The Lost World

First adaptation of the novel of the same name (1912) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Lost World” represents a crucial step in sci-fi/adventure cinema history. This film helped codify fundamental elements of the genre, starting with its prototypical situations and colorful cast of characters, all the way to its spectacular use of stop motion, the animation technique with a brilliant future developed by special-effects pioneer Willis O’Brien.

Although forgivable, there’s clearly no lack of naiveté and egregious mistakes (e.g. chimpanzees in the Amazon?), weaknesses which at any rate can be traced back to the pages of Conan Doyle’s tale. Still, director Harry O. Hoyt takes several liberties with the plot, adding characters, setting aside scientific explanations, and demonstrating a strong overall predilection for the adventurous side of a story sprinkled with amusing comedic touches.

Ahead of its time was the “catastrophic” finale in which a gigantic brontosaurus, whose silhouette must have inspired Robert Kenneth Wilson’s fraudulent 1934 photo of the Loch Ness Monster, sows destruction through the streets of London before being engulfed by the dark waters of the Thames.