DVD review (region 1)
Starring (1960) Claude Raines, Michael Rennie, David Hedison, Jill St John; (1925) Wallace Beery, Lloyd Hughes, Bessie Love, Lewis Stone
Directed by (1960) Irwin Allen; (1925) Harry O’Hoyt & Willis O’Brien
Release date Out now

Professor Challenger (Claude Raines in 1960, Wallace Beery in 1925) leads an expedition to a long-isolated plateau to prove his claim that dinosaurs have survived in the modern age…

The two versions of The Lost World included in this two-disc release (from 1925 and 1960) effectively book-end the career of stop-motion animator and special effects wizard Willis O’Brien, the man who mentored Ray Harryhausen. The two films show a strange collapse in the effectiveness of special effects, especially in the realisation of the dinosaurs. The 1925 silent (presented here as a glorified extra, but easily the better of the two films) features exquisite animated dinosaurs full of character, while the cost-cutting 1960s Irwin Allen version sees a bunch of lizards with fins stuck all over them line up for a rumble in a model jungle.

Both version of The Lost World are freely adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel, following the efforts of Professor Challenger to convince a disbelieving world of the survival of dinosaurs on a remote plateau by mounting a new expedition. Each makes different changes to the source material, but they broadly tell the same story.

The Allen movie sets the template for many of his 1960s TV adventure serials (Land of the Giants, Lost in Space, etc), and sees a bunch of mis-matched individuals thrown into a strange land where they clash in their efforts to survive. Of course, more than one has secrets and there’s always a traitor in their midst.

For a film that promises so much adventure and spectacle, Allen’s The Lost World is, frankly, often boring. It takes too long to get going, features a bunch of hopeless characters (played by name actors clearly slumming it for the pay cheque) and when we finally get to the special effects, they’re laughable. In fact, in this more enlightened age, there is something uncomfortable about watching lizards and alligators setting about each other in quite a graphic manner, with daft horns and fins stuck to their heads and backs. Surely this movie can’t have abided by whatever animal cruelty laws applied back in 1960, can it?

It’s the 1925 silent version of The Lost World that makes this package worth a look. This appears to be a long-awaited restoration (the film has been released on DVD before in two alternative variants), featuring the longest cut of the movie available.

As well as Willis O’Brien’s brilliant dinosaurs (he went on to hone his craft on King Kong and Mighty Joe Young before a downturn in his career), the earlier film provides an excellent payoff by letting a Brontosaurus run rampage through London (something still not achieved by Spielberg’s Jurassic Park movies)! It’s a great sequence and a fine finale to a film packed full of adventure and spectacle. OK, so the acting is silent movie style over-emoting, but at least the 1925 film is never as dull as its 1960s successor. As an extra, there’s a series of dinosaur animation out-takes, some of which sees O’Brien pop up for a few frames at a time.

There are a few minor extras attached to the 1960 version. Two three minute contemporary promo pieces (a trailer and a short subject hyping the movie) are about it, with some nicely readable cuttings and press materials in an extensive image gallery.

Get this disc if you have any interest in the 1925 silent version of The Lost World: consider the dull, boring and downright cruel 1960 version as an unwanted extra! Brian J. Robb

VERDICT: 6/10
Irwin Allen’s The Lost World leaves a lot to be desired, but the 1925 film shows off some great Willis O’Brien stop motion creatures.