The Lost World (1925) Review

The Lost World (1925) Review

For the last dinosaur movie of the month, I’m going back to the beginning. No, not the beginning of time, the beginning of dinosaur films. Though it isn’t the first dinosaur film ever made, The Lost World is widely regarded as the first dino-feature to be a hit, and to really push the boundaries of cinema. 

It’s based on the novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who’s more famous for creating the character of Sherlock Holmes, but The Lost World is as important to the dinosaur genre as Sherlock is to the mystery genre. It’s about an expedition to South America, led by Professor George Challenger, who believes there’s an uncharted land filled with prehistoric creatures on a remote plateau. Along for the adventure is hunter Lord John Roxton, Challenger’s rival Professor Summerlee, and reporter Ned Malone, among others. They discover a prehistoric landscape, and manage to bring a Brontosaurus back to London, which rampages through the city at the end. 

The Lost World is pretty remarkable for its time. There are numerous dinosaurs, all brought to life via stop motion by Willis O’Brien, who was a pioneer of this special effects technique—a technique he would use again and perfect, less than a decade later in King Kong—and while the stop motion may be jerky and simplistic compared to later films, considering it’s nearly a century old as of writing this review, I’d say it holds up pretty damn well. Everyone remembers King Kong, and sometimes incorrectly assumes The Lost World ripped it off, but The Lost World came first—King Kong was actually ripping off The Lost World.

While I do think The Lost World is an important classic, I can’t really recommend it to a general modern audience. I appreciate the dinosaur scenes, but the film is silent, black and white, and, admittedly, a bit difficult to watch today. I think it’s worth checking out at least once, though, for the dinosaur scenes, and it is in the public domain, making it easy to download online for free. 

The Lost World has to be one of the most remade films of all-time. There was a remake in 1960, which used real reptiles with plastic horns glued to them and broke more than a few animal rights laws. I remember seeing that version on TV as a kid, but I don’t recommend it. Of course everyone knows the Jurassic Park sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park, based on Michael Crichton’s sequel novel The Lost World, which copies the title of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel and borrows some story elements, though the movie adaptation actually borrowed more from Doyle’s novel, with the T. rex rampaging through San Diego at the end. 

The Lost World was remade again in 1992 and given a sequel film, Return to The Lost World, and remade again in 1998. From 1999 to 2002, a TV series ran called Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, which started out as a fairly faithful adaptation, but took its own story route as the show progressed. To me, the best adaptation so far has been the 2001 British television film, which was shown in two parts and is very faithful to the source material. The acting is great, the action is swift, and it has cgi dinosaurs more than adequate for its time. 

The Lost World has had quite the legacy, but it’s fun to go back and see its humble origins in the early days of cinema. It’s a harrowing story of adventure, and hopefully, we get a new big budget remake in the coming years.