From: mleeper@optonline.net   
      
   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   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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