The Lost World

The Lost World opened on Broadway at New York City's Astor Theater in February, 1925.

Now wait a minute. The Lost World didn't hit theaters until Memorial Day, 1997. What's going on here?

The Lost World, 1925, One-Sheet A, The Apatosaurus Those of you who are ahead of this article undoubtedly know that Michael Crichton's The Lost World owes its title to a famous novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Holmes fame) which originally appeared as a serial in the Strand Magazine in London, England beginning in April 1912. It was optioned for a motion picture in 1919 and finally made it to the screen in 1925.

Responsible for the startling state-of-the-art special effects in this wonderful film was none other than Willis H. O'Brien, the genius who would later bring King Kong to life. O'Brien had produced a number of short stop-motion dinosaur films for Thomas Edison in 1917, and did the effects for 1918's The Ghost of Slumber Mountain which is arguably the first "feature-length" dinosaur movie.

The Lost World of 1925 was measured at 9209 feet -- approximately 10 reels (a reel being 1000 feet) -- of 35mm film. It would have run between 104 and 106 minutes depending upon the projection speed. A musical cue sheet indicates that it was intended to be shown at 23 frames per second which would have worked out to 106 minutes, but Variety reported that the film ran 104 minutes on opening night.

Now the fun begins.

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