The Lost World

Professor Challenger claims that dinosaurs still live on a plateau in South America. Nobody believes him. An expedition sets out: Challenger, a hunter, a journalist and the daughter of a lost explorer. They reach the plateau and see that the claim is true. Then the way back closes. Harry O. Hoyt directs. Wallace Beery plays Challenger. The source is Arthur Conan Doyle's novel. The real importance is in the effects. The dinosaurs were made with Willis O'Brien's stop motion technique, models of rubber over metal armatures moved frame by frame. Nothing on that scale had been done before. O'Brien made King Kong eight years later, and this film counts as the preparation for it. There is another thing it is known for: it was shown during an aeroplane journey in 1925 and is cited as among the first films screened in flight. It was shortened over the years and circulated for a long time only in cut prints; a longer version was later assembled from material that turned up. The narrative conventions of the silent period sit heavily now: the intertitles are many, the acting is broad and the romantic strand is unnecessary. Who it is for: anyone curious about silent cinema and the history of special effects. Who it is not for: the pace is very slow, the narrative is weak outside the dinosaur scenes, and the state of the prints makes watching harder.