance is Saturday, October 28th (2000) at the Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville, where Stan Winston and I will introduce the show.  The first public performance in Europe is November 10th at the Forum des Images in Paris.  The first broadcast will be on La Sept ARTE  Francophone countries) and ZDF ARTE (Germanic  countries) on 14 December at 11:45 pm.  Image Entertainment will release the US DVD and VHS versions which at the moment are scheduled for next March. Eureka Video will release DVD in the U.K. and La Sept Video elsewhere in the EEC.

The broadcast and VHS versions feature a terrific new digital stereo score by
The Alloy Orchestra.  The DVD will also include a second new digital stereo
score -- a fine, traditional 1925-type score compiled and conducted (10
players) by Robert Israel.  In addition, there will be a third track commentary
by Roy Pilot, author of "The Annotated Lost World" (Wessex Press, 1996) telling more than you ever imagined there is to know about this work.

The first reconstruction of THE LOST WORLD was undertaken by George Eastman House.

This version was made independently of George Eastman House (yes, we first
tried for two years to license theirs but they weren't interested) and following somewhat difference guidelines of reconstruction. (No one knows exactly what the complete original film looked like -- the best sources we have are the condensed Kodascope version, a production script which differs from the finished film in many respects, and the music cue sheet, so there is room for creative differences.)

This version combines portions of 8 prints. It was prepared in PAL video with
the digital masters being made directly from the original materials (three 35mm fine grains, three 16mm tinted Kodascope and two Eastman Teaching Films prints).  Most of the flecks and specks, splices and other defects have been digitally removed so the picture is fairly clean and to quite a superb visual standard. All titles were remade in in facsimile of the original typography and the entire film is carefully tinted in the style of the period.

Our version is 93 minutes at more or less 20 fps, about 50% longer than the
Kodascope condensation at the same running speed.  Eastman House claims their version is 100 minutes at nearly sound speed, but it isn't -- it is 99 minutes at 18 fps.  Since title lengths (and in this instance, the number of titles used) differ, it is impossible for me to say if they have any shots we don't have; however, a couple of musicians who have scored both versions say that we have shots they don't have.  Doubtless this will be a subject for discussion in the months ahead.

Our desire was to make a smooth and entertaining film, as true as possible to the vanished original, but free of obvious reminders that the project has been patched together from fragments. I hope it doesn't come in second best to any other version. In any event, I think this is a stunning edition of a wonderful film, and gosh, folks, I hope you like it. 

David Shepard
2000
Current Status of the Film

December 2000

At long last, The Lost World will be available on DVD in Spring, 2001..

David Shepard and Serge Bomberg, film restorers extraordinaire will provide the world with a "definitive" version of the 1925 The Lost World on both DVD and VHS!  It will have even more new footage than the impossible to see and defective GEH restoration!

Following is a D.I.G. exclusive! The jacket copy from the new Image Entertainment DVD!  Yipes!

THE LOST WORLD
DVD version

  Newly restored with 50% more footage than any version generally available for seventy years, here is the model for King Kong, Jurassic Park and Godzilla: a story of living dinosaurs from the Jurassic age written by the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and starring a cast of stegosaurus, allosaurus, brontosaurus, triceratops, and pterodactyl under the technical direction of Willis H. O’Brien (King Kong, Mighty Joe Young) and a cast of actors under the direction of Harry O. Hoyt. This DVD also features a choice of modern or traditional orchestral accompaniment, an insightful commentary track by Roy Pilot, author of The Annotated Lost World (Wessex Press, 1996), and a supplementary section including twelve minutes of previously-unseen animation out-takes from The Lost World.

 Professor Challenger (Wallace Beery), mocked for his insistence that a “lost world” of living prehistoric creatures exists on a remote Brazilian plateau, organizes an expedition with Summerlee (Arthur Hoyt), eminent scientist; Edward E. Malone (Lloyd Hughes), journalist; Sir John Roxton (Lewis Stone), hunter and explorer; and Paula White (Bessie Love), daughter of an explorer who earlier disappeared on the plateau. In the jungle, the adventurers are attacked by “the missing link”, an ape-man, and suddenly spy a pterodactyl flying through the air.  This primitive birdlike creature is thought to have been extinct for sixty-five million years.  Prehistoric monsters exist after all ....

  The Lost World was a world wide sensation when it opened early in 1925. Just as Doyle incorporated the best palentological information of his time in the story, so O’Brien and his colleagues bringing the prehistoric creatures to life achieved stunning realism based upon information then available,.  Thanks to the monsters, The Lost World remained one of the most admired and best remembered films of the 1920s. Unfortunately, after the arrival of sound films made silent movies obsolete, the original version of this film was withdrawn and eventually lost.

 Fortunately, two different abridgements and other portions of The Lost World did remain, and with the cooperation of the Film Archive of the Czech Republic and private collectors in Europe and America, eight original source prints were digitally mastered to video using the most sophisticated current techniques to clean the images and minimize scratches and other abrasions. The available versions of each shot were compared and the film was rebuilt with the surviving footage, Doyle’s novel, the original shooting script and the printed music of 1925 as guides. Our achieved objective has been to make a smooth and entertaining film in a print of generally excellent quality, as true as possible to the vanished original, but free of obvious reminders that the project is patched together from fragments.

PRINCIPAL CREDITS:

For DVD:
 

THE LOST WORLD  (February 15, 1925)

First National Pictures, Inc.
Screenplay and Adaptation by Marion Fairfax
Based upon the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Dramatic Director: Harry O. Hoyt
Research and Technical Director: Willis H. O’Brien
Photographed by Arthur Edeson

Wallace Beery as Professor Challenger
Lewis Stone and Sir John Roxton
Bessie Love as Paula White
Lloyd Hughes and Edward E. Malone

This Edition
Produced for Video by Serge Bromberg and David Shepard
Assisted by Benjamin Baker
Restoration Editor: Mathieu Duboscq
New music Composed and Performed by the Alloy Orchestra
"Traditional" music Compiled and Conducted by Robert Israel
Commentary by Roy Pilot, based upon The Annotated Lost World     by Roy Pilot and Alvin Rodin (Wessex Press, 1996)
Supplementary material courtesy of Roy Pilot, Pierce Rafferty, Scott Mac Queen and Image Bank.

Special Contents of This Edition Copyright MM by Film Preservation Associates, Inc.


VHS version

 Newly restored with 50% more footage than any version generally available for seventy years, here is the model for King Kong, Jurassic Park and Godzilla: a story of living dinosaurs from the Jurassic age written by the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and starring a cast of stegosaurus, allosaurus, brontosaurus, triceratops, and pterodactyl under the technical direction of Willis H. O’Brien (King Kong, Mighty Joe Young) and a cast of actors under the direction of Harry O. Hoyt. This edition also features a new musical score by The Alloy Orchestra and a supplementary section including twelve minutes of previously-unseen animation out-takes from The Lost World.
 

 Professor Challenger, mocked for his insistence that a “lost world” of living prehistoric creatures exists on a remote Brazilian plateau, organizes an expedition to prove his claims. In the jungle, the adventurers are attacked by “the missing link”, an ape-man, and suddenly spy a pterodactyl flying through the air.  This primitive birdlike creature is thought to have been extinct for sixty-five million years.  Prehistoric monsters exist after all ....

THE LOST WORLD  (February 15, 1925)

First National Pictures, Inc.
Screenplay and Adaptation by Marion Fairfax
Based upon the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Dramatic Director: Harry O. Hoyt
Research and Technical Director: Willis H. O’Brien
Photographed by Arthur Edeson

Wallace Beery as Professor Challenger
Lewis Stone and Sir John Roxton
Bessie Love as Paula White
Lloyd Hughes and Edward E. Malone

This Edition
Produced for Video by Serge Bromberg and David Shepard
Assisted by Benjamin Baker
Restoration Editor: Mathieu Duboscq
New music Composed and Performed by the Alloy Orchestra

Special Contents of This Edition Copyright MM by Film Preservation Associates, Inc.

August 2000

SEE THE LOST WORLD (1925) ON A BIG MOVIE SCREEN
You've got TWO BIG CHANCES

Chance One - August 23, 2000

At long last thanks to some kind folks (Hughes Falck and someone else whose name we can't find) wrote to tell us that some version or another is going to be shown at

THE STANFORD THEATRE
 221 University Ave, Palo Alto, California, United States
~ (650) 324 - 3700
http://www.swixo.com/stanford/

Aug 23 ~ Silent!

                          The Lost World (1925)
                          7:30

on a double bill with.....

                          The Green Goddess (no.... it's got nothing to do with Salad Dressing. Shame on you!)
                          (1923)

Now we have absoutely, positively NO IDEA what print they are gonna show! Your guess is as good as ours! Is it the fabled and carefully hidden George Eastman House print? Or is it another even more mysterious print? We've called 'em up on the phone, but they don't answer. So if you go, do please let us know, okay?

FLASH FLASH FLASH

This just in!

Chance One and 1/2  - September 15, 2000 - Hollywood, California, USA

September 15, 2000 showing at Goldwyn Theatre... for the Academy. If you're not a member of the Academy, marry one, befriend one, or -- real quick -- go out and win an Academy Award for something or another and then you can go! Try calling them up. Maybe they'll let a few "non-combatants" in to the screening.
 
 

Chance Two - October, 2000

The Paramount Theatre Seattle, Oregon, United States
206-467-5510

Let's just quote their PR

OCTOBER 2, 2000 THE PARAMOUNT

           The best adaptation of Conan Doyle's gripping
           novel, The Lost World (1925) is coming to The
           Paramount Theatre. Never a dull moment when a
           group of explorers find themselves stranded on a
           plateau where prehistoric beasts still live, cut off
           from the rest of the planet's evolution.

           7:00pm Q/A with organist Dennis James

More at: http://www.theparamount.com/main.html


Outrageous Rumors Department

July, 2000

In an article in SPFX Magazine, Mr. Ed Straatman promises that the film will be released (eventually) on DVD with more of the missing footage restored. He says, further, that there will be some public screenings of the film.

He reconfirms that the film has, apparently, been shown in some places, but we are unable to get specific details on where and when.

Known screenings of the film include:

  1. A Premiere at George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, July, 1998
  2. A screening at a film festival in Syracuse, New York, 1998?
  3. A private screening at Walt Disney Studios, Burbank, California, 1998
  4. A 1999 screening at Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio during the summer of that year.
  5. A screening somewhere in Georgia, 1998 or 1999?
Any information on exact dates, locations and other circumstances would be appreciated.
June, 2000
Public Screenings and Home Video
    The George Eastman House has categorically refused to supply any information whatsover about any of the following:
     
    1. Future screenings
    2. Past screenings
    3. Television Broadcasts - confirmation of rumor that Turner will broadcast the restoration
    4. Home Video Release
May, 2000 - Formal Inquiry Sent to Director of George Eastman House
    On behalf of more than 40,000 readers of this magazine, we sent a formal letter of inquiry to Mr. Anthony Bannon the director of the George Eastman House.

    We pointed out, very simply, that readers of this publication had contributed nearly $2,000.00 to the restoration of the film and felt somewhat entitled to know when (if ever) they could see it.

    As of May 9, 2000, we have received no reply.

WRITE TO THE GEORGE EASTMAN HOUSE

Please take a moment to write a polite letter to the George Eastman House requesting that they supply us with this simple information. Surely, it cannot take more than a few minutes a month for a staff member to send us an e-mail with the information about upcoming screenings. When the film was first restored, we seemed to have no trouble getting this information.

Send your letter to:

Mr. Anthony Bannon
Director
George Eastman House
900 East Avenue
Rochester, NY 14607-2298
fax: (716) 271-3970



1999
Current Status of the FIlm

Public Screenings:  Despite repeated requests to the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY, we are unable to find out when or where the finished version of The Lost World will be screened. We are aware that it has been screened at several film festivals.  We would be grateful to hear from anyone having any information about past, current, or future screenings.  Click here to send us an e-mail. The GEH does, supposedly, rent the film. You can contact them at the address below for information about that.

Home Video / DVD / Laserdisk: There are, apparently, no immediate plans to release the restored version of The Lost World on any form of home video. There is an existing DVD from LumiVision, but it is NOT the restored version. (This version supervised by Scott McQueen does contain a synopsis of some of the missing footage at the end). We would be grateful to hear from anyone having any information about any new plans for a video release.  Click here to send us an e-mail.  There is a rumor (circa October 1999 that Turner Movie Classics -- a cable TV network -- may show the restored version of the film, but we cannot verify this.)

(click for high-resolution image:53.4K)

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