'THE LOST WORLD'

Evening Star, Issue 19044, 12 September 1925, Page 4

'THE LOST WORLD'

MOVIE MASTERPIECE AT OCTAGON Many won Id-bo patrons liavo had a long-standing grievance against movie managers for their failure to cater for those who have reached the point of satiety as far as their rapacity to appreciate any of the numerous variations of the eternal triangle theme is concerned. The movie world seemed to have been peopled with matrimonial misfits, vamps, men in horn-rimmed spectacles, scheming white-haired inarms and testy, Wall-street-looking gentlemen, whose failure in the first’ i nstance to allow one of the a I orementioned horn-rimmed gentry to become his son-in-law generally resulted in an abduction and other pleasantries. But it is not so in ‘The Lost World,’ the First ' National fourteon-reolor, screened for the first time at the Octagon Theatre yesterday, which is sure to go down in picture history as one of the most spectacular films ever released, as well as one of the most daringly original. It might he pointed out for the benefit of those who have acquired a taste for the old ingredients, that a certain amount of philandering is allowed to protrude itself at certain, discreet intervals, but it is with the mighty denizens of this lost world—the brontosaurus, allosaurns, pterodactyl, and other fearsome and previously unknown creatures, that the audience is mostly concerned. Mere human interests sink to the background, and stay there until the end. From the artistic side the film is truly an amazing piece of work. It is conceived on a most ambitious scale. Nothing has been skimped; everything has been done -with a lavishness and a completeness that have resulted in the production of a screen masterpiece. Throughout it was noticeable the attention that was given to every detail, the producers no doubt realising that unless every effort was made to give an air of credibility to even the most unlikely of happenings, the whole thing would degenerate into rather a. pitiful farce. Providing one lias the imagination of a Conan Doyle or an H. C. Wells, it would, not be difficult to pen such a story as ‘ The Lost World; 1 and give tlie incidents a certain plausibility, but there were immense diuiculties to overcome in transferring it intact (to the very different world of the screen, and it obviously was not always possible to follow slavishly the incidents as chronicled in the book, but no very great departure has been made, except at the finish, where a brontosaurus is substituted for the winged pterodactyl. • Do the dinosaurs and other reptiles that scientists believed had become extinct many millions of years ago really exist? Dr Challenger, the ap-propriately-named hero ol ‘ The Lost World,’ said that they did, because he had seen them, though the only witnesses lie had were, the entries and sketches contained in the diary ol Maple White, and ho was safely marooned amongst these creatures with unpronomicable names, somewhere in the interior of South America. The scientific world, as is wont under such circumstances, laughed this bold man to scorn, lint the professor, who looked a cross between Karl Marx and a deacon, didn't belie bis name, and ho belabored his opponents with the fury ol one who felt that- justice was being denied him. Lie addressed a meeting ol the learned, being interrupted at intervals by a number of college students evidently, at least by several young gentlemen who felt constrained to toll the venerable professor that he didn't know what he was talking about, or words to that effect. After apologising to the worm kingdom for having likened the students to these .humble creatures, the professor, still in keeping with his patronymic, challenged anvone in the' audience to pay a visit to * 1 The Lost World.’ Professor Snmmerlco, who subsequently spent most of his time discovering hitherto unknown species of" wood-boring insects on: the crania of members of the party enlisted in the expedition. A much more important person, as far as the storv is concerned follows suit. This is Ed. Malone, ft newspaper reporter, whose lady-love demanded of him that ho should' do something exciting. The discoverer of extinct members of the genus reptilia had an unfortunate habit of throttling newspapermen, and be made a valiant attempt to end the earthly career of one Ed. .Malone, but he failed, after both parties had performed a Jack and Jill stunt down sundry flights of stairs. But peace was restored, and then we saw the expedition on its way to ‘ The Lost World. From thence onward there was a rapid succession of gorgeous tropical scenes, a scries of exquisite enthralments; lavish, lustrous, and bedazzling, the flora no less astounding than the fauna. Tbo latter became more wondrous as the travellers reached the plateau, the home of all the strange creatures which scientists have been calling such terrible names, evidently because they couldn’t find them. The expedition, which, by the way, mi inhered a. lady amongst it, the daughter of the missing Maple White, eventually entered the promised land, and from that time onward it looked as if all the extinct animals of land and sea had been resurrected. They made an awesome sight, those mighty creatures, who roamed, ambled, pranced, and leaped about and did everything else, that real live animals wifi do. ‘ That was the amazing thing about them—their naturalness. They did not merely parade themselves for 'inspection. They did nothing so conventional as that. The whole production abounded in action—action that set tbo heart strings of the most prosaic all aqniver. There were soma wonderfully well-staged lights between those 10,000 stone creatures, whilst monkeys, gibbons, and other familiar animals took a hand in the procebdings, when their more monstrous companions were preparing some fresh sensation. Another extremely realistic spectacle was provided by a volcanic eruption, and this was carried out in the same lavish manner as the other astounding happenings. The. river of lava drove before it an amazing array of brontosaurus, megalosanrus, and an infinite variety of other “ saurus,” and this was one of the most awe-inspiring and bewildering scones in a picture which was prodigal of such delights. After all these staggering adventurings the party arrived- back home again, bringing with them a, little souvenir in the shape of a 100 ft brontosaurus. The professor was again seen addressing the learned ones, and evidently they were just as sceptical ns before, because one amongst them arose to demand the hiding place of the creature. Just at the crucial moment Challenger learned that bronto had escaped, and was “running wild in the streets/’ a highly indecorous, proceeding, as the audience later discovered. The scientific folk, who no doubt expected to see something produced in a bottlo as proof of the existence of bronto, mobbed the unfortunate professor, but later they had all the proof they needed. That creature soon left tangible evidence of his existence by demolishing anything that happened to litter his path—from skyscrapers to trifles like lamp-posts and motor core. The audience left him and his discoverer together, the former flapping about in tbo Thames, and Challenger on London Bridge, apparently singing “ Will ye no’ come back again.’’ . The audience would certainly have enjoyed a little more of his frisky visitor from ‘ The Lost World,’ As is usual at the Octagon, the musical programme' is a high-class one. ‘ The Lost World ’ will be screened twice daily.