The Lost World press release

Had it not been for ‘The Lost World’ there would never have beenKing Kong or Jurassic Park

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World: The world-wide sensation back to thrill a new generation….

The original monster-classic 1925 version of The Lost World, the first major “live” dinosaur film, was one of the most expensive films ever produced at more than one million dollars, and featured a cast of superstar Hollywood names: Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, Bessie Love and Lloyd Hughes. It’s impact and influence on the movie industry has been immense, with such films as ‘King Kong’ and ‘The Lost World: Jurassic Park’, two of the many, many dinosaur films that owe a huge debt of gratitude to the undisputed ‘big daddy’ of them all.

Now, The Lost World can be enjoyed and relished in true 21st Century style with Eureka Video’s retail video and DVD release on 23 July 2001. Timed to perfection to coincide with Universal’s theatrical release in July 2001 of ‘Jurassic 3’, and as a precursor to the BBC’s mini-series ‘The Lost World’ at the end of the year, Eureka Video has stunningly restored the film using a mixture of reconstruction techniques that provide this must-have collector’s item with a remarkable richness. Moreover, the DVD is available in a fantastic presentation box, and includes a host of special features: an audio commentary by Roy Pilot, author of ‘The Annotated Lost World’; restored and re-mastered footage; two alternate orchestral scores; more than 12 minutes of animation outtakes; and reproduction of the original souvenir programme.

Creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, incorporated the best palentological information of his time in the 1912 novel ‘The Lost World’, and could barely have imagined that his book would be the inspiration and forerunner to ‘King Kong’, ‘Godzilla’, ‘The Land Unknown’ and ‘Jurassic Park’. It undoubtedly provided Technical Director and special effects surpremo Willis H O’Brien with an opportunity to bring the prehistoric creatures to life with his groundbreaking stop-motion effects.

Originally believed to have been destroyed or lost forever, The Lost World is a visual treat and provides everything you could want from a dinosaur movie with its attacking pterodactyls, fighting dinosaurs, guns, a Triceratops rampage, a new lady-love character invented by the producer and a dinosaur running amok in civilization.

Synopsis

When romance threw down the gauntlet to Edward Malone (Lloyd Hughes), not only did he realise another young woman’s dreams and open the door to Professor Challenger (Wallace Beery) 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 the father of Paula White (Bessie Love) from a high plateau where he is stranded. The expedition will also allow him to further his research and show the mocking disbelievers 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.

DVD Details: