Monday, January 30, 2012

A LOST WORLD Revisited


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