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Six Lost Worlds: The Dramatic Adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Novel (film comments by Mark R. Leeper)
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Mark Leeper
Oct 9, 2022, 11:25:13 AM10/9/22
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Six Lost Worlds: The Dramatic Adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Novel (film comments by Mark R. Leeper)
[Originally published in Argentus, Number 3, Summer 2003]
Imagine a land so isolated from the world that it was beyond the
reach even of the forces of evolution. On one plateau deep in the
remote Amazon rain forest there is a land that has withstood the
ravages of time. Here dinosaurs and prehistoric ancestors of man
still live.
In 1960 I remember being enthralled with the publicity for the
upcoming film THE LOST WORLD. I was nine years old and anything
that had to do with dinosaurs was okay with me. I had only
recently seen the 1959 version of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE
EARTH and loved it. But only three sequences in the film had
dinosaurs. (Okay, to be literal, there are no dinosaurs in that
film, but at nine I was not ready to make zoological distinctions.)
The Sunday comics had ads telling a little teasing bit of the
story of an expedition to a plateau with dinosaurs. I was hooked.
I guess I still am.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes series of
stories, also had a science fiction and fantasy series featuring
short, wide, and blustery Professor George Edward Challenger. The
stocky scientist was first introduced in his 1912 novel THE LOST
WORLD. For this tale Doyle saw the dramatic possibilities of
humans interacting with live dinosaurs. He told an irresistible
story of an Amazon plateau so isolated that evolution had passed it
by and where the dragons of the past still reigned supreme. There
are two more novels with the same set of adventurers, though they
are not nearly as interesting or famous. THE POISON BELT is about
the earth traveling through a field of poisonous ether gas. THE
LAND OF MIST is a plea for tolerance for a spiritualist church.
Two shorter stories have Challenger opposing an inventor who has
created a terrible weapon in "The Disintegration Machine," and
discovering the Earth is a living organism in "When the Earth
Screamed." Doyle is said to have preferred writing Challenger
stories to stories about Sherlock Holmes, though the latter
undeniably had greater popularity and perhaps were better written.
The publicity I was seeing in 1960 was for the second of what at
this writing are six screen adaptations of the novel. In this
article I will review each of the six adaptations of Doyle's novel
to the screen. In doing so I face certain problems. First, the
earliest version is incomplete. I will have to review what is
available, a restored version of 92 minutes. A more widespread
problem is that is in my opinion none of the adaptations has been
satisfactorily accurate to the novel. Every one of them takes at
least one woman along and Doyle did not have a woman on the plateau
in the novel. Each adaptation does a lot of inventing as if there
was something wrong with Doyle's story. There really is not. If I
like a version, it really is mostly in comparison to the other
renditions that may not be as good.
THE LOST WORLD (1925)
The 1925 version had the much of the story more faithful to the
novel than any of the later film versions, though some incidents
occur out of order. One revision is that in the book Challenger
brought back only a pterodactyl, and it escapes before it is seen
by more than a roomful of people. The 1925 silent film version
apparently thought it would be more dramatic to have the animal
brought back be a brontosaurus and it does quite a bit of damage
when it escapes. This would show off imaginatively the stop-motion
animation.
The 1925 film version was the first feature-length film to use
stop-motion animation to any great degree. The technician who
created the effects was a young Willis O'Brien, who would later be
in charge of the effects of KING KONG (1933). In fact, though
O'Brien did not contribute the plot to KING KONG, it has strong
similarities to THE LOST WORLD, with the animal brought back to
civilization being a very large ape.
This first and arguably the best version of Doyle's classic was the
first version, a silent film. However, for years it has been
nearly impossible to tell with any assurance much about the 1925
version of THE LOST WORLD. There are four or five different
versions of this film. Until relatively recently only an edited
version a little over an hour has been available. This was much
chopped down from the original film. Recently a 93-minute version
has become available to the general public on DVD. Reportedly the
original release was 104 minutes so only about 11 minutes of the
original theatrical release are still missing. However, that is
the released version.
Sadly, it is impossible to see at this point what the released film
was really like. Production stills shown on the Turner Classic
Movie cable channel seem to indicate that there was a great deal
more of Doyle's plot that was shot than could possibly fit into the
missing eleven minutes. Some sequences that look like they would
have not only lengthened the film but made it more faithful to the
published story. The stills include the "stool of penance" scene
from the novel in which Challenger used as a most politically
incorrect way to punish his wife. Also there is indication that as
with the original novel Challenger was not chosen as one of the
members of the expedition and he uses trickery to join the party
after they are on their way. This plot was in the Doyle and was
apparently filmed for the silent version and then probably edited
out. (Of the adaptations covered in this article only the 1992
television version and the "Alien Voices" audio versions are
faithful to the book in this regard.) So while even the 93-minute
version indicates large liberties taken from the novel, there was
probably sequences shot that could have made for a fairly accurate
version that perhaps never came together.
I personally recommend this 93-minute version as being more
entertaining than the 63-minute version that has been available.
The shorter version has just the minimal story needed to connect up
the special effects shots. The longer editing makes the expedition
seems less slapdash and makes the film feel more like a ripping
adventure story. The shorter editing has the background story be
little more than a frame for the dinosaur sequences. That
audiences would settle for that is a testament to the popularity
that the Willis O'Brien's dinosaur sequences had with audiences.
It is hard to gage the impact that these sequences must have had
since so little like them had been seen on the screen before. Many
of the viewers assumed that the dinosaurs were full-scale
mechanical creations, and a few were naive enough to believe they
were seeing real live dinosaurs. It is hard to believe from the
jerky effects, the best possible at the time, that people took them
for real. But in fact there were some who did. While the film was
in production Marion Fairfax, who wrote the screenplay, thought she
would reassure special effects technician O'Brien and told him that
if the effects did not work out, the dinosaurs could easily be
removed from her screenplay. It is hard to imagine how popular a
film they could a made without the attraction of the dinosaur
effects.
The variations in plot from the novel are relatively small changes
of little consequence until the travelers arrive at the plateau.
Perhaps the biggest change was the addition of a love interest for
Malone to go with him on the expedition. This is Paula White,
daughter of plateau discoverer Maple White, played by Bessie Love.
After the crew gets to the plateau the story diverges somewhat
more. The novel talks of two tribes of humans. One are half-human
Neanderthal sorts, the others are like modern Indians. Doyle
spends much of the plateau story of how the modern Indians beat the
half-men, proving the superiority of modern man. Frankly, for me
this plot is not as interesting as the dinosaur-related plotting.
In this 1925 version of the film the two tribes are reduced to one
ape man, played by a man with the unlikely name Bull Montana.
Montana specialized in playing apes and half-men in the movies.
Without particularly good looks he had found his niche playing
ape-men. The filmmakers had only one half-man actor so the story
more concentrates on dinosaurs. Probably that is not a bad thing.
Even at the time the dinosaurs were more intriguing to audiences
than a man in an ape costume, however lurid.
Some additional liberties are taken. The zoological meeting takes
place before Malone visits Challenger's home. The escape route
from the plateau is destroyed by a dinosaur rather than by Gomez.
The most memorable variation, and one that would inspire other
films, is that instead of bringing back a pterodactyl, Challenger
returns with a brontosaurus who then escapes and wreaks havoc in
London. This popular sequence probably inspired films like KING
KONG; THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS; and BEHEMOTH, THE SEA MONSTER
(a.k.a. THE GIANT BEHEMOTH).
I have read a review that said that Willis O'Brien's special
effects have still rarely been matched. That comment was
well-intended but I think that Willis O'Brien would be among the
first to deny it himself. While these effects were a big step
forward from O'Brien's previous work, he would do better work for
KING KONG in 1933. O'Brien's protege Ray Harryhausen furthered the
art a great deal more. O'Brien would probably have been ecstatic
to see the JURASSIC PARK films, and perhaps none more than THE LOST
WORLD: JURASSIC PARK II, which I see as in part a tribute to him
and his contributions. Some of the sequences, like a stampede of
dinosaurs, are not technically perfect but are ambitious beyond
belief for a film this early.
O'Brien was, at the time he made THE LOST WORLD, still having some
problems with the smooth fluid movement of the figures he is
animating. He also has a tendency to make the creatures of too
large a scale. An example is the pterodactyl that seems much too
massive in comparison to the spur of the plateau. O'Brien would
similarly exaggerate the size of his stegosaurus in KING KONG.
Some of his matte scenes, static and traveling, combining images of
actors and dinosaurs are well ahead of their time. While O'Brien
never let the humans get too close to the dinosaurs, they
impressively give scale to the giant beasts. There is one scene in
which the humans throw a flaming piece of wood in a dinosaur's
mouth. This could not use stop-motion since there is no effective
way to animate a flame frame-by-frame. For this effect a
hand-puppet seems to have been used.
The acting is sufficient but spotty. Wallace Beery makes the best
Challenger of any of the screen versions. He is sufficiently gruff
and pushy. Bessie Love as Paula is not so good and her main talent
seems to be that she can look frightened well. Arthur Hoyt's
Summerlee is almost unnoticeable. One barely remembers scenes he
was in. Lloyd Hughes is bland as Edward Malone and reminds the
viewer of Harold Lloyd. Lord John Roxton is played by Lewis Stone,
who later would play dignified roles like Captain Smollet in the
1934 TREASURE ISLAND and Judge Hardy in the Andy Hardy series.
Stone makes an imposing Roxton if not a very interesting one. He
seems almost too dignified to be the great hunter.
Unless one counts films like KING KONG, UNKNOWN ISLAND, THE LAND
UNKNOWN, or TWO LOST WORLDS, all of which arguably took some
inspiration from the Doyle, the next real film version of THE LOST
WORLD was released in summer of 1960 with Claude Rains as
Challenger.
THE LOST WORLD (1960)
The 1960 version of THE LOST WORLD was the first version I ever
saw, not too surprising for anyone of the Baby Boomer generation.
Most critics think that it is a totally ugly dog. I can sympathize
with that point of view, but do not agree. It certainly is a giant
step down from the 1925 version. But in the context of a 1960
film, it comes off a bit better. The 1950s had several gaudy
adventure films of much the same style, films like RUN FOR THE SUN.
In years to come the same sort of film would be a special effects
extravaganza, but in the 1950s filmmakers would use real settings.
Infusing a little bit of science fiction into that formula is a
welcome variation. One can almost reconcile oneself to the film in
that context but then one remembers how badly the "dinosaur"
effects are created. And there is Frosty the Poodle. The film
just has its good and more than its share of bad moments.
The 1960 version of THE LOST WORLD, directed by Irwin Allen (who
also produced and co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Bennett),
boasted the name of Willis O'Brien as "effects technician." Sadly
the dinosaur effects were created by the later illegal practice of
using live lizards, perhaps enhancing their looks by pasting horns
or plates on them, and then having them fight other such lizards.
It was cruel to the animals and only the least discerning audiences
could suspend disbelief and think of these things as dinosaurs.
Part of what makes dinosaurs dinosaurs is that they stand straight
upon their legs the way an elephant does. Lizards have legs that
go out to the side. Dinosaur bodies can support more weight
because their legs are like columns under them for support. The
previous year lizards were used to good effect in JOURNEY TO THE
CENTER OF THE EARTH to simulate Dimetrodons. However, Dimetrodons
were not lizards and not dinosaurs.
This version is not a very good rendering of the story, in spite of
introducing color to the adaptations. It nonetheless was my
introduction to Doyle's story and as such it has fond memories for
me. Rains is too thin to play the barrel-chested discoverer, but
otherwise he is not too bad at playing Challenger. He has the
personality approximately right. His acting is the best thing
about this adaptation. On the other hand, choosing comic actor
Richard Hayden as Summerlee was a fiasco. His performance grates
on one's nerves whenever he is on the screen. He acts as if he is
in some other movie. Michael Rennie makes a decent Roxton. He has
the self-assured quality that Doyle would have appreciated. David
Hedison is a little old to play Edward Malone and have the sort of
boyish enthusiasm and insecurities that Doyle gave that character.
Irwin Allen updates the story to roughly 1960. The film opens with
Challenger returning from the Amazon to report his discoveries of
live dinosaurs on a plateau of South America. With Challenger's
traditional hatred of reporters he clouts Ed Malone trying to
interview him. Malone is pulled from the ground by Jennifer Holmes
(Jill St. John), the daughter of his publisher.
At the geographic society Challenger reports having seen dinosaurs.
The skeptical audience suggests a return visit to verify his
findings. In return for funding, Challenger is saddled with a
reporter on the expedition, Malone. He also gets Professor
Summerlee and big game hunter Lord John Roxton. At a stop in South
America the expedition picks up two local guides, pilot Manuel
Gomez (Fernando Lamas) and lackey Costa (Jay Novello). (Manuel and
Gomez are two different characters in the novel.) Also joining the
expedition more or less by blackmail are Jennifer and her brother
David (Ray Stricklyn) as well as a poodle named Frosty. The
siblings are no invention of Doyle, but the choice of the name
Holmes is likely an allusion to Doyle.
The expedition takes helicopter to plateau, getting magnificent
views from overhead. They land the plateau but see no sign of
dinosaurs. That night they hear a large beast in their vicinity,
terrorizing them. They soon find their helicopter was crushed and
kicked over the side of the cliff. We get a glimpse of a large
lizard with a neck frill. Challenger identifies it as a
brontosaurus, but what we saw did not look anything like a
brontosaurus. In any case the explorers find they are now stranded
on the plateau. The next day they are menaced by man-eating plants
and more dinosaurs. One of the latter splits up the group and
Malone and Challenger as one subgroup finds a native girl. Malone
follows her and finds her, even at the cost of running through the
web of a four-foot-wide tarantula spider.
Malone brings her to camp where only Roxton recognizes that
capturing her could mean trouble from the rest of her tribe.
Relations are about to degenerate into a fistfight when Roxton
finds a strange diary. It was kept by Burton (not Maple) White who
discovered the plateau in partnership with Roxton. White's diary
says he is waiting for Roxton to rescue him and that he is looking
for legendary diamonds. Roxton was part of that team, but let the
others down. He never came to them. Now he has come again with
Challenger, but with of motive of looking for the diamonds.
Jennifer is deeply disappointed in the man she was hoping to catch.
David tries to comfort the native girl and in the process discovers
that she knows how to use a rifle. He is about to tell the others
when the group is attacked. The native girl escapes and Malone
follows. He loses her and Malone returning through the forest
finds Jennifer. The two are returning to camp when they find
themselves in the paths of two fighting dinosaurs. They must hide
as the two titans fight. This is a rather sadistic piece of
footage when one sees that these are live lizards pitted against
each other. Eventually they fall over the side of the plateau.
Jennifer and Mallone return to camp finding it empty. They realize
that the others have been captured. In moments they find that they
are also prisoners of the natives. Taken to the native city they
find drum-beating ceremonies in progress. They are reunited with
their fellow explorers.
Just when they realize they are to be eaten the native girl comes
along to rescue David. With a little effort she is convinced to
help the whole group escape. He takes them to find a blind Burton
White (Ian Wolfe). White tells them there is a path thought the
plateau to the base. How it got there in a volcanic plateau is
hard to understand. Why would lava take such a path? But the
expedition takes this path past deadly people-grabbing tendrils and
a graveyard of dead dinosaurs.
The entire plateau is starting to erupt and explode. They
expedition uses fire to keep back the pursuing natives. They find
the diamonds, but also more trouble and another dinosaur. As they
leave the plateau blows itself to pieces.
This version invents its own subplots, but which version does not?
The script is not great, but it would have made for at least a good
adventure film had the dinosaurs looked like dinosaurs.
For those in the audience who would recognize Willis O'Brien's
name, in the credits as "effect technician." He was reportedly
asked his opinion of the possibility of lizard special effects and
told the producers how bad those effects were. They paid him for
his opinion, ignored it, and put his name in the credits. That
probably was the plan from the beginning. The film had moments,
but overall was not very good. The plot is confused with a
previous expedition that was bungled, a treasure hunt for diamonds,
and a revenge plot. Perhaps the capper of mistakes was to have the
woman expedition member bring a poodle. There is no adventure film
so exciting that it cannot be ruined by the presence of a poodle.
The Disney film THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD made the same
grievous error. Perhaps it was supposed to be a counterpoint of
Gertrude the Duck of the previous year's far superior JOURNEY TO
THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, also from Fox. However, while the duck
worked well, Frosty the poodle served only to demonstrate how silly
this expedition was. With the exception of the dog, the writing is
not really bad--it just fails to be very interesting. It might be
best appreciated if one just does not look at the screen once the
expedition reaches the plateau.
With all its faults, at least this film does not talk down to its
audience and does not have the juvenile feel of the 1992 and 1999
versions. It has a sort of empty, Technicolor, wide-screen, 1950s
feel. The plateau never looked so good as seen from above at a
distance.
This was a bad and disappointing version of the Doyle, but it would
neither be the last such, nor would it be the worst. Irwin Allen
was aiming for an adult audience while relying on a teenage crowd
(not unlike the soon to begin Bond series). The next version would
wait thirty-two years, just three years short of the interval
between the silent and first sound version. And the new version
was definitely made with a younger audience in mind.
THE LOST WORLD (1992)
The 1992 version of THE LOST WORLD, a Canadian production directed
by Timothy Bond (who previously directed episodes for the
television series "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "War of the
Worlds") and written and co-produced by Harry Alan Towers. The
film is shot in Zimbabwe and apparently was made together or in
tandem with a sequel, RETURN TO THE LOST WORLD. To accommodate
this location the plateau is moved from South America to Africa.
The transplant gives the story a sort of H. Rider Haggard feel that
would be okay, but it is not Doyle.
Towers's script starts reasonably faithful to the Doyle but quickly
shows its loyalties are more to sending (condescending) politically
correct messages than to the text by Doyle. Male chauvinists
everywhere are given a come-uppance by a strong female on the
expedition. Because the script is already being written on a
juvenile level, a boy is added to the expedition to give children
someone to identify with.
As in the book, Malone (Edward McCormack) passes himself off to
Challenger (John Rhys-Davies) as a scientist, but he does not have
the knowledge to maintain the ruse. Malone is, incidentally, made
a Canadian to give the Canadian audience a one of their own to care
about. Challenger attacks Malone, the police intervene, and Malone
endears himself to Challenger by choosing not to press charges.
The forming of the expedition is pretty much like in the manner of
the novel though they end up with woman reporter Jenny Nielson
(Tamara Gorksu) and a twelve-ish boy Jim (Darren Peter Mercer).
The character of Roxton has been eliminated and there is no
equivalent. As in the book but few film versions it is decided
that it is Summerlee (David Warner) who will lead the expedition
and Challenger will remain behind. Not to worry, Rhys-Davies is
too big a star to not be included in the expedition.
More invented characters come along. On the way the expedition is
joined by a female Noble Savage in a revealing two-piece outfit.
She is Malu (Nathania Stanford) and can be counted on to have
politically correct thinking as everybody raised in the bush would
have. Also along is the nasty Gomez (Geza Kovacs). One more piece
that harks from the book--in the end the expedition brings back to
London a pterodactyl, though the story of the pterodactyl is
somewhat different from Doyle's tale.
The reporter Jenny Nielson appears inspired by the real person
Nellie Bly. She is a slightly aggressive feminist. On the other
hand John Rhys-Davies makes a passable Challenger in stature and
temperament. He is, after his earliest scenes and though he feuds
with Summerlee, less strident and more boyishly likable than in the
Doyle.
The choice to do the film in a didactic and juvenile fashion that
makes it a very bad disappointment after a start that is at least
decent. The dinosaurs were rubbery and cute with rough edges
rounded off and so was the writing. The script looks for every
politically correct lesson that can be wrung from the plot. Doyle,
of course, had no women on the expedition. The first two film
versions each had one woman along. This version has two attractive
women and a plucky youngster. Things are going downhill.
I will not say much about the sequel, RETURN TO THE LOST WORLD. It
is not an adaptation of the Doyle, but only inspired by it. The
story involves European entrepreneurs who want to exploit the
petroleum in the no longer lost world and the team returns to the
plateau to protect it. It is not the most original or engaging
story and did not really need this particular prehistoric land to
tell its story. The sequel certainly underscored that Maple White
Land was a noble and wondrous world that needed to be preserved.
The 1998 version had a very different attitude toward Maple White's
mysterious land.
THE LOST WORLD (1998)
a.k.a. SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S THE LOST WORLD
Six years after the Canadian production of THE LOST WORLD, the
story was again adapted in the United States with some unusual
variations. Even the title was modified. Following the films BRAM
STOKER'S DRACULA and MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN, it became popular
to include the original author's name in the title of films based
on classics. It somehow promised that the content fidelity to the
original work. BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA added a love interest for
Dracula that Bram Stoker would not have recognized, and MARY
SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN had Victor bringing his bride back from the
dead in precisely the way that the character in the book did not.
Still, it was popular for a while to put the author's name in the
title. Hence in two years we have two different films titled SIR
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S THE LOST WORLD. This is the first. To make
things even more confusing the two versions each has the same actor
playing Summerlee. It must take a lot of explanation on his resume
that these really are different films. This film proves its
loyalty (or lack thereof) to the original text by starting in
Mongolia, of all places.
The 1998 film opens with Maple White finding a pterodactyl egg and
paying for it with his life. He lives long enough to pass his
notebook and other interesting evidence to his traveling companion
and partner G. E. Challenger (Patrick Bergin, who does not look
anything like Doyle's Challenger). When Challenger returns to
London with his claims that dinosaurs exist, showing notebooks as
his evidence, as usual in adaptations he is met with skepticism and
is offered the means for an expedition. Amanda White (Jayne
Heitmeyer) recognizes her father's notebooks and insists on being
part of the expedition. Mr. Summerlee is ambivalent about being
asked to go on the expedition, but after a moment agrees. Unique
in this version, Summerlee is actually a fairly decent and
interesting character and one the audience cares for. Michael
Sinelnikoff makes a very acceptable if not highly memorable
Summerlee. He does such a good job that in the unrelated
production the following year he repeated the role, though that
part was not as well written. He is, I believe, the only actor to
repeat a role in two unconnected productions of THE LOST WORLD. He
also plays the role in the "Lost World" television series, of which
I will say more later. John Roxton (David Nerman) is demoted from
being the book's English lord to being an obnoxious American hunter
who later proves to be of villainous intent. Arthur (!) Malone the
reporter also joins the expedition played by an unmemorable Julian
Casey. Bergin's Challenger gets along neither with Summerlee nor
Roxton, though the audience likes Roxton considerably less.
Using several conveyances of the period, which seems to be the
1930s or so, the crew makes its way to Mongolia and the plateau out
of time. The final step involves a helium balloon to ascend the
plateau as a sort of getaway after the team has just rescued Ms.
White. In the best traditions of KING KONG she had been kidnapped
by natives and stretched out on a rack. Having just been rescued
and ascending to a land of vicious dinosaurs, Amanda White
literally found herself between a rack and a hard place. And a
hard place, the plateau is. The travelers find their land of
dinosaurs--particularly vicious dinosaurs--and two warring tribes.
One of the tribes are Neanderthals one more modern. In the end of
an uncomfortable stay only Challenger and White make it out alive,
though Malone is left behind on plateau like an Edgar Rice
Burroughs hero.
We initially see a "brontosaurus" with some features that are wrong
for the animal. Perhaps some effect artist tried to get creative.
However, it turns out that the inaccuracy is a feature, not a bug.
With hundreds of millions of years of evolution. it appears
dinosaurs have diverged from those in the fossil record. Other
adaptations have implied that once you got to know this plateau it
was a groovy place to be. Perhaps one of the best touches of this
version is that definitely is NOT the case in this adaptation.
This is probably the goriest adaptation, and the plateau is a
painful and dangerous place to be. Perhaps inspired by JURASSIC
PARK this film has the meanest and most nasty dinosaurs of any
version. The dinosaur effects seem to be in large part digital,
though perhaps some mechanical effects were used also.
Making up a little for deficiencies in the writing the film has a
terrific look. The art direction by Sylvain Gingras has an antique
Indiana Jones tone. Several interesting vehicles are used to bring
the explorers to Maple White land, especially a sort of half-track
bus. While the transplantation from a South American jungle to
snowy Mongolia seems all wrong, it is not a bad setting for an
adventure story. It is reminiscent RKO setting their SHE (1935) in
Tibet rather than Africa.
In the end, with Malone marooned in Maple White Land as a sort of
Robinson Crusoe with dinosaurs, it is expected his adventures might
continue. No sequel was made. However, someone in Canada had a
very similar idea. Why not have a TV series set on the plateau?
So nearly at the same time Canadian producers made their own
version of the story, but handled it as a TV pilot and sold an
entire TV series on the premise.
THE LOST WORLD (1999)
a.k.a. SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S THE LOST WORLD
Richard Franklin directed the 1999 version of THE LOST WORLD as a
two-hour (minus commercials) pilot for the Canadian TV series of
the same name. In fact the series sold and apparently ran in
Canada and the United States. I was less than pleased with the
pilot, which was very much of a television quality.
The setup is only vaguely correct and the people never do get off
the plateau because then we would not have a continuing television
series, would we? The focus is not even on the characters that
Doyle created. They are lessened in importance compared to new
strong (female) characters.
After an action prolog in which we see a man attacked by something
big in a jungle, presumably a dinosaur. He finds tall, handsome
explorer Challenger (Peter McCauley, very unlike Doyle's version).
He dies in his camp, but not before he leaves Challenger his
journal and photo negatives of pterodactyls. Challenger returns to
London with tales of this lost world that he has not visited. He
tells the geographic society of his discovery. They are skeptical,
but suggest a special expedition. There are the usual three
volunteers: Ned Malone (William deVry), Lord John Roxton (William
Snow, a Pierce Brosnan look-alike), and Dr. Summerlee (Michael
Sinelnikoff). Michael Sinelnikoff, as I said, also played
Summerlee in the American version the previous year. In that he
was a major character. Here, though he plays the same role, he has
a lot less acting to do.
In one more variance from the book, Challenger seems to have no
enmity toward Malone. When the question of who will fund the
expedition arises a mysterious and beautiful woman steps forward,
Marguerite Krux (played by Rachel Blakely) and volunteers on the
proviso that she can come on the expedition. Krux irritatingly has
attitudes of 1999 and not at all of 1912. She complains about
museums of "dead things." She wears brief outfits in the jungle.
They nicely show off her cleavage but would be roughly the
equivalent of ringing a flying insect dinner bell. She also seems
to like skinny-dipping. The Victorian Doyle would probably have
been scandalized by this adaptation of his book.
The group travels to the rain forest. Along the way they survive
an attack by headhunters. They also survive the crash landing of
the balloon they brought for their ascent onto the plateau. The
landing of the balloon is never shown, probably as an economy
measure. (The credit sequence shows the splintered piece of
plateau that is the way the explorers in the book get onto the main
plateau. The film never actually uses that entrance, choosing a
perhaps more visual balloon ascent.)
On the plateau the explorers find Veronica, a Sheena-like jungle
girl clad in a brief leather two-piece. She also is an abundant
source of cleavage and is the last survivor of a previous
expedition that included her parents. She has grown up on the
plateau, and she lives in a fantastic tree house beyond anything
Tarzan imagined. It even has an elevator.
The characters are not well developed. Roxton proves to be a
likable bounder. The other males are bland and uninteresting.
Krux would be a character of some interest if she were a little
less 1999 and more 1912.
The special effects are generally indifferently executed and there
is not much real interaction between humans and dinosaurs. The
large beasts are seen most frequently from distance. The
prehistoric animals are an audience attraction, but they are a
background detail that rarely fits into the plot. In fact, before
the dinosaurs are first seen by the expedition, nobody even thinks
to ask Veronica if there are dinosaurs on the plateau or not. The
actual purpose of the expedition just never comes up. Now that is
really relegates the dinosaurs to the background and concentrates
more on the ape-men. Of course, Doyle did much the same. The
effects might have been good if seen in Willis O'Brien's day but
are really not up to 1990s standards. The images of the beasts are
just never really integrated into scenes with people and frequently
there are bad matte lines. When a pterodactyl grabs Roxton and
carries him off the lizard undulates in air with the wing-beats,
but Roxton remains rigid.
This version is more just a castaway story than a serious
adaptation of Doyle's book. It is reminiscent of the old
children's program "The Land of the Lost." The pilot is less
interested in telling Doyle's story as in setting up the television
series.
This brings us to the television series. Episodes I have seen have
not been very interesting and not very faithful to the Doyle. They
seem to freely move into the area of fantasy and have a lot of
female flesh. Some of the writing is painfully bad. While
searching for a way off the plateau the trapped explorers find what
Challenger calls an "ocean"--on the plateau. He wants to find a
sea route off the plateau. How exactly does he think that would
work? How do you have an ocean lapping at the top of a plateau?
But even while this "sci-fi" series was being produced techniques
for creating animal images on film improved. And Doyle's story
was, as always, the perfect showcase for the new effects. So two
years later the story was filmed a sixth time.
THE LOST WORLD (2001)
It is not like previous decade had not had several adaptations of
Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD. But after the BBC finished
their "Walking with Dinosaurs" with very realistic-looking effects,
I suspected that the next natural thing to do with this technology
for creating lifelike dinosaurs was to juxtapose them with humans.
No respectable non-fiction presentation could do that. One would
have to do a story in which humans interface closely with the
dinosaurs. There is only one classic, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's THE
LOST WORLD. (Note: JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH does have
humans in viewing distance of an ichthyosaur fighting a plesiosaur,
but these are not really dinosaurs and it is only one sequence.)
So once again the Doyle was adapted.
The BBC, in cooperation with the A&E cable network, brought us a
new version about 165 minutes long. The special effects combine
CGI and full-scale models to give us state of the art visuals and
dinosaur images that look realistic and fit our current
paleontological knowledge.
This was, at least to my taste, the best version of the story we
are likely to get for a while. Willis O'Brien who created the
effects for the 1925 THE LOST WORLD and then was heartbroken when
lizards were used in the 1960 version of the film would have been
very pleased to see this version. Doyle might have been a little
less pleased with the liberties taken with the plot. But still it
was done on a relatively intelligent level.
Bob Hoskins takes a turn playing Challenger, a scientist with the
reputation for being a crackpot. He outdoes himself when he claims
that on his last expedition to South America he found a remote
place where dinosaurs still live. The Royal Society is skeptical
but fits out an expedition of four led by Challenger and the bland
intellectual Summerlee (Edward Fox this time), a skeptic who has no
patience for Challenger's claims or eccentricities. There is also
game hunter Lord Roxton (Tom Ward) and news reporter Edward Malone
(Matthew Rhys). The expedition finds the plateau where Challenger
saw the dinosaurs all right, but their means of exit is destroyed
in a way closer than usual to the Doyle, though still somewhat
revisionist. They have to face the now all-too-real dinosaurs that
Challenger reported seeing.
None of the cinematic versions of the novel have been really
faithful. The newest version only roughly follows the Doyle and
creates two new major characters. Agnes Clooney, raised in the
jungle near the site of the plateau has lived in the jungle all her
life and will act as a guide at the plateau. Theo Kerr (Peter
Falk) is her uncle, a Bible-thumping missionary at odds with
Summerlee over the issue of Creationism and Evolution. This is a
more intelligent revision than in previous versions, but one
wonders why it is always found necessary to revise the Doyle plot.
While the triangle of Challenger, Summerlee, and Kerr contest
science, a romantic triangle of Clooney, Roxton, and Malone
sprouts. The novel is "revised" throughout. In the novel,
Challenger is the most irascible character with a reputation for
violence against newspaper reporters like Malone. Hoskins loses
this dimension and seems to be the most pleasant and amiable of the
expedition members. The story starts as great fun, though in the
last hour the writing is disappointingly pedestrian.
Among the modifications from the Doyle is the effort to humanize
the sub-human ape men on the plateau. In the book they were cruel
killers who entertained themselves dropping their enemies over
cliffs. That aspect was considerably toned down for this
television version. This is the longest version yet made so there
is more emphasis on South American color than there was even in the
novel.
The special effects are certainly what sets this version apart from
previous cinematic adaptations of the novel. Still, the dinosaurs,
while more real-looking than previous version, are not quite
integrated with the people. When we see an entire dinosaur,
requiring CGI, it cannot quite interact with the people
superimposed in the scene. It was much like early Ray Harryhausen
rarely had the creatures he created interacting directly with
people. When need be, he could have cowboys lasso a dinosaur, but
such effects were used sparingly and it showed. In this LOST WORLD
we see even less such interaction. People will be chased by a
dinosaur that looks realistic, but on a different plane from the
people. What does that mean? It is hard to describe.
Admittedly, in the 1950s it was very easy to describe what was
wrong with the special effects of a film. In the 21st century
complaints with the special effects are more abstract and harder to
explain. But some limitations are still obvious to the eye.
This is probably the best version of THE LOST WORLD since the 1925
version. It will probably be a while until a better version of THE
LOST WORLD is made.
Summary
Sadly after the one reasonably good film version in 1925, there are
no satisfying versions of Doyle novel. All versions have been too
anxious to introduce new characters, frequently love interests.
And some try to make political points. This is just not a novel
that has been treated very well in its film adaptations. Ordering
them best to worst, identifying them with the person playing
Challenger and the year I would say:
1. Wallace Beery 1925
2. Bob Hoskins 2001
3. Patrick Bergin 1998
4. Claude Rains 1960
5. John Rhys-Davies 1992
6. Peter McCauley 1999
It should be noted that the 1997 film THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK
is based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name. Nothing
that I have ever seen has ever connected it with the Doyle's THE
LOST WORLD. I nevertheless notice that there are several plot
parallels to film versions of THE LOST WORLD. One man claims there
is an isolated place in South America where dinosaurs can be found.
There is an expedition to find the place. After a struggle
against the dinosaurs, one is brought back to a modern city where
it escapes and goes on a rampage. It is hard for me to not see
this as a sort of tribute or homage to the film versions of the
Doyle.
There have also been audio versions of the story. Unfortunately, I
do not know of where any but one are available. BBC Radio did
productions of the story in 1938, 1944, 1949, 1952, 1958, 1975, and
2013. I have not heard these versions, nor would I know even where
to search for them. Any pointers from readers to where to find
these or other adaptations would be welcome. I have heard an
audio-book abridgment read by James Mason. He was chosen, no doubt,
because of his association with two classic films based on more
classic science fiction books, TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE
SEA and JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, albeit books by Jules
Verne not Arthur Conan Doyle. The one audio dramatization I have
heard was not one I had much hope for and it was about what I
expected.
ALIEN VOICES: THE LOST WORLD (1996)
"Alien Voices" is an audio theater company specializing in science
fiction stories. It is built around three actors associated with
three different series of STAR TREK. The actors are Leonard Nimoy
(formerly Spock), John de Lancie (Q), and Armin Shimerman (Quark).
"Alien Voices" seems frequently also associated with the cable
Sci-Fi Channel. The drama group seems to specialize in doing the
classic science fiction stories from the likes of H. G. Wells,
Jules Verne, and Arthur Conan Doyle.
There are a number of faults built into any "Alien Voices"
production. The first is that the three actors are overly familiar
and overly associated in other roles. They also have
characteristic voices. That makes it almost impossible to lose
them in their character. Through ego, I suspect, they don't want
to be lost in the roles either. One does not have Lord John Roxton
as a character so much as John de Lancie DOING Lord John Roxton as
the character. The acting is uniformly weak. They use their own
voices rather than using dramatic tricks to change them and at the
same time other actors are exaggerating accents unrealistically.
Thus the actors and scriptwriter make very clear that they do not
take the material seriously and they do not expect the audience to
do so either. It is supposed to be all in good fun, but it makes
it very hard to appreciate the stories. In any case the length of
the stories is on the order of forty-five minutes, which it really
not enough time to do justice to the novels they are adapting and
too much time is spent on the humor. In addition, what is there is
not faithful to the novels. That is not uncommon in dramatic
adaptations, but they take particularly large liberties. In the
case of THE LOST WORLD, Summerlee is a woman and becomes a love
interest for Edward Malone. There are little sexual double
entendres and other references that the Victorian Doyle would never
have wanted in a novel intended as wholesome entertainment for "the
boy who's half man or the man who's half boy."
The story is told as the newspaper editor McArdle (Leonard Nimoy
with no effort to sound Scottish) reading dispatches from Edward
Malone. Just how these dispatches are supposed to get to London
from the top of the plateau is unclear, but in this version not a
lot of time is spent actually on the plateau. That part of the
story, what should be the shank, is much abbreviated. In fact,
there are only two encounters with dinosaurs on the plateau. While
that part has a few of the essentials from the novel, it is the
least compelling sequence of the dramatization. That may be
because the virtues of that part of the story are mostly visual.
In any case this adaptation is at best half-hearted and of all the
versions in covered in this article, it is the one least likely to
capture the imagination of a young new-comer.
There has never been a fully satisfying adaptation of Doyle's
novel. After a span of ten years in which there were four
cinematic versions, it seems unlikely there will be another one for
a while. However, that was what I would have thought after three
adaptations and we got still one more. As special effect
technology improves, the fascination that virtually everybody has
with dinosaurs, will lead more people to try to render them
realistically on the screen. Then they will want to put them in
adventure stories. Some of Edgar Rice Burroughs is a possibility.
But really there is only one major classic adventure story with
dinosaurs. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote it in 1912. It's THE LOST
WORLD.
--
Mark R. Leeper
[Originally published in Argentus, Number 3, Summer 2003]
Imagine a land so isolated from the world that it was beyond the
reach even of the forces of evolution. On one plateau deep in the
remote Amazon rain forest there is a land that has withstood the
ravages of time. Here dinosaurs and prehistoric ancestors of man
still live.
In 1960 I remember being enthralled with the publicity for the
upcoming film THE LOST WORLD. I was nine years old and anything
that had to do with dinosaurs was okay with me. I had only
recently seen the 1959 version of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE
EARTH and loved it. But only three sequences in the film had
dinosaurs. (Okay, to be literal, there are no dinosaurs in that
film, but at nine I was not ready to make zoological distinctions.)
The Sunday comics had ads telling a little teasing bit of the
story of an expedition to a plateau with dinosaurs. I was hooked.
I guess I still am.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes series of
stories, also had a science fiction and fantasy series featuring
short, wide, and blustery Professor George Edward Challenger. The
stocky scientist was first introduced in his 1912 novel THE LOST
WORLD. For this tale Doyle saw the dramatic possibilities of
humans interacting with live dinosaurs. He told an irresistible
story of an Amazon plateau so isolated that evolution had passed it
by and where the dragons of the past still reigned supreme. There
are two more novels with the same set of adventurers, though they
are not nearly as interesting or famous. THE POISON BELT is about
the earth traveling through a field of poisonous ether gas. THE
LAND OF MIST is a plea for tolerance for a spiritualist church.
Two shorter stories have Challenger opposing an inventor who has
created a terrible weapon in "The Disintegration Machine," and
discovering the Earth is a living organism in "When the Earth
Screamed." Doyle is said to have preferred writing Challenger
stories to stories about Sherlock Holmes, though the latter
undeniably had greater popularity and perhaps were better written.
The publicity I was seeing in 1960 was for the second of what at
this writing are six screen adaptations of the novel. In this
article I will review each of the six adaptations of Doyle's novel
to the screen. In doing so I face certain problems. First, the
earliest version is incomplete. I will have to review what is
available, a restored version of 92 minutes. A more widespread
problem is that is in my opinion none of the adaptations has been
satisfactorily accurate to the novel. Every one of them takes at
least one woman along and Doyle did not have a woman on the plateau
in the novel. Each adaptation does a lot of inventing as if there
was something wrong with Doyle's story. There really is not. If I
like a version, it really is mostly in comparison to the other
renditions that may not be as good.
THE LOST WORLD (1925)
The 1925 version had the much of the story more faithful to the
novel than any of the later film versions, though some incidents
occur out of order. One revision is that in the book Challenger
brought back only a pterodactyl, and it escapes before it is seen
by more than a roomful of people. The 1925 silent film version
apparently thought it would be more dramatic to have the animal
brought back be a brontosaurus and it does quite a bit of damage
when it escapes. This would show off imaginatively the stop-motion
animation.
The 1925 film version was the first feature-length film to use
stop-motion animation to any great degree. The technician who
created the effects was a young Willis O'Brien, who would later be
in charge of the effects of KING KONG (1933). In fact, though
O'Brien did not contribute the plot to KING KONG, it has strong
similarities to THE LOST WORLD, with the animal brought back to
civilization being a very large ape.
This first and arguably the best version of Doyle's classic was the
first version, a silent film. However, for years it has been
nearly impossible to tell with any assurance much about the 1925
version of THE LOST WORLD. There are four or five different
versions of this film. Until relatively recently only an edited
version a little over an hour has been available. This was much
chopped down from the original film. Recently a 93-minute version
has become available to the general public on DVD. Reportedly the
original release was 104 minutes so only about 11 minutes of the
original theatrical release are still missing. However, that is
the released version.
Sadly, it is impossible to see at this point what the released film
was really like. Production stills shown on the Turner Classic
Movie cable channel seem to indicate that there was a great deal
more of Doyle's plot that was shot than could possibly fit into the
missing eleven minutes. Some sequences that look like they would
have not only lengthened the film but made it more faithful to the
published story. The stills include the "stool of penance" scene
from the novel in which Challenger used as a most politically
incorrect way to punish his wife. Also there is indication that as
with the original novel Challenger was not chosen as one of the
members of the expedition and he uses trickery to join the party
after they are on their way. This plot was in the Doyle and was
apparently filmed for the silent version and then probably edited
out. (Of the adaptations covered in this article only the 1992
television version and the "Alien Voices" audio versions are
faithful to the book in this regard.) So while even the 93-minute
version indicates large liberties taken from the novel, there was
probably sequences shot that could have made for a fairly accurate
version that perhaps never came together.
I personally recommend this 93-minute version as being more
entertaining than the 63-minute version that has been available.
The shorter version has just the minimal story needed to connect up
the special effects shots. The longer editing makes the expedition
seems less slapdash and makes the film feel more like a ripping
adventure story. The shorter editing has the background story be
little more than a frame for the dinosaur sequences. That
audiences would settle for that is a testament to the popularity
that the Willis O'Brien's dinosaur sequences had with audiences.
It is hard to gage the impact that these sequences must have had
since so little like them had been seen on the screen before. Many
of the viewers assumed that the dinosaurs were full-scale
mechanical creations, and a few were naive enough to believe they
were seeing real live dinosaurs. It is hard to believe from the
jerky effects, the best possible at the time, that people took them
for real. But in fact there were some who did. While the film was
in production Marion Fairfax, who wrote the screenplay, thought she
would reassure special effects technician O'Brien and told him that
if the effects did not work out, the dinosaurs could easily be
removed from her screenplay. It is hard to imagine how popular a
film they could a made without the attraction of the dinosaur
effects.
The variations in plot from the novel are relatively small changes
of little consequence until the travelers arrive at the plateau.
Perhaps the biggest change was the addition of a love interest for
Malone to go with him on the expedition. This is Paula White,
daughter of plateau discoverer Maple White, played by Bessie Love.
After the crew gets to the plateau the story diverges somewhat
more. The novel talks of two tribes of humans. One are half-human
Neanderthal sorts, the others are like modern Indians. Doyle
spends much of the plateau story of how the modern Indians beat the
half-men, proving the superiority of modern man. Frankly, for me
this plot is not as interesting as the dinosaur-related plotting.
In this 1925 version of the film the two tribes are reduced to one
ape man, played by a man with the unlikely name Bull Montana.
Montana specialized in playing apes and half-men in the movies.
Without particularly good looks he had found his niche playing
ape-men. The filmmakers had only one half-man actor so the story
more concentrates on dinosaurs. Probably that is not a bad thing.
Even at the time the dinosaurs were more intriguing to audiences
than a man in an ape costume, however lurid.
Some additional liberties are taken. The zoological meeting takes
place before Malone visits Challenger's home. The escape route
from the plateau is destroyed by a dinosaur rather than by Gomez.
The most memorable variation, and one that would inspire other
films, is that instead of bringing back a pterodactyl, Challenger
returns with a brontosaurus who then escapes and wreaks havoc in
London. This popular sequence probably inspired films like KING
KONG; THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS; and BEHEMOTH, THE SEA MONSTER
(a.k.a. THE GIANT BEHEMOTH).
I have read a review that said that Willis O'Brien's special
effects have still rarely been matched. That comment was
well-intended but I think that Willis O'Brien would be among the
first to deny it himself. While these effects were a big step
forward from O'Brien's previous work, he would do better work for
KING KONG in 1933. O'Brien's protege Ray Harryhausen furthered the
art a great deal more. O'Brien would probably have been ecstatic
to see the JURASSIC PARK films, and perhaps none more than THE LOST
WORLD: JURASSIC PARK II, which I see as in part a tribute to him
and his contributions. Some of the sequences, like a stampede of
dinosaurs, are not technically perfect but are ambitious beyond
belief for a film this early.
O'Brien was, at the time he made THE LOST WORLD, still having some
problems with the smooth fluid movement of the figures he is
animating. He also has a tendency to make the creatures of too
large a scale. An example is the pterodactyl that seems much too
massive in comparison to the spur of the plateau. O'Brien would
similarly exaggerate the size of his stegosaurus in KING KONG.
Some of his matte scenes, static and traveling, combining images of
actors and dinosaurs are well ahead of their time. While O'Brien
never let the humans get too close to the dinosaurs, they
impressively give scale to the giant beasts. There is one scene in
which the humans throw a flaming piece of wood in a dinosaur's
mouth. This could not use stop-motion since there is no effective
way to animate a flame frame-by-frame. For this effect a
hand-puppet seems to have been used.
The acting is sufficient but spotty. Wallace Beery makes the best
Challenger of any of the screen versions. He is sufficiently gruff
and pushy. Bessie Love as Paula is not so good and her main talent
seems to be that she can look frightened well. Arthur Hoyt's
Summerlee is almost unnoticeable. One barely remembers scenes he
was in. Lloyd Hughes is bland as Edward Malone and reminds the
viewer of Harold Lloyd. Lord John Roxton is played by Lewis Stone,
who later would play dignified roles like Captain Smollet in the
1934 TREASURE ISLAND and Judge Hardy in the Andy Hardy series.
Stone makes an imposing Roxton if not a very interesting one. He
seems almost too dignified to be the great hunter.
Unless one counts films like KING KONG, UNKNOWN ISLAND, THE LAND
UNKNOWN, or TWO LOST WORLDS, all of which arguably took some
inspiration from the Doyle, the next real film version of THE LOST
WORLD was released in summer of 1960 with Claude Rains as
Challenger.
THE LOST WORLD (1960)
The 1960 version of THE LOST WORLD was the first version I ever
saw, not too surprising for anyone of the Baby Boomer generation.
Most critics think that it is a totally ugly dog. I can sympathize
with that point of view, but do not agree. It certainly is a giant
step down from the 1925 version. But in the context of a 1960
film, it comes off a bit better. The 1950s had several gaudy
adventure films of much the same style, films like RUN FOR THE SUN.
In years to come the same sort of film would be a special effects
extravaganza, but in the 1950s filmmakers would use real settings.
Infusing a little bit of science fiction into that formula is a
welcome variation. One can almost reconcile oneself to the film in
that context but then one remembers how badly the "dinosaur"
effects are created. And there is Frosty the Poodle. The film
just has its good and more than its share of bad moments.
The 1960 version of THE LOST WORLD, directed by Irwin Allen (who
also produced and co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Bennett),
boasted the name of Willis O'Brien as "effects technician." Sadly
the dinosaur effects were created by the later illegal practice of
using live lizards, perhaps enhancing their looks by pasting horns
or plates on them, and then having them fight other such lizards.
It was cruel to the animals and only the least discerning audiences
could suspend disbelief and think of these things as dinosaurs.
Part of what makes dinosaurs dinosaurs is that they stand straight
upon their legs the way an elephant does. Lizards have legs that
go out to the side. Dinosaur bodies can support more weight
because their legs are like columns under them for support. The
previous year lizards were used to good effect in JOURNEY TO THE
CENTER OF THE EARTH to simulate Dimetrodons. However, Dimetrodons
were not lizards and not dinosaurs.
This version is not a very good rendering of the story, in spite of
introducing color to the adaptations. It nonetheless was my
introduction to Doyle's story and as such it has fond memories for
me. Rains is too thin to play the barrel-chested discoverer, but
otherwise he is not too bad at playing Challenger. He has the
personality approximately right. His acting is the best thing
about this adaptation. On the other hand, choosing comic actor
Richard Hayden as Summerlee was a fiasco. His performance grates
on one's nerves whenever he is on the screen. He acts as if he is
in some other movie. Michael Rennie makes a decent Roxton. He has
the self-assured quality that Doyle would have appreciated. David
Hedison is a little old to play Edward Malone and have the sort of
boyish enthusiasm and insecurities that Doyle gave that character.
Irwin Allen updates the story to roughly 1960. The film opens with
Challenger returning from the Amazon to report his discoveries of
live dinosaurs on a plateau of South America. With Challenger's
traditional hatred of reporters he clouts Ed Malone trying to
interview him. Malone is pulled from the ground by Jennifer Holmes
(Jill St. John), the daughter of his publisher.
At the geographic society Challenger reports having seen dinosaurs.
The skeptical audience suggests a return visit to verify his
findings. In return for funding, Challenger is saddled with a
reporter on the expedition, Malone. He also gets Professor
Summerlee and big game hunter Lord John Roxton. At a stop in South
America the expedition picks up two local guides, pilot Manuel
Gomez (Fernando Lamas) and lackey Costa (Jay Novello). (Manuel and
Gomez are two different characters in the novel.) Also joining the
expedition more or less by blackmail are Jennifer and her brother
David (Ray Stricklyn) as well as a poodle named Frosty. The
siblings are no invention of Doyle, but the choice of the name
Holmes is likely an allusion to Doyle.
The expedition takes helicopter to plateau, getting magnificent
views from overhead. They land the plateau but see no sign of
dinosaurs. That night they hear a large beast in their vicinity,
terrorizing them. They soon find their helicopter was crushed and
kicked over the side of the cliff. We get a glimpse of a large
lizard with a neck frill. Challenger identifies it as a
brontosaurus, but what we saw did not look anything like a
brontosaurus. In any case the explorers find they are now stranded
on the plateau. The next day they are menaced by man-eating plants
and more dinosaurs. One of the latter splits up the group and
Malone and Challenger as one subgroup finds a native girl. Malone
follows her and finds her, even at the cost of running through the
web of a four-foot-wide tarantula spider.
Malone brings her to camp where only Roxton recognizes that
capturing her could mean trouble from the rest of her tribe.
Relations are about to degenerate into a fistfight when Roxton
finds a strange diary. It was kept by Burton (not Maple) White who
discovered the plateau in partnership with Roxton. White's diary
says he is waiting for Roxton to rescue him and that he is looking
for legendary diamonds. Roxton was part of that team, but let the
others down. He never came to them. Now he has come again with
Challenger, but with of motive of looking for the diamonds.
Jennifer is deeply disappointed in the man she was hoping to catch.
David tries to comfort the native girl and in the process discovers
that she knows how to use a rifle. He is about to tell the others
when the group is attacked. The native girl escapes and Malone
follows. He loses her and Malone returning through the forest
finds Jennifer. The two are returning to camp when they find
themselves in the paths of two fighting dinosaurs. They must hide
as the two titans fight. This is a rather sadistic piece of
footage when one sees that these are live lizards pitted against
each other. Eventually they fall over the side of the plateau.
Jennifer and Mallone return to camp finding it empty. They realize
that the others have been captured. In moments they find that they
are also prisoners of the natives. Taken to the native city they
find drum-beating ceremonies in progress. They are reunited with
their fellow explorers.
Just when they realize they are to be eaten the native girl comes
along to rescue David. With a little effort she is convinced to
help the whole group escape. He takes them to find a blind Burton
White (Ian Wolfe). White tells them there is a path thought the
plateau to the base. How it got there in a volcanic plateau is
hard to understand. Why would lava take such a path? But the
expedition takes this path past deadly people-grabbing tendrils and
a graveyard of dead dinosaurs.
The entire plateau is starting to erupt and explode. They
expedition uses fire to keep back the pursuing natives. They find
the diamonds, but also more trouble and another dinosaur. As they
leave the plateau blows itself to pieces.
This version invents its own subplots, but which version does not?
The script is not great, but it would have made for at least a good
adventure film had the dinosaurs looked like dinosaurs.
For those in the audience who would recognize Willis O'Brien's
name, in the credits as "effect technician." He was reportedly
asked his opinion of the possibility of lizard special effects and
told the producers how bad those effects were. They paid him for
his opinion, ignored it, and put his name in the credits. That
probably was the plan from the beginning. The film had moments,
but overall was not very good. The plot is confused with a
previous expedition that was bungled, a treasure hunt for diamonds,
and a revenge plot. Perhaps the capper of mistakes was to have the
woman expedition member bring a poodle. There is no adventure film
so exciting that it cannot be ruined by the presence of a poodle.
The Disney film THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD made the same
grievous error. Perhaps it was supposed to be a counterpoint of
Gertrude the Duck of the previous year's far superior JOURNEY TO
THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, also from Fox. However, while the duck
worked well, Frosty the poodle served only to demonstrate how silly
this expedition was. With the exception of the dog, the writing is
not really bad--it just fails to be very interesting. It might be
best appreciated if one just does not look at the screen once the
expedition reaches the plateau.
With all its faults, at least this film does not talk down to its
audience and does not have the juvenile feel of the 1992 and 1999
versions. It has a sort of empty, Technicolor, wide-screen, 1950s
feel. The plateau never looked so good as seen from above at a
distance.
This was a bad and disappointing version of the Doyle, but it would
neither be the last such, nor would it be the worst. Irwin Allen
was aiming for an adult audience while relying on a teenage crowd
(not unlike the soon to begin Bond series). The next version would
wait thirty-two years, just three years short of the interval
between the silent and first sound version. And the new version
was definitely made with a younger audience in mind.
THE LOST WORLD (1992)
The 1992 version of THE LOST WORLD, a Canadian production directed
by Timothy Bond (who previously directed episodes for the
television series "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "War of the
Worlds") and written and co-produced by Harry Alan Towers. The
film is shot in Zimbabwe and apparently was made together or in
tandem with a sequel, RETURN TO THE LOST WORLD. To accommodate
this location the plateau is moved from South America to Africa.
The transplant gives the story a sort of H. Rider Haggard feel that
would be okay, but it is not Doyle.
Towers's script starts reasonably faithful to the Doyle but quickly
shows its loyalties are more to sending (condescending) politically
correct messages than to the text by Doyle. Male chauvinists
everywhere are given a come-uppance by a strong female on the
expedition. Because the script is already being written on a
juvenile level, a boy is added to the expedition to give children
someone to identify with.
As in the book, Malone (Edward McCormack) passes himself off to
Challenger (John Rhys-Davies) as a scientist, but he does not have
the knowledge to maintain the ruse. Malone is, incidentally, made
a Canadian to give the Canadian audience a one of their own to care
about. Challenger attacks Malone, the police intervene, and Malone
endears himself to Challenger by choosing not to press charges.
The forming of the expedition is pretty much like in the manner of
the novel though they end up with woman reporter Jenny Nielson
(Tamara Gorksu) and a twelve-ish boy Jim (Darren Peter Mercer).
The character of Roxton has been eliminated and there is no
equivalent. As in the book but few film versions it is decided
that it is Summerlee (David Warner) who will lead the expedition
and Challenger will remain behind. Not to worry, Rhys-Davies is
too big a star to not be included in the expedition.
More invented characters come along. On the way the expedition is
joined by a female Noble Savage in a revealing two-piece outfit.
She is Malu (Nathania Stanford) and can be counted on to have
politically correct thinking as everybody raised in the bush would
have. Also along is the nasty Gomez (Geza Kovacs). One more piece
that harks from the book--in the end the expedition brings back to
London a pterodactyl, though the story of the pterodactyl is
somewhat different from Doyle's tale.
The reporter Jenny Nielson appears inspired by the real person
Nellie Bly. She is a slightly aggressive feminist. On the other
hand John Rhys-Davies makes a passable Challenger in stature and
temperament. He is, after his earliest scenes and though he feuds
with Summerlee, less strident and more boyishly likable than in the
Doyle.
The choice to do the film in a didactic and juvenile fashion that
makes it a very bad disappointment after a start that is at least
decent. The dinosaurs were rubbery and cute with rough edges
rounded off and so was the writing. The script looks for every
politically correct lesson that can be wrung from the plot. Doyle,
of course, had no women on the expedition. The first two film
versions each had one woman along. This version has two attractive
women and a plucky youngster. Things are going downhill.
I will not say much about the sequel, RETURN TO THE LOST WORLD. It
is not an adaptation of the Doyle, but only inspired by it. The
story involves European entrepreneurs who want to exploit the
petroleum in the no longer lost world and the team returns to the
plateau to protect it. It is not the most original or engaging
story and did not really need this particular prehistoric land to
tell its story. The sequel certainly underscored that Maple White
Land was a noble and wondrous world that needed to be preserved.
The 1998 version had a very different attitude toward Maple White's
mysterious land.
THE LOST WORLD (1998)
a.k.a. SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S THE LOST WORLD
Six years after the Canadian production of THE LOST WORLD, the
story was again adapted in the United States with some unusual
variations. Even the title was modified. Following the films BRAM
STOKER'S DRACULA and MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN, it became popular
to include the original author's name in the title of films based
on classics. It somehow promised that the content fidelity to the
original work. BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA added a love interest for
Dracula that Bram Stoker would not have recognized, and MARY
SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN had Victor bringing his bride back from the
dead in precisely the way that the character in the book did not.
Still, it was popular for a while to put the author's name in the
title. Hence in two years we have two different films titled SIR
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S THE LOST WORLD. This is the first. To make
things even more confusing the two versions each has the same actor
playing Summerlee. It must take a lot of explanation on his resume
that these really are different films. This film proves its
loyalty (or lack thereof) to the original text by starting in
Mongolia, of all places.
The 1998 film opens with Maple White finding a pterodactyl egg and
paying for it with his life. He lives long enough to pass his
notebook and other interesting evidence to his traveling companion
and partner G. E. Challenger (Patrick Bergin, who does not look
anything like Doyle's Challenger). When Challenger returns to
London with his claims that dinosaurs exist, showing notebooks as
his evidence, as usual in adaptations he is met with skepticism and
is offered the means for an expedition. Amanda White (Jayne
Heitmeyer) recognizes her father's notebooks and insists on being
part of the expedition. Mr. Summerlee is ambivalent about being
asked to go on the expedition, but after a moment agrees. Unique
in this version, Summerlee is actually a fairly decent and
interesting character and one the audience cares for. Michael
Sinelnikoff makes a very acceptable if not highly memorable
Summerlee. He does such a good job that in the unrelated
production the following year he repeated the role, though that
part was not as well written. He is, I believe, the only actor to
repeat a role in two unconnected productions of THE LOST WORLD. He
also plays the role in the "Lost World" television series, of which
I will say more later. John Roxton (David Nerman) is demoted from
being the book's English lord to being an obnoxious American hunter
who later proves to be of villainous intent. Arthur (!) Malone the
reporter also joins the expedition played by an unmemorable Julian
Casey. Bergin's Challenger gets along neither with Summerlee nor
Roxton, though the audience likes Roxton considerably less.
Using several conveyances of the period, which seems to be the
1930s or so, the crew makes its way to Mongolia and the plateau out
of time. The final step involves a helium balloon to ascend the
plateau as a sort of getaway after the team has just rescued Ms.
White. In the best traditions of KING KONG she had been kidnapped
by natives and stretched out on a rack. Having just been rescued
and ascending to a land of vicious dinosaurs, Amanda White
literally found herself between a rack and a hard place. And a
hard place, the plateau is. The travelers find their land of
dinosaurs--particularly vicious dinosaurs--and two warring tribes.
One of the tribes are Neanderthals one more modern. In the end of
an uncomfortable stay only Challenger and White make it out alive,
though Malone is left behind on plateau like an Edgar Rice
Burroughs hero.
We initially see a "brontosaurus" with some features that are wrong
for the animal. Perhaps some effect artist tried to get creative.
However, it turns out that the inaccuracy is a feature, not a bug.
With hundreds of millions of years of evolution. it appears
dinosaurs have diverged from those in the fossil record. Other
adaptations have implied that once you got to know this plateau it
was a groovy place to be. Perhaps one of the best touches of this
version is that definitely is NOT the case in this adaptation.
This is probably the goriest adaptation, and the plateau is a
painful and dangerous place to be. Perhaps inspired by JURASSIC
PARK this film has the meanest and most nasty dinosaurs of any
version. The dinosaur effects seem to be in large part digital,
though perhaps some mechanical effects were used also.
Making up a little for deficiencies in the writing the film has a
terrific look. The art direction by Sylvain Gingras has an antique
Indiana Jones tone. Several interesting vehicles are used to bring
the explorers to Maple White land, especially a sort of half-track
bus. While the transplantation from a South American jungle to
snowy Mongolia seems all wrong, it is not a bad setting for an
adventure story. It is reminiscent RKO setting their SHE (1935) in
Tibet rather than Africa.
In the end, with Malone marooned in Maple White Land as a sort of
Robinson Crusoe with dinosaurs, it is expected his adventures might
continue. No sequel was made. However, someone in Canada had a
very similar idea. Why not have a TV series set on the plateau?
So nearly at the same time Canadian producers made their own
version of the story, but handled it as a TV pilot and sold an
entire TV series on the premise.
THE LOST WORLD (1999)
a.k.a. SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S THE LOST WORLD
Richard Franklin directed the 1999 version of THE LOST WORLD as a
two-hour (minus commercials) pilot for the Canadian TV series of
the same name. In fact the series sold and apparently ran in
Canada and the United States. I was less than pleased with the
pilot, which was very much of a television quality.
The setup is only vaguely correct and the people never do get off
the plateau because then we would not have a continuing television
series, would we? The focus is not even on the characters that
Doyle created. They are lessened in importance compared to new
strong (female) characters.
After an action prolog in which we see a man attacked by something
big in a jungle, presumably a dinosaur. He finds tall, handsome
explorer Challenger (Peter McCauley, very unlike Doyle's version).
He dies in his camp, but not before he leaves Challenger his
journal and photo negatives of pterodactyls. Challenger returns to
London with tales of this lost world that he has not visited. He
tells the geographic society of his discovery. They are skeptical,
but suggest a special expedition. There are the usual three
volunteers: Ned Malone (William deVry), Lord John Roxton (William
Snow, a Pierce Brosnan look-alike), and Dr. Summerlee (Michael
Sinelnikoff). Michael Sinelnikoff, as I said, also played
Summerlee in the American version the previous year. In that he
was a major character. Here, though he plays the same role, he has
a lot less acting to do.
In one more variance from the book, Challenger seems to have no
enmity toward Malone. When the question of who will fund the
expedition arises a mysterious and beautiful woman steps forward,
Marguerite Krux (played by Rachel Blakely) and volunteers on the
proviso that she can come on the expedition. Krux irritatingly has
attitudes of 1999 and not at all of 1912. She complains about
museums of "dead things." She wears brief outfits in the jungle.
They nicely show off her cleavage but would be roughly the
equivalent of ringing a flying insect dinner bell. She also seems
to like skinny-dipping. The Victorian Doyle would probably have
been scandalized by this adaptation of his book.
The group travels to the rain forest. Along the way they survive
an attack by headhunters. They also survive the crash landing of
the balloon they brought for their ascent onto the plateau. The
landing of the balloon is never shown, probably as an economy
measure. (The credit sequence shows the splintered piece of
plateau that is the way the explorers in the book get onto the main
plateau. The film never actually uses that entrance, choosing a
perhaps more visual balloon ascent.)
On the plateau the explorers find Veronica, a Sheena-like jungle
girl clad in a brief leather two-piece. She also is an abundant
source of cleavage and is the last survivor of a previous
expedition that included her parents. She has grown up on the
plateau, and she lives in a fantastic tree house beyond anything
Tarzan imagined. It even has an elevator.
The characters are not well developed. Roxton proves to be a
likable bounder. The other males are bland and uninteresting.
Krux would be a character of some interest if she were a little
less 1999 and more 1912.
The special effects are generally indifferently executed and there
is not much real interaction between humans and dinosaurs. The
large beasts are seen most frequently from distance. The
prehistoric animals are an audience attraction, but they are a
background detail that rarely fits into the plot. In fact, before
the dinosaurs are first seen by the expedition, nobody even thinks
to ask Veronica if there are dinosaurs on the plateau or not. The
actual purpose of the expedition just never comes up. Now that is
really relegates the dinosaurs to the background and concentrates
more on the ape-men. Of course, Doyle did much the same. The
effects might have been good if seen in Willis O'Brien's day but
are really not up to 1990s standards. The images of the beasts are
just never really integrated into scenes with people and frequently
there are bad matte lines. When a pterodactyl grabs Roxton and
carries him off the lizard undulates in air with the wing-beats,
but Roxton remains rigid.
This version is more just a castaway story than a serious
adaptation of Doyle's book. It is reminiscent of the old
children's program "The Land of the Lost." The pilot is less
interested in telling Doyle's story as in setting up the television
series.
This brings us to the television series. Episodes I have seen have
not been very interesting and not very faithful to the Doyle. They
seem to freely move into the area of fantasy and have a lot of
female flesh. Some of the writing is painfully bad. While
searching for a way off the plateau the trapped explorers find what
Challenger calls an "ocean"--on the plateau. He wants to find a
sea route off the plateau. How exactly does he think that would
work? How do you have an ocean lapping at the top of a plateau?
But even while this "sci-fi" series was being produced techniques
for creating animal images on film improved. And Doyle's story
was, as always, the perfect showcase for the new effects. So two
years later the story was filmed a sixth time.
THE LOST WORLD (2001)
It is not like previous decade had not had several adaptations of
Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD. But after the BBC finished
their "Walking with Dinosaurs" with very realistic-looking effects,
I suspected that the next natural thing to do with this technology
for creating lifelike dinosaurs was to juxtapose them with humans.
No respectable non-fiction presentation could do that. One would
have to do a story in which humans interface closely with the
dinosaurs. There is only one classic, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's THE
LOST WORLD. (Note: JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH does have
humans in viewing distance of an ichthyosaur fighting a plesiosaur,
but these are not really dinosaurs and it is only one sequence.)
So once again the Doyle was adapted.
The BBC, in cooperation with the A&E cable network, brought us a
new version about 165 minutes long. The special effects combine
CGI and full-scale models to give us state of the art visuals and
dinosaur images that look realistic and fit our current
paleontological knowledge.
This was, at least to my taste, the best version of the story we
are likely to get for a while. Willis O'Brien who created the
effects for the 1925 THE LOST WORLD and then was heartbroken when
lizards were used in the 1960 version of the film would have been
very pleased to see this version. Doyle might have been a little
less pleased with the liberties taken with the plot. But still it
was done on a relatively intelligent level.
Bob Hoskins takes a turn playing Challenger, a scientist with the
reputation for being a crackpot. He outdoes himself when he claims
that on his last expedition to South America he found a remote
place where dinosaurs still live. The Royal Society is skeptical
but fits out an expedition of four led by Challenger and the bland
intellectual Summerlee (Edward Fox this time), a skeptic who has no
patience for Challenger's claims or eccentricities. There is also
game hunter Lord Roxton (Tom Ward) and news reporter Edward Malone
(Matthew Rhys). The expedition finds the plateau where Challenger
saw the dinosaurs all right, but their means of exit is destroyed
in a way closer than usual to the Doyle, though still somewhat
revisionist. They have to face the now all-too-real dinosaurs that
Challenger reported seeing.
None of the cinematic versions of the novel have been really
faithful. The newest version only roughly follows the Doyle and
creates two new major characters. Agnes Clooney, raised in the
jungle near the site of the plateau has lived in the jungle all her
life and will act as a guide at the plateau. Theo Kerr (Peter
Falk) is her uncle, a Bible-thumping missionary at odds with
Summerlee over the issue of Creationism and Evolution. This is a
more intelligent revision than in previous versions, but one
wonders why it is always found necessary to revise the Doyle plot.
While the triangle of Challenger, Summerlee, and Kerr contest
science, a romantic triangle of Clooney, Roxton, and Malone
sprouts. The novel is "revised" throughout. In the novel,
Challenger is the most irascible character with a reputation for
violence against newspaper reporters like Malone. Hoskins loses
this dimension and seems to be the most pleasant and amiable of the
expedition members. The story starts as great fun, though in the
last hour the writing is disappointingly pedestrian.
Among the modifications from the Doyle is the effort to humanize
the sub-human ape men on the plateau. In the book they were cruel
killers who entertained themselves dropping their enemies over
cliffs. That aspect was considerably toned down for this
television version. This is the longest version yet made so there
is more emphasis on South American color than there was even in the
novel.
The special effects are certainly what sets this version apart from
previous cinematic adaptations of the novel. Still, the dinosaurs,
while more real-looking than previous version, are not quite
integrated with the people. When we see an entire dinosaur,
requiring CGI, it cannot quite interact with the people
superimposed in the scene. It was much like early Ray Harryhausen
rarely had the creatures he created interacting directly with
people. When need be, he could have cowboys lasso a dinosaur, but
such effects were used sparingly and it showed. In this LOST WORLD
we see even less such interaction. People will be chased by a
dinosaur that looks realistic, but on a different plane from the
people. What does that mean? It is hard to describe.
Admittedly, in the 1950s it was very easy to describe what was
wrong with the special effects of a film. In the 21st century
complaints with the special effects are more abstract and harder to
explain. But some limitations are still obvious to the eye.
This is probably the best version of THE LOST WORLD since the 1925
version. It will probably be a while until a better version of THE
LOST WORLD is made.
Summary
Sadly after the one reasonably good film version in 1925, there are
no satisfying versions of Doyle novel. All versions have been too
anxious to introduce new characters, frequently love interests.
And some try to make political points. This is just not a novel
that has been treated very well in its film adaptations. Ordering
them best to worst, identifying them with the person playing
Challenger and the year I would say:
1. Wallace Beery 1925
2. Bob Hoskins 2001
3. Patrick Bergin 1998
4. Claude Rains 1960
5. John Rhys-Davies 1992
6. Peter McCauley 1999
It should be noted that the 1997 film THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK
is based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name. Nothing
that I have ever seen has ever connected it with the Doyle's THE
LOST WORLD. I nevertheless notice that there are several plot
parallels to film versions of THE LOST WORLD. One man claims there
is an isolated place in South America where dinosaurs can be found.
There is an expedition to find the place. After a struggle
against the dinosaurs, one is brought back to a modern city where
it escapes and goes on a rampage. It is hard for me to not see
this as a sort of tribute or homage to the film versions of the
Doyle.
There have also been audio versions of the story. Unfortunately, I
do not know of where any but one are available. BBC Radio did
productions of the story in 1938, 1944, 1949, 1952, 1958, 1975, and
2013. I have not heard these versions, nor would I know even where
to search for them. Any pointers from readers to where to find
these or other adaptations would be welcome. I have heard an
audio-book abridgment read by James Mason. He was chosen, no doubt,
because of his association with two classic films based on more
classic science fiction books, TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE
SEA and JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, albeit books by Jules
Verne not Arthur Conan Doyle. The one audio dramatization I have
heard was not one I had much hope for and it was about what I
expected.
ALIEN VOICES: THE LOST WORLD (1996)
"Alien Voices" is an audio theater company specializing in science
fiction stories. It is built around three actors associated with
three different series of STAR TREK. The actors are Leonard Nimoy
(formerly Spock), John de Lancie (Q), and Armin Shimerman (Quark).
"Alien Voices" seems frequently also associated with the cable
Sci-Fi Channel. The drama group seems to specialize in doing the
classic science fiction stories from the likes of H. G. Wells,
Jules Verne, and Arthur Conan Doyle.
There are a number of faults built into any "Alien Voices"
production. The first is that the three actors are overly familiar
and overly associated in other roles. They also have
characteristic voices. That makes it almost impossible to lose
them in their character. Through ego, I suspect, they don't want
to be lost in the roles either. One does not have Lord John Roxton
as a character so much as John de Lancie DOING Lord John Roxton as
the character. The acting is uniformly weak. They use their own
voices rather than using dramatic tricks to change them and at the
same time other actors are exaggerating accents unrealistically.
Thus the actors and scriptwriter make very clear that they do not
take the material seriously and they do not expect the audience to
do so either. It is supposed to be all in good fun, but it makes
it very hard to appreciate the stories. In any case the length of
the stories is on the order of forty-five minutes, which it really
not enough time to do justice to the novels they are adapting and
too much time is spent on the humor. In addition, what is there is
not faithful to the novels. That is not uncommon in dramatic
adaptations, but they take particularly large liberties. In the
case of THE LOST WORLD, Summerlee is a woman and becomes a love
interest for Edward Malone. There are little sexual double
entendres and other references that the Victorian Doyle would never
have wanted in a novel intended as wholesome entertainment for "the
boy who's half man or the man who's half boy."
The story is told as the newspaper editor McArdle (Leonard Nimoy
with no effort to sound Scottish) reading dispatches from Edward
Malone. Just how these dispatches are supposed to get to London
from the top of the plateau is unclear, but in this version not a
lot of time is spent actually on the plateau. That part of the
story, what should be the shank, is much abbreviated. In fact,
there are only two encounters with dinosaurs on the plateau. While
that part has a few of the essentials from the novel, it is the
least compelling sequence of the dramatization. That may be
because the virtues of that part of the story are mostly visual.
In any case this adaptation is at best half-hearted and of all the
versions in covered in this article, it is the one least likely to
capture the imagination of a young new-comer.
There has never been a fully satisfying adaptation of Doyle's
novel. After a span of ten years in which there were four
cinematic versions, it seems unlikely there will be another one for
a while. However, that was what I would have thought after three
adaptations and we got still one more. As special effect
technology improves, the fascination that virtually everybody has
with dinosaurs, will lead more people to try to render them
realistically on the screen. Then they will want to put them in
adventure stories. Some of Edgar Rice Burroughs is a possibility.
But really there is only one major classic adventure story with
dinosaurs. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote it in 1912. It's THE LOST
WORLD.
--
Mark R. Leeper
Paul S Person
Oct 9, 2022, 12:29:24 PM10/9/22
to
On Sun, 9 Oct 2022 08:25:11 -0700 (PDT), Mark Leeper
<mle...@optonline.net> wrote:
>Six Lost Worlds: The Dramatic Adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Novel (film comments by Mark R. Leeper)
>
>[Originally published in Argentus, Number 3, Summer 2003]
<snippo; I have a few remarks on the first two>
<mle...@optonline.net> wrote:
>Six Lost Worlds: The Dramatic Adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Novel (film comments by Mark R. Leeper)
>
>[Originally published in Argentus, Number 3, Summer 2003]
The silent 1925 version is, indeed, much closer to the book than the
1960 version, including the outer wrapper: the protagonist's going on
the expedition to impress his sweetie, only to find on his return that
she has married a bank clerk and her desire for a man of adventure was
merely a "girlish whim". And in other ways as well, as you noted.
It is marred by the dialog it assigns to Zambo, the comic relief, an
African-American from the Deep South who is heavily stereotyped and,
for unexplained reasons, is somehow working in the Amazon.
But the stop-motion is, for its time, fantastic.
The 1960 version has a few problems. Unlike the 1925 version, where
the obligatory (in a movie) female member of the expedition is a
trained explorer herself, the female /here/ is very much a fluff-head.
The dinosaur action is, however, first-rate -- because (as you noted)
they are not stop-motion dinosaurs but lizards wearing costumes. I
don't recall if the film was monitored by an SPCA. Had they ditched
the costumes and modified the script to talk about "giant lizards"
instead of "dinosaurs", they would have avoided a lot of the
criticism. (I have read a suggestion that this happened because CB
DeMille was sucking all the special effects money out of the studio to
make /Cleopatra/, leaving O'Brien with few options.)
OTOH, the comic relief here is the storekeeper, and he is just a
greedy, grubby opportunist.
Incidentally, the DVD I purchased for /The Lost World/ contains both
versions. The 1925 version is 75 minutes long and claims to have been
restored from the original 35mm negative. In addition to telling you
this when the disc starts up, starting the movie tells it to you in
more detail before the actual film starts. The people who did this are
clearly proud of their work. This leaves it, what, 18 minutes short
(Maltin gives 93 minutes)? The disk also has 9 minutes of "Outtakes".
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."
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