The Lost World | |
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Directed by | Irwin Allen |
Screenplay by |
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Based on | The Lost World 1912 novel by Arthur Conan Doyle |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Winton C. Hoch |
Edited by | Hugh S. Fowler |
Music by | |
Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date |
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Running time | 97 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1,515,000 [1] |
Box office | $2,500,000 (US/ Canada) [2] |
The Lost World is a 1960 American fantasy adventure film directed by Irwin Allen, loosely based on the 1912 novel of the same name by Arthur Conan Doyle. Shot in De Luxe Color and CinemaScope, the film's plot revolves around the exploration of a plateau in Venezuela inhabited by cannibals, dinosaurs, carnivorous plants, and giant spiders. The cast includes Claude Rains, David Hedison, Fernando Lamas, Jill St. John, and Michael Rennie.
Professor Challenger, a celebrated biologist and anthropologist, reports to the London Zoological Society that he has discovered living specimens of supposedly extinct animals, including dinosaurs, on an expedition to the Amazon Basin and up a barely known plateau. He challenges the Society to sponsor a second expedition to the plateau.
Much to Challenger's dismay, he attracts a few very unscientific people to join him on his second journey to the Amazon. This expedition group includes big-game hunter Lord John Roxton, and newsman Ed Malone whose publisher advances $100,000 to pay for the expedition. The journey from London is depicted via aerial views of Rio de Janeiro, and Angel Falls. The publisher's adventurous daughter Jennifer and son David join the group at the head of the Amazon. Also in the group is Zoological Society bigwig Professor Summerlee, helicopter pilot Manuel Gomez, and his sidekick Jose Costa.
During the first night on the plateau, a dinosaur wrecks the helicopter. As the expedition proceeds, Malone chases a primitive jungle girl through cobwebs to a giant spider, killing it and bringing her back to camp. The native girl later falls for David. Roxton argues with the others, and jealousies over Jennifer lead to a fistfight between Malone and Roxton.
They discover the diary of a previous explorer, Burton White, who was lost on the plateau. Roxton is mentioned several times in the diary. Roxton reveals that he had visited the plateau three years before, and claims the plateau holds a bounty of diamonds. This motivates Jose to stay with the party instead of striking out on his own to escape from the plateau.
At one point, Malone and Jennifer are separated from the others and have a near-death encounter with two battling dinosaurs. Cannibals capture the party, but before they can become dinner the jungle girl leads them to an underground passage that leads down off the plateau. Along the way, they encounter Burton White, now living as a blind hermit. (The cannibals have a taboo against killing the blind.)
They encounter more obstacles — pursuit by the cannibals, spider plants, the "Graveyard of the Damned", and a dinosaur in a lava pit guarding the diamonds, which kills Costa. Gomez sacrifices himself while breaking a rock dam, killing the dinosaur.
During a volcanic eruption, the survivors of the Challenger party escape from the plateau, Challenger carrying the egg of a Tyrannosaurus rex . The financial security of the party is secure because Lord Roxton filled a couple of the bellows pockets of his hunting jacket with diamonds, and shares them with everyone. The dinosaur egg hatches when it is dropped by accident, and Professor Challenger decides to take the infant T. Rex back to London with them.
In 1959, Allen purchased the rights to Doyle's novel for $100,000. He wanted to make the film with Trevor Howard and Peter Ustinov in support of Rains, [3] as well as Victor Mature and Gilbert Roland (who had been in the 1925 film). None of these plans came to fruition. He hired Charles Bennett to help him adapt the book into a script and commissioned Willis O'Brien, who worked on the 1925 [4] film, to do the models. He said he wanted to start filming on 15 October 1959. [3]
Allen eventually received financing to make the film from Buddy Adler, head of production at 20th Century Fox. [5]
Special effects for the film were rather basic and involved monitor lizards, iguanas, and young crocodiles affixed with miniature horns, and fins. Director Allen later stated that though he wanted stop motion models, he could only work with live animals in accordance with the studio's budget.[ citation needed ]
Film critic Dana M. Reemes registered this assessment of the film in 1988:
It is a regrettable fact that an awful modern sound and color version of The Lost World has been made. Indeed, many people have never heard of the silent version (much less Arthur Conan Doyle’s book), and the negative qualities of this later film have done much to obscure the importance of the classic story…Irwin Allen’s version of The Lost World is an abominable travesty in every respect…” [6]
Reemes added this caveat: “On the positive side, one might regard this film’s mere existence as a powerful incentive to create a new and definitive version of Conan Doyle’s original story.” [6]
Irwin Allen utilized stock footage from this film for episodes of his various TV series, including Land of the Giants , Lost in Space , The Time Tunnel , and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea . In 1966, Irwin Allen even tried to sell a TV series based on the film, as he had done with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea , but was unsuccessful. [7] Stock footage was also used in the movie When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970). [8]
A tepui, or tepuy, is a table-top mountain or mesa found in South America, especially in Venezuela and western Guyana. The word tepui means "house of the gods" in the native tongue of the Pemon, the indigenous people who inhabit the Gran Sabana.
George Edward Challenger is a fictional character in a series of fantasy and science fiction stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Unlike Doyle's self-controlled, analytical character, Sherlock Holmes, Professor Challenger is an aggressive, hot-tempered, dominating figure.
The Lost World is a science fiction novel by British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1912, concerning an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin of South America where prehistoric animals still survive. It was originally published serially in the Strand Magazine and illustrated by New-Zealand-born artist Harry Rountree during the months of April–November 1912. The character of Professor Challenger was introduced in this book. The novel also describes a war between indigenous people and a vicious tribe of ape-like creatures.
The Poison Belt is a science fiction novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, the second book about Professor Challenger. Written in 1913, much of it takes place in a single room in Challenger's house in Sussex. This would be the last story written about Challenger until the 1920s, by which time Doyle's spiritualist beliefs had begun to influence his writing.
"When the World Screamed" is a science fiction short story by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring his character Professor Challenger. It was first published in Liberty magazine, from 25 February to 3 March 1928.
The Lost World is a 1925 American silent fantasy giant monster adventure film directed by Harry O. Hoyt and written by Marion Fairfax, adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel of the same name.
The Lost World is a syndicated television series loosely based on the 1912 novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World. The show premiered in the United States in the fall of 1999. It ran for three seasons, the final two of which aired in syndication in the United States, before it was cancelled in 2002 after funding for a fourth season fell through. The final episode ended with an unresolved cliffhanger. All three seasons were released in DVD box sets in 2004.
The Land of Mist is a novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, published in 1926.
The Lost World is a 2001 British made-for-television film adaptation of the 1912 novel of the same name by Arthur Conan Doyle, directed by Stuart Orme and adapted by Tony Mulholland and Adrian Hodges. It was filmed at various locations on the West Coast of New Zealand. The 145-minute film was divided into two 75-minute episodes when broadcast on BBC One on 25 and 26 December 2001, receiving 8.68 million and 6.98 million viewers respectively. Bob Hoskins played Professor Challenger and was supported by James Fox, Peter Falk, Matthew Rhys, Tom Ward and Elaine Cassidy.
Michael G. Sinelnikoff was a British-born Canadian actor, director, producer, and writer. He is known for his role as Professor Arthur Summerlee on the television series Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, and has been seen in a variety of film roles such as 300 and The Greatest Game Ever Played.
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is a 1964–1968 American science fiction television series based on the 1961 film of the same name. Both were created by Irwin Allen, which enabled the film's sets, costumes, props, special effects models, and sometimes footage, to be used in the production of the television series. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was the first of Irwin Allen's four science fiction television series, and the longest-running. The show's theme was underwater adventure.
Lord John Roxton is a supporting character in the Professor Challenger series of stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. He makes his initial appearance in the first entry of this series, The Lost World (1912), wherein he is a member of the expedition to the titular land, and is a prominent character in some of the subsequent stories as well, specifically The Poison Belt and The Land of Mist.
Lost Continent is a 1951 American black-and-white science fiction film drama from Lippert Pictures, produced by Jack Leewood, Robert L. Lippert, and Sigmund Neufeld, directed by Sam Newfield, that stars Cesar Romero, Hillary Brooke, Whit Bissell, Sid Melton, Hugh Beaumont and John Hoyt.
The Lost World is a 1992 film, based on the 1912 novel The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The movie is set in Africa rather than the book's setting of South America, and the character of Lord John Roxton has been replaced with a female character played by Tamara Gorski. It was followed by a sequel the same year, Return to the Lost World, with the same director and main cast.
The Lost World is a 1998 adventure film, loosely based on the 1912 novel of the same name by Arthur Conan Doyle. The film includes the characters, Professor George Challenger and Lord John Roxton, who also feature in Conan Doyle's other Doctor Challenger novels. It is a mockbuster of the 1997 film The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
Peter McCauley is an actor from New Zealand who has appeared in many television series and movies, mainly in his home country.
Return to the Lost World is a 1992 film directed by Timothy Bond and starring John Rhys-Davies, Eric McCormack, David Warner, Nathania Stanford, Darren Peter Mercer, and Tamara Gorski. It is a sequel to the film The Lost World, which was released the same year.
King of the Lost World is a 2005 American fantasy monster adventure film produced by The Asylum. The film is adapted loosely from the 1912 novel The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, but the film bears a closer resemblance to the remake of King Kong released in the same year, particularly as both stories center on a giant ape. Hence, King of the Lost World is a mockbuster of said film, a tradition that The Asylum usually undergoes.
The Valley of Fear is a British silent adventure film of 1916 directed by Alexander Butler and starring Harry Arthur Saintsbury, Daisy Burrell and Booth Conway. The film is an adaptation of the 1915 novel, The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle featuring Sherlock Holmes. This is now considered a lost film.
Sherlock Holmes is a four-act play by William Gillette and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, based on Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes. After three previews it premiered on Broadway November 6, 1899, at the Garrick Theatre in New York City.