THE MT VOID
07/15/22 -- Vol. 41, No. 3, Whole Number 2232
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper,
mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
eleeper@optonline.net
Sending Address:
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
All material is the opinion of the author and is copyrighted by the
author unless otherwise noted.
All comments sent or posted will be assumed authorized for
inclusion unless otherwise noted.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to
eleeper@optonline.net
The latest issue is at <
http://www.leepers.us/mtvoid/latest.htm>.
An index with links to the issues of the MT VOID since 1986 is at <
http://leepers.us/mtvoid/back_issues.htm>.
Topics:
Why Michael Dirda Misses the Old DC Comics (pointer)
Six Lost Worlds: The Dramatic Adaptations of Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle's Novel (Part 1) (film comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Changes to "Star Wars" Films (and Others) (letters
of comment by Peter Trei, Gary McGath,
and Tim Merrigan)
This Week's Reading (THE LOST WORLD) (book and film
comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Why Michael Dirda Misses the Old DC Comics (pointer)
"Marvel superheroes get a spiffy update. Still, I miss my old DC
Comics.":
<
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/07/06/marvel-comics-new-
editions/>
===================================================================
TOPIC: Six Lost Worlds: The Dramatic Adaptations of Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle's Novel (Part 1) (film comments by Mark R. Leeper)
[Given the choice of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD (book
and 1925 film) for our book-and-film discussion group this month,
this seemed like a good time to reprint Mark's article on the
various adaptations, originally published in Argentus, Number 3,
Summer 2003. It will run in five parts. -ecl]
Imagine a land so isolated from the world that it was beyond the
reach even of the forces of evolution. On one plateau deep in the
remote Amazon rain forest there is a land that has withstood the
ravages of time. Here dinosaurs and prehistoric ancestors of man
still live.
In 1960 I remember being enthralled with the publicity for the
upcoming film THE LOST WORLD. I was nine years old and anything
that had to do with dinosaurs was okay with me. I had only
recently seen the 1959 version of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE
EARTH and loved it. But only three sequences in the film had
dinosaurs. (Okay, to be literal, there are no dinosaurs in that
film, but at nine I was not ready to make zoological distinctions.)
The Sunday comics had ads telling a little teasing bit of the
story of an expedition to a plateau with dinosaurs. I was hooked.
I guess I still am.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes series of
stories, also had a science fiction and fantasy series featuring
short, wide, and blustery Professor George Edward Challenger. The
stocky scientist was first introduced in his 1912 novel THE LOST
WORLD. For this tale Doyle saw the dramatic possibilities of
humans interacting with live dinosaurs. He told an irresistible
story of an Amazon plateau so isolated that evolution had passed it
by and where the dragons of the past still reigned supreme. There
are two more novels with the same set of adventurers, though they
are not nearly as interesting or famous. THE POISON BELT is about
the earth traveling through a field of poisonous ether gas. THE
LAND OF MIST is a plea for tolerance for a spiritualist church.
Two shorter stories have Challenger opposing an inventor who has
created a terrible weapon in "The Disintegration Machine," and
discovering the Earth is a living organism in "When the Earth
Screamed." Doyle is said to have preferred writing Challenger
stories to stories about Sherlock Holmes, though the latter
undeniably had greater popularity and perhaps were better written.
The publicity I was seeing in 1960 was for the second of what at
this writing are six screen adaptations of the novel. In this
article I will review each of the six adaptations of Doyle's novel
to the screen. In doing so I face certain problems. First, the
earliest version is incomplete. I will have to review what is
available, a restored version of 92 minutes. A more widespread
problem is that is in my opinion none of the adaptations has been satisfactorily accurate to the novel. Every one of them takes at
least one woman along and Doyle did not have a woman on the plateau
in the novel. Each adaptation does a lot of inventing as if there
was something wrong with Doyle's story. There really is not. If I
like a version, it really is mostly in comparison to the other
renditions that may not be as good.
THE LOST WORLD (1925)
The 1925 version had the much of the story more faithful to the
novel than any of the later film versions, though some incidents
occur out of order. One revision is that in the book Challenger
brought back only a pterodactyl, and it escapes before it is seen
by more than a roomful of people. The 1925 silent film version
apparently thought it would be more dramatic to have the animal
brought back be a brontosaurus and it does quite a bit of damage
when it escapes. This would show off imaginatively the stop-motion
animation.
The 1925 film version was the first feature-length film to use
stop-motion animation to any great degree. The technician who
created the effects was a young Willis O'Brien, who would later be
in charge of the effects of KING KONG (1933). In fact, though
O'Brien did not contribute the plot to KING KONG, it has strong
similarities to THE LOST WORLD, with the animal brought back to
civilization being a very large ape.
This first and arguably the best version of Doyle's classic was the
first version, a silent film. However, for years it has been
nearly impossible to tell with any assurance much about the 1925
version of THE LOST WORLD. There are four or five different
versions of this film. Until relatively recently only an edited
version a little over an hour has been available. This was much
chopped down from the original film. Recently a 93-minute version
has become available to the general public on DVD. Reportedly the
original release was 104 minutes so only about 11 minutes of the
original theatrical release are still missing. However, that is
the released version.
Sadly, it is impossible to see at this point what the released film
was really like. Production stills shown on the Turner Classic
Movie cable channel seem to indicate that there was a great deal
more of Doyle's plot that was shot than could possibly fit into the
missing eleven minutes. Some sequences that look like they would
have not only lengthened the film but made it more faithful to the
published story. The stills include the "stool of penance" scene
from the novel in which Challenger used as a most politically
incorrect way to punish his wife. Also there is indication that as
with the original novel Challenger was not chosen as one of the
members of the expedition and he uses trickery to join the party
after they are on their way. This plot was in the Doyle and was
apparently filmed for the silent version and then probably edited
out. (Of the adaptations covered in this article only the 1992
television version and the "Alien Voices" audio versions are
faithful to the book in this regard.) So while even the 93-minute
version indicates large liberties taken from the novel, there was
probably sequences shot that could have made for a fairly accurate
version that perhaps never came together.
I personally recommend this 93-minute version as being more
entertaining than the 63-minute version that has been available.
The shorter version has just the minimal story needed to connect up
the special effects shots. The longer editing makes the expedition
seems less slapdash and makes the film feel more like a ripping
adventure story. The shorter editing has the background story be
little more than a frame for the dinosaur sequences. That
audiences would settle for that is a testament to the popularity
that the Willis O'Brien's dinosaur sequences had with audiences.
It is hard to gage the impact that these sequences must have had
since so little like them had been seen on the screen before. Many
of the viewers assumed that the dinosaurs were full-scale
mechanical creations, and a few were naive enough to believe they
were seeing real live dinosaurs. It is hard to believe from the
jerky effects, the best possible at the time, that people took them
for real. But in fact there were some who did. While the film was
in production Marion Fairfax, who wrote the screenplay, thought she
would reassure special effects technician O'Brien and told him that
if the effects did not work out, the dinosaurs could easily be
removed from her screenplay. It is hard to imagine how popular a
film they could a made without the attraction of the dinosaur
effects.
The variations in plot from the novel are relatively small changes
of little consequence until the travelers arrive at the plateau.
Perhaps the biggest change was the addition of a love interest for
Malone to go with him on the expedition. This is Paula White,
daughter of plateau discoverer Maple White, played by Bessie Love.
After the crew gets to the plateau the story diverges somewhat
more. The novel talks of two tribes of humans. One are half-human
Neanderthal sorts, the others are like modern Indians. Doyle
spends much of the plateau story of how the modern Indians beat the
half-men, proving the superiority of modern man. Frankly, for me
this plot is not as interesting as the dinosaur-related plotting.
In this 1925 version of the film the two tribes are reduced to one
ape man, played by a man with the unlikely name Bull Montana.
Montana specialized in playing apes and half-men in the movies.
Without particularly good looks he had found his niche playing
ape-men. The filmmakers had only one half-man actor so the story
more concentrates on dinosaurs. Probably that is not a bad thing.
Even at the time the dinosaurs were more intriguing to audiences
than a man in an ape costume, however lurid.
Some additional liberties are taken. The zoological meeting takes
place before Malone visits Challenger's home. The escape route
from the plateau is destroyed by a dinosaur rather than by Gomez.
The most memorable variation, and one that would inspire other
films, is that instead of bringing back a pterodactyl, Challenger
returns with a brontosaurus who then escapes and wreaks havoc in
London. This popular sequence probably inspired films like KING
KONG; THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS; and BEHEMOTH, THE SEA MONSTER
(a.k.a. THE GIANT BEHEMOTH).
I have read a review that said that Willis O'Brien's special
effects have still rarely been matched. That comment was
well-intended but I think that Willis O'Brien would be among the
first to deny it himself. While these effects were a big step
forward from O'Brien's previous work, he would do better work for
KING KONG in 1933. O'Brien's protege Ray Harryhausen furthered the
art a great deal more. O'Brien would probably have been ecstatic
to see the JURASSIC PARK films, and perhaps none more than THE LOST
WORLD: JURASSIC PARK II, which I see as in part a tribute to him
and his contributions. Some of the sequences, like a stampede of
dinosaurs, are not technically perfect but are ambitious beyond
belief for a film this early.
O'Brien was, at the time he made THE LOST WORLD, still having some
problems with the smooth fluid movement of the figures he is
animating. He also has a tendency to make the creatures of too
large a scale. An example is the pterodactyl that seems much too
massive in comparison to the spur of the plateau. O'Brien would
similarly exaggerate the size of his stegosaurus in KING KONG.
Some of his matte scenes, static and traveling, combining images of
actors and dinosaurs are well ahead of their time. While O'Brien
never let the humans get too close to the dinosaurs, they
impressively give scale to the giant beasts. There is one scene in
which the humans throw a flaming piece of wood in a dinosaur's
mouth. This could not use stop-motion since there is no effective
way to animate a flame frame-by-frame. For this effect a
hand-puppet seems to have been used.
The acting is sufficient but spotty. Wallace Beery makes the best
Challenger of any of the screen versions. He is sufficiently gruff
and pushy. Bessie Love as Paula is not so good and her main talent
seems to be that she can look frightened well. Arthur Hoyt's
Summerlee is almost unnoticeable. One barely remembers scenes he
was in. Lloyd Hughes is bland as Edward Malone and reminds the
viewer of Harold Lloyd. Lord John Roxton is played by Lewis Stone,
who later would play dignified roles like Captain Smollet in the
1934 TREASURE ISLAND and Judge Hardy in the Andy Hardy series.
Stone makes an imposing Roxton if not a very interesting one. He
seems almost too dignified to be the great hunter.
Unless one counts films like KING KONG, UNKNOWN ISLAND, THE LAND
UNKNOWN, or TWO LOST WORLDS, all of which arguably took some
inspiration from the Doyle, the next real film version of THE LOST
WORLD was released in summer of 1960 with Claude Rains as
Challenger.
[continued next week]
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Changes to "Star Wars" Films (and Others) (letters of
comment by Peter Trei, Gary McGath, and Tim Merrigan)
In response to Warren Montgomery's comments on changes in RETURN OF
THE JEDI in the 07/08/22 issue of the MT VOID, Peter Trei writes:
Your correspondent saw the 1997 'Special Edition' of the movie.
<
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/
The_Star_Wars_Trilogy_Special_Edition>
In 1997, for the 20th anniversary, Lucas released remastered
versions of all three films, not only cleaning them up optically
and sonically, but changing music, adding scenes and special
effects, and dropping CGI critters and aliens into existing scenes.
Note that this is far from the only time it SW got changed. "Han
shot first!".
<
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_changes_in_Star_Wars_re-
releases>
[-pt]
Gary McGath responds:
That's not as bad as the editing of E.T. to eliminate any
suggestion that cops would draw guns on kids. Mustn't let the
audience think that ever happens. [-gmg]
But Tim Merrigan says:
To accomplish they've got the edit the IRL [In Real Life] news.
[-tm]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Our book-and-film did THE LOST WORLD by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle this
month; the film was the 1925 silent version with the Robert Israel
score. (There have been several film adaptations, and the silent
version is available with two different scores.)
The book has a lot that did not make it to the film. In the book,
there are two sub-species of humans, a more advanced one and a more
primitive one. To the characters in the book, the less advanced
are considered animals and suitable only for extermination or
slavery. In the film, there is only two humanoids shown on the
plateau, and they are basically also shown as animals, but at least
there is no attempt at extermination. There is also no subplot of
someone out for revenge against Challenger.
It is not clear how old the various characters are, but the actor
playing Roxton was 46, and the actress playing Paula White was 27.
He somehow looked older, she looked younger, and the result was
that the way he was looking at her seemed very creepy. Of course,
it might not have been back when the film was made; I think the age
difference was not considered as important then.
In the film, when they get to the base of the plateau, Challenger
says they chopped down one of the two trees on the "pillar" to make
a bridge to the main part of the plateau, and the stump was still
visible. So they climb up and chop down the second tree to make a
bridge, but it apparently never occurs to anyone to ask what
happened to the first bridge.
Challenger and Summerlee have an article about whether something
fired from a catapault follows a parabola or a curve, completely
overlooking that a parabola *is* a curve.
How incredibly convenient that when xyzzy and Paula think they will
be trapped on the plateau permanently, Paula mentions that
Summerlee used to be a minister, so he can marry them. This was
actually pre-Code, but I guess they were concerned about local
censors.
And it is also convenient that the ladder that the two men at the
base construct is *exactly* the right length to reach from the cave
to the ground.
Willis O'Brien did an amazing job of putting ten or twelve
dinosaurs in a single scene, though without major interaction among
them. It wasn't until CGI that you could have, e.g., the
gallimimus herd in JURASSIC PARK, or the dinosaur stampede in KING
KONG (2005).
I love how all the cast were given their honorifics ("Mr.", "Miss",
etc.). Was it a more formal time, or were they trying to make
acting seem more respectable?
The introduction to the film has the following quote by Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle:
"I have wrought my simple plan
If I give one hour of joy
To the boy who's half a man,
Or the man who's half a boy."
I guess I wasn't in his target audience. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
It is better to ask some of the questions than to know
all the answers.
--James Thurber
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)