"Director: Harry O Hoyt"

• The Lost World | DVD | (04/01/2007) from £15.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (25.02%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Lost World created a worldwide sensation when it opened in 1925. When romance threw down the gauntlet to Edward Malone, not only did he realise another young woman's dreams and open the door to Professor Challenger to take a party deep into the unforgiving Brazilian jungle, he found himself in terrifying danger, in a pre-historic time, with no hope of escape.Professor Challenger - ridiculed for his speeches on living dinosaurs and desperate to prove their existence, engineers the expedition with Malone to rescue Paula White's father (previously stranded on the plateau) and to further his research and show the mocking dis-believers that dinosaurs do still exist after all.Initially unaware that their efforts are being closely followed by an ape-man - science's missing link - an early appearance of a pterodactyl only hints at what terrifying realities exist high on the isolated plateau.

• The Lost World | DVD | (11/08/2003) from £14.20   |  Saving you £-9.21 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The granddaddy of giant monster movies, The Lost World was one of the most expensive movies ever made in 1925, costing more than a million dollars, and has remained one of the most influential. Every larger-than-life creature feature since--from King Kong to Godzilla and Jurassic Park--owes a debt to this original adventure fantasy based on Arthur Conan Doyle's novel. It's the story of a maverick scientist (Wallace Beery under a bushy beard) who finds a land that time forgot on a plateau deep within the South American jungles and comes back to London with a captured brontosaurus to prove it. His expedition includes Bessie Love, the daughter of an explorer who disappeared on the previous expedition, and big game hunter Lewis Stone. The ostensible stars of the picture are all upstaged by Willis O'Brien's dinosaurs, simple models brought to life with primitive stop-motion animation (the technique was soon to be perfected by O'Brien for King Kong). Hardly realistic by any measure, these pioneering special effects are still a sight to behold, especially the lumbering brontosaurus which receives the most care from O'Brien, both foraging in his jungle and rampaging through the streets of London. With the coming of talkies, The Lost World became obsolete: all known American prints were destroyed in favour of a sound remake (which became King Kong) and the film only survived in a severely truncated form (even the original negative was lost). For this release David Shepard meticulously "rebuilt" the film using material from eight different surviving prints from all over the world, cleaning and restoring along the way. The result is 50% longer than previously extant prints, still not complete but closer than any version since its 1925 debut. The difference is not merely in restored scenes but in a rediscovered sense of grace in scenes filled out to their original detail and pace. The film moves and breathes once again like a silent film. On the DVD: From the attractive solid slipcase to the wonderful "period" menu interface, this is a delightful DVD package. The film itself looks surprisingly good--a real tribute to the restoration team's efforts--with careful tinting in the style of the period (blues for evening, reds for dawn etc.). The disc features the choice of either an original score by The Alloy Orchestra or a classical orchestral score compiled and conducted by Robert Israel (both enjoyable and effective), 13 minutes of O'Brien's animation outtakes (including a couple of isolated frames that capture O'Brien manipulating his models) and a well-meaning but basic commentary by Arthur Conan Doyle historian Roy Pilot. There's also a text biography of Conan Doyle and a display of original postcards, posters and other promotional items. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• The Lost World (Silent Classics) | DVD | (15/02/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The original silent adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novel about a distant land where dinosaurs still roam the Earth.

• The Lost World | DVD | (23/07/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The granddaddy of giant monster movies, The Lost World was one of the most expensive movies ever made in 1925, costing more than a million dollars, and has remained one of the most influential. Every larger-than-life creature feature since--from King Kong to Godzilla and Jurassic Park--owes a debt to this original adventure fantasy based on Arthur Conan Doyle's novel. It's the story of a maverick scientist (Wallace Beery under a bushy beard) who finds a land that time forgot on a plateau deep within the South American jungles and comes back to London with a captured brontosaurus to prove it. His expedition includes Bessie Love, the daughter of an explorer who disappeared on the previous expedition, and big game hunter Lewis Stone. The ostensible stars of the picture are all upstaged by Willis O'Brien's dinosaurs, simple models brought to life with primitive stop-motion animation (the technique was soon to be perfected by O'Brien for King Kong). Hardly realistic by any measure, these pioneering special effects are still a sight to behold, especially the lumbering brontosaurus which receives the most care from O'Brien, both foraging in his jungle and rampaging through the streets of London. With the coming of talkies, The Lost World became obsolete: all known American prints were destroyed in favour of a sound remake (which became King Kong) and the film only survived in a severely truncated form (even the original negative was lost). For this release David Shepard meticulously "rebuilt" the film using material from eight different surviving prints from all over the world, cleaning and restoring along the way. The result is 50% longer than previously extant prints, still not complete but closer than any version since its 1925 debut. The difference is not merely in restored scenes but in a rediscovered sense of grace in scenes filled out to their original detail and pace. The film moves and breathes once again like a silent film. On the DVD: From the attractive solid slipcase to the wonderful "period" menu interface, this is a delightful DVD package. The film itself looks surprisingly good--a real tribute to the restoration team's efforts--with careful tinting in the style of the period (blues for evening, reds for dawn etc.). The disc features the choice of either an original score by The Alloy Orchestra or a classical orchestral score compiled and conducted by Robert Israel (both enjoyable and effective), 13 minutes of O'Brien's animation outtakes (including a couple of isolated frames that capture O'Brien manipulating his models) and a well-meaning but basic commentary by Arthur Conan Doyle historian Roy Pilot. There's also a text biography of Conan Doyle and a display of original postcards, posters and other promotional items. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com