The search party—Malone (Lloyd Hughes), Paula White (Bessie Love), Roxton (Lewis Stone)—check the trees after a surprise visit from the Apeman.


prints.” This version is all that survived for view­ ing for the next sixty years: an efficient, stream­ lined condensation of the narrative that showcased as much of O’Brien’s effects footage as possible, while literally cutting the film in half.


TFfie original 1925 release reportedly ran 104m; in his notes for the 1991 restoration re­ leased on video by Milestone Film & Video and Lumivision, Scott MacQueen noted the existence of musical cue sheets which indicate a score of 106m. Thanks to the success of Willis O’Brien’s startling special effects, First National (which later became Warner Bros.) enjoyed a runaway hit when the film opened wide in the summer of ’25, and the film remained in circulation throughout the CIS and the rest of the world until 1929. From the outset, some footage was “lost”—if, indeed, it had ever existed.


There is evidence that “alternative protection


footage” that was never part of the original theat­ rical cut had been prepared for production and was perhaps shot, prompting confusion over scenes which historians have sought in vain ever since. The possible existence of such “alternative protection footage” is rendered all the more tan­ talizing by promotional stills issued by First Na­ tional. In his annotations, MacQueen revealed that “enough footage was shot for two movies. First National had reservations that the animated beasts would work... [and] constructed the scenario in such a way that if the animation was a failure, the dinosaurs could easily be left out!” He stresses, however, that this footage was never part of any version screened; hence, it is not “lost” or cut footage, as it never was part of the film. Excluding script material that was most likely


never shot, the “alternative protection footage” that never appeared in the theatrical version


27

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