The Science Fiction Movie The Lost World (1925)

This Silent Feature Laid the Groundwork for Many Later Sci-Fi Films

Aug 20, 2009

The Lost World's stop-action animation dinosaurs, created by early special effects master Willis O'Brien, are the real stars of this 1920s silent science fiction movie.

In 1912 Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, wrote the first of five novels featuring a cantankerous scientist-explorer named George Edward Challenger. The book was called The Lost World and told of an expedition to a mysterious plateau in Venezuela where dinosaurs, other extinct creatures, and a tribe of ape-like humans still survived. A decade later the book was made into one of the first full length science fiction movies.

The Movie The Lost World

Except for a romantic sub-plot and a slightly different ending, the movie adaptation of Doyle’s story is generally faithful to the original.

When Professor Challenger (Wallace Beery) claims that dinosaurs are still living on an Venezuelan plateau, his fellow scientists and the London press ridicule him. Angered by the criticism, he organizes an expedition. Among its members are Challenger, news reporter Edward Malone (Lloyd Hughes), sportsman John Roxton (Lewis Stone), and Paula White (Bessie Love), who believes that her missing explorer father may be on the plateau.

After a series of harrowing adventures involving the prehistoric creatures, the ape-men, and a volcanic explosion, the group returns to London along with a brontosaurus that they have captured. In the climatic sequence, the creature escapes and innocently wreaks havoc upon the city before escaping out to sea.

Analysis of the Movie The Lost World

The Lost World is a fun sci-fi film adventure that still holds up well today despite a few flaws. It, like the book, is not scientifically correct. For instance, Challenger claims that evolution has ceased on the plateau, but many of the dinosaurs and other creatures are not contemporaries. Also, not any form of ape-man existed side-by-side with dinosaurs.

The acting is sometimes over-the-top, but no more so than that in most silent movies. Wallace Beery, who would win an Oscar for The Champ a few years later, is actually well cast as Challenger. The professor’s surly, argumentative, and sometimes violent personality was more like Beery’s real life persona than the loveable slobs that he often played.

Bessie Love, Lloyd Hughes, and Lewis Stone were also capable actors who would go on to have successful careers. Love, who would receive an Oscar nomination for The Broadway Melody in 1929, acted into the 1980s. Hughes and Stone often played romantic leads in the silent era and were matinee idols, although Stone is best known today for playing the wise and benevolent Judge Hardy in the Andy Hardy series.

The Special Effects of Willis O’Brien

The strength of the movie, however, is in its special effects, particularly in Willis O’Brien’s use of stop-motion animations. Although primitive compared to today’s standards, considering the time period when they were done, they are still impressive.

After being hired by the Edison Company in 1914, O’Brien had developed and improved the art of stop-motion animation, first using clay models, and then later more complex models of metal covered in rubber.By the time he was hired for The Lost World, he was even able to bring the illusion of reality to his creations despite their sometimes jerky movements.

Many of his creatures in The Lost World actually appear “angry” or “sad” and close-ups reveal nasal passages opening and closing as the creatures breathe. A contemporary New York Times critic described them as being “as awesome as anything that has ever been shown in shadow form.”

Remakes of The Lost World

Although the original King Kong is not a remake of The Lost World it has many similarities to that movie -- both story wise and in its special effects . In no small part, this is due to the fact that Willis O’Brien played a large role in the making of both films.

Actual movie remakes were done in 1960, 1992, and 1998, the last two changing the setting to Africa and Mongolia respectively. All are considered not to be as good as the silent version -- even regarding the special effects (the 1960 film features glued fins on real lizards).

In 2001 a TV mini-series called The Lost World, starring Bob Hoskins and Peter Falk, expanded on the basic story. It has generally been better received than the movie remakes.

The Lost World DVD

There are several editions of the 1925 Lost World on DVD. At least one includes the 1960 version with it.

The Lost World has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry due to its cultural and historical significance.

The copyright of the article The Science Fiction Movie The Lost World (1925) in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Films is owned by John K. Davis. Permission to republish The Science Fiction Movie The Lost World (1925) in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.