El mundo perdido

Almost all of the 50 or more reviews here have cited and re-cited the repulsively live lizards and overall B-movie ambiance of this controversial remake of the Conan Doyle novel and 1925 silent classic. Does anyone read anyone else's reviews before submitting?????

Anyway, I'll try to say something new (or at least unsaid) about this slightly tarnished Golden Oldie. I think one person did note the excellent score. One of the best things in the film is the Main Title sequence with the tempestuous music of Paul Sawtell and Bert Sheftner playing against FANTASIA-like shots of swirling molten lava. (These are certainly more vividly fantastic than the disgusting looking goo that passes for lava at the climax of the film).

One might say the film goes downhill from there, but the DVD's stereo version of the original 4-track CinemaScope soundtrack makes the entire score (and film) sound even better. The impressive aerial shots of the Amazonian jungles during the flight to the plateau are an especially effective fusion of wide-screen cinematography and music.

I personally was drawn back into this LOST WORLD after revisiting the great Circus-Circus episode in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, one of the best sequences in the middle-period Bond cycle.

Her role as Bond girl, Tiffany Case, is certainly a high point of Jill St. John's film career. Her smart pants suits and stylish look in DIAMONDS are possibly modeled on singer Elly Stone in the long-running Off Broadway show, Jacque Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. At any rate, she looks great and the DIAMONDS wardrobe is certainly an improvement on the hot pink Capri pants she impeccably sports throughout the jungle madness and slobbering lizard attacks in LW. (The versatile Ms. St. John also wrote a cookbook, which is still apparently in print).

Claude Rains and Richard Hayden, the voice of the caterpillar in Disney's ALICE IN WONDERLAND, do the best they can with the material. Rains even looks something like the original Challenger in the classic silent version.

Ray Stricklyn as David Holmes was nominated for a 1961 Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in THE PLUNDERERS, and also for Most Promising Newcomer in 1959. But for better or worse LOST WORLD (and THE RETURN OF Dracula) remain the films for which he is most remembered. Scarlet Street, the cult genre magazine (for which I used to write about film music) published an interview with the then out-of-the-closet (and since deceased) Stricklyn in issue #35.

The 2-disc LOST WORLD DVD set includes an excellent restoration of the original silent version. The dream-like, sometimes surreal imagery is made even more so by the restored multi-colored tinting.

For viewers who fondly remember the era of the original 1960 release a complete version of the Dell movie tie-in comic will be an especially welcome and nostalgic addition among the bonus features.

Along with King Kong this is one of the first films I remember seeing, on Saturday night TV sometime in the mid '60's. My expert judgement at 6 years old was that it was the best film ever made, over the years since it has somewhat slipped down my list – but at least is still in it! Viewed through rose-tinted spectacles I still enjoy watching it and trot the vid out every 5 years or so for another wallow in personal nostalgia. Viewed dispassionately I think it's also better than both 1925 versions – the long was too slow, the short unintelligible; forget any others.

Eccentric Professor Challenger challenges crusty Professor Summerlee in public to go with him on an expedition to find a plateau in South America where he (claimed) he saw prehistoric dinosaurs roaming around. A motley party is assembled to make the trip consisting of a cynical aristocrat with a secret, his eye-fodder girlfriend in pink and her eye-fodder brother, the hard working reporter who fancies her, and 2 dingy latins with plenty of secrets. A couple of hours after landing they discover … prehistoric dinosaurs roaming around partial to wrecking helicopters, and we discover Challenger appears rather challenged when coming to name them. Corn abounds, the special effects are worse than in 1925, every plot device is telegraphed ahead, and every racial, sexual and class stereotype is out in force – but I love it just the same! At least Jill St. John didn't twist her ankle, and the sets weren't always cardboard though.

If you didn't see this when young and impressionable don't bother, however if you did and you're not a serious type it's worth a try. You still might be horrified but you might return to a lost world of safe family adventure movies.

This was the first sound version of the Lost World and I think it is one of the best. The silent, 1925 movie is the best. There have been several remakes since this one.

Professor Challenger takes a party to an uncharted plateau where dinosaurs still roam. They arrive there by helicopter, but not long after they get there, this is destroyed by a dinosaur. Despite this, they explore the land and capture a native cave girl, who knows how to use a gun. We learn that Lord Roxton has been here on a previous expedition and he killed Gomez's brother. After a fight between two dinosaurs, the party are captured by unfriendly natives, who are cannibals. Luckily, the cave girl who the party captured earlier helps them to escape and after meeting Burton White, the blind surviver of an earlier expedition, make their way along a narrow ridge where Challenger nearly meets his death. The party collects some diamonds and then Gomez holds everyone hostage as he wants Lord Roxton dead, but the gun shot wakes the "fire monster" and it eats Costa. Gomez then meets his death by falling in the lava helping to open a rock door. The plateau then blows its top and everyone is safe. But one last explosion causes the dinosaur egg they found to fall on the floor and break, revealing a baby T-Rex...

The "dinosaurs" in this movie are enlarged lizards with fins and horns attached to them and an enlarged crocodile. This what director Irwin Allen wanted unfortunately. Pity he did not want stop-motion, despite Willis O'Brien helping with the special effects. We also see a giant spider and man eating plants.

The movie has a great cast: Claude Rains (The Invisible Man), Michael Rennie (The Day the Earth Stood Still), David Hedison (The Fly, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea) and Bond Girl Jill St John (Diamonds Are Forever).

I enjoyed this movie, despite the non stop-motion dinosaurs.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

You would expect much more from an Irwin Allen film than 1960's The Lost World delivers. This film is high on silly-to-obnoxious characters, and corniness. The first few scenes in the film are particularly loaded down by corniness as we are introduced to the characters. There's eccentric Professor Challenger (Claude Rains) with his silly facial expressions, and boisterous but stuffy personality. There's Lord John Roxton (Michael Rennie) with his selfish and uncharming personality. There's Jennifer Holmes (Jill St. John) who starts out by trying to show the men a woman can also be worthy to take along on an expedition, but then becomes a useless, timid character who shows no strengths at all. The sexist remarks made by some male characters in the beginning become even more obnoxious, because Jennifer never comes through on showing strength, courage or ideas to help her crew members. The only strength she really proves is that she can pick out some elegant but inappropriate clothing to wear during the dangerous expedition. Jennifer has also brought along her silly, little poodle named Frosty. And then there's Costa (Jay Novello), a wimpy, greedy, seedy, little man. Throw in Fernando Lamas as Manual Gomez, the hired helicopter pilot who is also along for a side plot of personal revenge. He plots his murder-revenge and strums his guitar along the way (the natives even let him keep his guitar when the group is captured!) Not too many characters to really care for, but there are a few to possibly like such as Jennifer's brother, David (Ray Stricklyn.) David actually turns out to be more of a help then originally believed. A captured native girl (Vitina Marcus) turns out to be one of the better characters in the picture, but that is most likely because she has none of the corny lines and characteristics the expedition party's characters have. There's also corny drama from a love triangle that forms along the way. We all know Claude Rains (Phantom Of The Opera), Michael Rennie (The Day The Earth Stood Still) and others can do fine acting jobs, and the acting in this movie is fine--It's just most of the characters are so corny at times it should be embarrassing to the stars of the picture. The action in the film does not really build to any exciting levels as the crew is menaced by various creatures. The dinosaurs are lizards and reptiles with fins and horns applied to their bodies, and the giant spider is a rather lame effect (especially since it just hangs there, and only moves its legs a bit.) There is an unpleasant scene in which a real lizard fights a real reptile (portraying dinosaurs) that seems very politically incorrect by today's standards (and should have been a no-no even back in 1960.) Irwin Allen and 20th Century Fox could've done much better than this, and it is not nearly as good of a film as Journey To The Center Of The Earth (also from 20th Century Fox.) Still, The Lost World may entertain on a Saturday afternoon matinee level, and it is one of those movies collectors of horror and science fiction films will probably want to add to their 1950's and 1960's collections.

Producer/director Irwin Allen had big plans for this one. He also had the big budget needed to craft a truly spectacular remake of the original 1925 classic silent film. And, he rightly felt that a new movie based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's science fiction masterpiece had better be up to the task. Allen originally intended using the "Stop-Motion animation" technique (made popular by Ray Harryhausen) to bring his prehistoric monsters to life. But, just as production was about to commence, Twentieth-Century Fox, who commissioned the film (and were then experiencing severe monetary shortages, due to production problems with their money guzzling "Cleopatra") slashed the budgets of nearly every film currently being produced. "The Lost World" was no exception, and Allen's dreams of a Sci-Fi Spectacular were crushed. Being a resourceful film maker, though, he did the best he could with what he had, and that turned out to be very good indeed.

For his cast, he chose British character actor Claude ("The Invisible Man") Rains to play the indomitable Professor Challenger, leader of the expedition. As Playboy Johnny Roxton, he cast another British actor, Michael Rennie. David Hedison played newsman Ed Malone, Jill St. John played Jennifer Holmes, daughter of Malone's publisher and Fernando Lamas was Gomez, the expedition's pilot. Supporting them were Jay Novello, as a cowardly guide, and Vittina Marcus as a helpful island native girl. Forced to forego his original Stop-Motion technique, Allen had to make do with photographing lizards, alligators and such, adding horns and gills when necessary. The result was pretty much the way it sounds - the creatures this bunch discovered were a long way from prehistoric beasts. Nevertheless, the movie entertains, with truly beautiful wide screen photography, a fantastic collection of colors which really bring the striking sets to eerie life.

As for the performances, they are decent enough. Rains has gotten plenty of criticism over the years for his bombastic Challenger, but that's the way the character was written, and Rains is true to the material, and highly enjoyable too. Michael Rennie is a bit colorless in his big game hunter part, but he does have some good scenes as well. David Hedison is OK as Malone, who falls for Jennifer (Roxton's girlfriend) though their romance must have ended up heavily edited, as there's little evidence of it here. Ms. St John and Ms. Marcus are mainly eye candy, (this WAS the '60s after all) but act capably enough, though for a woman described as "brave as a lioness". Jill certainly does a lot of screaming while dressed in a very flattering, if impractical wardrobe (which includes a Toy Poodle). Ray Stricklyn is very persuasive as her rather immature but compassionate brother. Lamas and Novello are the supposed villains of this piece, though Lamas has a reason for his hostility. Allen's direction is good and the score by Bert Shefter and Paul Sawtell adds immeasurably to the drama and suspense. All in all, the picture is perfect Saturday Matinée fare, and though the script is talky in places, it still delivers the goods at the climax. The movie is a textbook example of a period when celluloid escapism was all viewers demanded, and here, they got it In spades.

Fox Home Video has just released "The Lost World" as a two-disc DVD set, with special features (trailer, newsreels and galleries of promotional material) from the film on disc one, and a restored version (with a few outtakes!) of the 1925 original on disc two. Allen's film looks wonderful in it's anamorphic CinemaScope transfer, and after years of suffering through the faded pan-and-scanned prints used for TV and video this is really a revelation. The new stereo soundtracks are equally impressive and make this film, from a producer/director who would one day be known as the "Master of Disaster', (thanks to such fare as The Poseidon Adventure' and "The Towering Inferno") a must have for collectors.