The Lost World: Theater Outing

On Friday night, the Hollywood Theater in Dormont, one of the few remaining single-screen movie houses in the Pittsburgh area, presented a special screening of the 1925 silent film “The Lost World with an original score performed live. I made the attempt to have the Allegheny Steam Concordance make an event of it but only a handful of us came out. Even so, it was worth it.

For those who might not know, “The Lost World” was originally written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1912. In the middle of Conan Doyle’s writing career, with the security that Sherlock Holmes had brought him, he wrote a number of science fiction stories including three novels featuring Professor George Edward Challenger, of which “The Lost World” was the first.

At this point I will have to admit that I last read “The Lost World” something on the order of thirty years ago so I have no recollection of the specifics or any way to judge how true the film was to the novel. I am willing to be good money, however, that Conan Doyle had not written a love triangle into the story.

In the film, the female character of Paula White, daughter of an explorer lost on the Amazonian plateau, has been added. She is pursued by the older Sir John Roxton, creeper. OK, he’s actually introduced as a “sportsman” but his advances seem a bit creepy and Miss White seems to think so as well.

Enter reporter Edward Malone. He’s already got a fiancée and his going on the expedition is to show off to her and prove his manhood. But when the party is trapped on the plateau and it seems like they aren’t going to be able to leave, he kicks his distant fiancée to the curb and makes a play for Miss White. She happily falls into his arms, leaving Lord Roxton in the lurch.

And that’s it. There are a few moments when you think Roxton is going to do something to either win Miss White back or foil Malone but nothing more comes of it. Potential drama falls by the wayside and Roxton is left to merely glower.

The film was probably produced in a classic 3:2 or 1.33:1 Standard aspect ratio, much more square like a TV screen or a YouTube window. But a movie screen is more on the order of 1:85:1 or even 2.39:1 for anamorphic wide screen. That means when you show an older standard 35mm format on the screen you can either have it smaller with a lot of black on either side or you can widen it and cut off the top, bottom or both. This is what happens with widescreen movies when they have been “modified to fit your screen and this is what happened in this presentation. There were a number of scenes where you could not see the action at all because it was taking place at the top of the frame, where it was cut off.

Imagine if there were dinosaur action going on at the top of the plateau in the image to the right but you couldn't actually see the top of the plateau. You had to guess at what was going on.

In the stop-motion animation, you can see the foundation of Willis O’Brien’s skill that would be so amazing eight years later in “King Kong.”

I have read that the script was written so that, if the dinosaur parts of the movie failed, they could make do without them. O’Brien doesn’t fail. The dinosaurs are characters in their own right. Living, breathing, drooling and fantastically animated, if a bit single minded.

The Allosaurus, for example. When he first shows up, he attacks and kills an Iguanodon. Then, after having a mouthful of his meal, he goes and attacks a Triceratops. He gets stabbed for it (and seems a bit nonplussed.“Ow. Quit it.”) Then he snatches a Pterodactyl out of the sky. Later, he (or maybe another the therapod just like him) attacks a Brontosaurus (which puts up a good fight in going for the throat. “Ow. Quit it”). The Brontosaurus gets shoved off a cliff so the Allosaurus goes after another one. He’s just a killing machine, not behaving like a real apex predator would. Then again, three quarters of a century later, Steven Spielburg in “Jurassic Park” has his Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptors behaving in pretty much the same way. See it. Chase it. Kill it. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

One thought I had. There was an expedition two years previously but no one believed the witnesses. Challenger saw dinosaurs. Miss White was along and saw dinosaurs. They made sketches and drawings. It’s the 1920s. Why didn’t anyone think to bring a camera?

I have left my commentary on the original score performed live by the Andrew Allen Ensemble to the last because, in all honesty, I feel it added nothing to the film. Film music, at its best, supports the narrative. It is driving during action sequences, mysterious when the story needs suspense, quiet when characters are contemplative and, when necessary, non-existent when a scene cannot afford any distractions. In this case, the Andrew Allen Ensemble had a score that was repetitive, nearly ambient and nearly lacking in any emotion that coordinated with the action going on in the film. When scenes changed, the music did not. Tension was not accompanied with tense music. Action was not accompanied with active music.

I noticed this right off but as the film went on, I almost completely tuned out the music, recognizing it only occasionally when I expected appropriate music and then didn’t get it. I haven’t sat down to listen to the many other scores that have been added to this otherwise silent film but I can conclude that I don’t like this one.

It’s too bad that the artists drove all the way down from Boston for me to find that out.