Bessie Love is attacked by a duck-billed Trachodon


(then-popular incorrect name for classic duck-billed dinosaur of genus Anatosaurus), sculpted from Charles R. Knight's1909 painting for The American Museum of Natural History.


primarily involved the first leg of the expedition. The original theatrical version did feature exten­ sive scenes at the Trading Post involving the char­ acter of Marquette (Virginia Browne Faire), the Portuguese half-caste daughter of the trading post proprietor, and her flirtations with Malone and Roxton. Introductory footage of the loyal bearer Zambo (Jules Cowles) seems forever lost, if in­ deed it was ever part of the theatrical version, though much of the trading post sequence has been restored for the new Image restoration. However, the public never, ever saw “alterna­


tive protection scenes” involving the villainous lead bearer Gomez (a dual role for Bull Montana, who also appears as the prehistoric Apeman) and his sidekick (Chris-Pin Martin), including their treach­ erous mutiny when the camp is attacked by a tribe of savage cannibals (one of which was played by Martin). If the cannibal skirmish was actually filmed, it was never part of the theatrical version, leaving the film without an explanation for Zambo’s wounded arm or the bout of fever that leaves Austin tending the base camp with Zambo as Challenger and the rest scale the plateau. Thank­ fully, MacQueen included many stills from this


28


“alternative protection footage” as extras with his restoration, which helps support the case that such footage once existed. To this day, the existence of such footage is a point of contention between historians; Eastman House preservation officer Ed Stratmann, commenting on their recent 35mm restoration, stated “ [the cannibal attack] really wasn’t filmed; they never filmed it.”4 MacQueen does cite an evocative animation


sequence that was probably never filmed, but may have vanished along with other impressive effects footage from the volcanic eruption tour de force: a shot of dinosaurs seeking safety in a lake as Pteranodons soar overhead, suggesting “some­ thing out of Dante’s ‘Inferno’—with the Pterodac­tyl [s/c] for the devil.” A version of the original scenario (silent films


did not work with shooting scripts as we know them today) was published shortly after the re­ lease of Scott MacQueen’s restoration—THE LOST WORLD OF WILLIS O’BRIEN: THE ORIGINAL SHOOT­ING SCRIPT [sic] OF THE 1925 LANDMARK SPECIAL EFFECTS DINOSAUR FILM, WITH PHOTOGRAPHS, edited by Roy Kinnard (McFarland & Co, 1993, 160 pp.)—proffering another animation shot that

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