Almost all of the 50 or more user
reviews on the IMDB website have cited and re-cited the repulsively live
lizards and overall B-movie ambiance of this controversial, some might say
tacky, remake of the Conan Doyle novel and 1925 silent classic. Doesn’t anyone
read anyone else's reviews before submitting?????
At any rate, I'm going to try and
say something new (or at least unsaid) about this slightly tarnished 1960
Golden Oldie.
I think one IMDB user did note the
excellent score.
One of the best things in the film
is the Main Title sequence with the tempestuous music of Paul Sawtell and Bert
Sheftner playing against FANTASIA-like shots of swirling molten lava. (These
are certainly more vividly fantastic than the disgusting looking goo that passes
for lava at the climax of the film).
The LOST WORLD score is the joint work
of the composing team of Sawtell and Shefter, musicians who also worked
individually in a variety of mediums and scored many films on their own. But it
is as a unique and successful musical team that they are now best known. During
the ‘50s they produced quality, often highly advanced scores for films that
ranged from low budget programmers such as IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE and KRONOS
to Irwin Allen CinemaScope/stereophonic sound spectaculars such as LOST WORLD and VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, and Fox genre classics such
as THE FLY and THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE.
One might say THE LOST WORLD goes downhill after the excitingly dynamic Main
Title, but the DVD’s stereo version of the original 4-track CinemaScope
soundtrack makes the entire score (and film) seem even better. The aerial shots
of the Amazonian jungles during the flight to the plateau are an especially
effective fusion of wide-screen cinematography and music.
And for lovers of high-end grade-B
genre offerings it certainly has its moments.
I personally was drawn back into this
LOST WORLD after revisiting the great Circus-Circus casino episode in DIAMONDS
ARE FOREVER, one of the best sequences in the middle-period Bond cycle.
Her role as Bond girl, Tiffany
Case, is certainly a high point of Jill St. John's film career. Her smart pants
suits and stylish look in DIAMONDS are possibly modeled on singer Elly Stone in
the long-running Off Broadway show, Jacque Brel is Alive and Well and Living in
Paris.
At any rate, she looks great and
the DIAMONDS wardrobe is certainly an improvement on the hot pink Capri pants
she impeccably (and improbably) sports throughout the jungle madness and
slobbering lizard attacks in LW. The versatile Ms. St. John also wrote a
cookbook, which is still apparently in print.
Claude
Rains and Richard Hayden, the voice of the caterpillar in Disney's ALICE IN
WONDERLAND, do the best they can with the material. Rains even looks something
like the original Challenger in the classic silent version.
Ray
Stricklyn as David Holmes was nominated for a 1961 Golden Globe for Best
Supporting Actor in THE PLUNDERERS, and
also for Most Promising Newcomer
in 1959. But for better or worse LOST WORLD (and THE RETURN OF DRACULA!) remain
one of the films for which he is remembered.
Scarlet Street, the cult genre magazine (for which I used to write
about film music) published an interview with the then out-of-the-closet (and
since deceased) Stricklyn in issue #35.
The 2-disc LOST WORLD DVD set
includes an excellent restoration of the original silent version. The
dream-like, sometimes surreal imagery is made even more so by the restored
multi-colored tinting.
For viewers who fondly remember the era of the
original 1960 release a complete version of the Dell movie tie-in comic will be
an especially welcome and nostalgic addition among the bonus features.
Ross Care
