LOST WORLD author Arthur Conan Doyle, as he appears in a 1927 prologue added to the film by restorationist David Shepard.


refer to the Goodtimes version as GT, Scott MacQueen’s 1991 restoration (available on video from Milestone, on laserdisc and DVD via Lumivision) as LÜMI, and Shepard and Bromberg’s new restoration for Image as IMG. The occasional references to the George Eastman House 35mm theatrical restoration, which has no planned video release, will be dubbed GEH. To keep this article as concise and coherent


as possible, I have rather arbitrarily divided the feature into six segments, using dramatic refer­ ence points common to all four versions, noting the differences in running time (which, despite my best efforts, are approximate) of each seg­ ment in each video version before detailing the significant differences between LÜMI and IMG. The running times noted at the beginning of


this article also require a slight adjustment. As noted, GT runs 51m 21s, the adjusted running time for LÜM1 (sans the restoration credits) is 63m 16s, and the similarly corrected running time for IMG is 91m 40s. As you can see, IMG offers more than 40m of new footage. (Further adjustment might be necessary to account for slight differ­ ences in running speed, though both LÜMI and IMG were projected at 20 fps; GT seems to run at roughly that same speed.)


30 No concise running time is available for GEH;


Ed Stratmann states that their restoration “comes together close to 100m, maybe a little less” at 20 fps.5 I regret that I cannot offer more thorough information, and that my perceptions herein are based upon a single viewing of GEH three years ago, at the American premiere of GEH on March 7th at Cinefest 18 in Syracuse, NY. I have referred, whenever possible, to the comprehensive program book distributed at that showing, RESTORING THE LOST WORLD (Syracuse Cinéphile Society/Emprise Publishing, Inc., 31 pages). I apologize for any errors and welcome any and all comments, though I stand by my observations concerning the ani­ mation sequence featuring the ceratopsian Agathaumas in the third segment—a crucial, defining difference between IMG and GEH (see Segment Three, below). I would also note some tinting errors that marred GEH (ie., a fade-out and fade-in of the jungle, meant to indicate a change in daylight, that were identically color- tinted, rendering the fades meaningless, etc.), though I have reserved specific comments on tint­ ing discrepancies for the video versions alone. Finally, note that IMG incorporates shots taken


from the recently-discovered Czech “international version,” which (as noted below) presented

Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84