The Lost World (1925) - reference

[Todd_Oberly]

Unless somebody on DVDCompare can contradict me, Eureka's DVD of The Lost World never included a "reproduction of the original souvenir program", in spite of what is listed on the back panel. See my thread at http://www.zetaminor.com/roobarb/showth ... D-question . Eureka did change the interior art at some point, going from http://moviecentrallibrary.blogspot.com ... -1925.html to a mostly blank interior that shows what seems to be a single page from the program (but not the cover).

[Brent_Reid]

I agree Todd. My copy, bought soon after release, has an extra thick, glossy slipcase, but again, no booklet. I did actually ring Eureka about it at the time but can't remember what they told me. It must have been something to the effect of "there is no booklet" or I'd probably have sent it back!

[Darrel_Griffin]

I have just checked my copy of the R2 Eureka release.

My copy does not have any booklet either. The artwork on the interior of the cover is different to the one in the picture on:

http://moviecentrallibrary.blogspot.co. ... -1925.html

Mine has a colour poster on the left (in 'landscape' rather than 'portrait'), and is blank on the right. The poster includes the title in red, a head and shoulders photo of two actors bottom left, and a drawing of a dinosaur on the right, plus some text. Todd, does that sound the same as yours? It definitely looks like a poster and not a program cover. If yours looks more like a program cover, then perhaps there are at least 3 different interiors!

I also checked the contents of the disc. The very last picture in the "Printed Matter" photo gallery appears to be a photo of the original program (front and back covers only), so perhaps this is what they meant. That would seem a bit of a cheat though, especially if the R1 Image Entertainment release has a physical booklet.

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

Could someone provide the runtime of the Eureka disc?

[Todd_Oberly]

@James:

Sure, it's 1:32:42. This includes about 15 seconds at the start, explaining the reconstruction, and about 28 seconds at the end with DVD and reconstruction credits.

@Darrel: Yes, that's what I own. You're probably correct. I was trying to read between the lines and understand why Eureka would have reduced the interior artwork if they weren't trying to make good on their "Original Souvenir Program" claim.

BTW, if you've never seen it, I found a photo of the R1 insert at http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/09MAAOSw4 ... -l1600.jpg .

[Darrel_Griffin]

Todd -

Thanks for the link. The cover of that booklet resembles the penultimate photo in the Eureka DVD's gallery, the main difference being that the gallery one looks like it might be a poster, whereas the one in the link has a "price 25c" symbol towards the bottom left, suggesting it is a program cover. The very last photo in the gallery looks very different, being just black print on white paper. It includes the word "program". So perhaps there was more than one program when the movie was originally in the theatres.


James -

R2 Eureka release:

I have checked my disc again. I agree the total runtime is 92:42 PAL. The movie itself starts at 0:21, and ends at 92:04 (followed by credits that were not part of the original movie, and both score options continue through these new credits). Anyway, this yields a net picture runtime of 91:43.

Checking the image frame by frame, it seems that most of the time every 4th frame is repeated (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8...). There are also occasional frames that seem to consist of 2 fields from different source frames, plus some frames missing presumably due to damage. I did a quick check online but was unable to determine for certain the original frame rate.

Some sources state the original frame rate was 20fps. If so, then expanding 4 frames to 5 would convert 20fps to 25fps without affecting the runtime. This would be equivalent to an original runtime of 91:43.

Alternatively, if the original frame rate was 18fps, then that would mean that for this DVD release the rate was effectively sped up to 20fps and then converted to 25fps, thus speeding the movie up by a factor of 20/18. This would be equivalent to an original runtime of 101:54.



R1 Twentieth Century Fox release:

I also own this release. For the 1925 movie (disc 2), the total runtime is 76:01 NTSC. The movie itself starts at 0:27, and ends at 75:59, yielding a net picture runtime of 75:32.

This version seems to have been created by using all the frames without any interpolation or repetition. The disc seems to be a progressive transfer - it can run at 24fps (the same is also true for the 1960 movie on disc 1 of this set).

If the original frame rate was 20fps, then this would be speeding up the movie from 20fps to 24fps. Therefore, just multiply by 24/20 to get an equivalent original runtime of 90:38.

If the original frame rate was 18fps, then this would be speeding up the movie from 18fps to 24fps. Therefore, just multiply by 24/18 to get an equivalent original runtime of 100:43.



Comparison between the above two releases:

I am unable to perform a full comparison. However, having re-watched the beginning of each release, I have noticed the following:

1. The opening credits pages look different on each. The R1 credits look original with a green tint, whereas the R2 credits look like they have been re-created, and have a brown-ish tint.
2. On the R2 release, after the opening credits there is a short introduction apparently showing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This is absent on the R1 release.
3. Next on the R2 release there is an exterior shot of Westminster, London. On the R1 release there is instead an exterior shot of a man walking up the steps to the front door of a house.
4. In the next scene, which is on both versions, the R1 release is missing the beginning of the scene. Also some of the intertitles are different.

That's as far as I got. It's worth noting that for this first section of the movie, there seems to be more overall in the R2 release, although the R1 release has some unique shots too. All of this is in addition to the existing notes on the database page, which is already pretty complicated!

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

So far updated the listing but with additional info from Darrel given, it may need additional updating. Just getting very late here and I have a busy day tomorrow....

[Brent_Reid]

That's some serious disc analysis there, Darrel - I salute you! However, it's not worth comparing the two DVDs you have too closely, as they use entirely different restorations, with the prints used taken from different sources. There is some info on this in the comparison page footnotes. Flicker Alley's upcoming BD will use a third restoration by Lobster Films, which essentially builds on (but hugely improves) the materials used for David Shepard's Film Preservation Associates restoration, which appeared on the Image and Eureka DVDs. Unfortunately, George Eastman House or the rights holders they're beholden to are still not allowing the use of their own unique materials. Such a move would allow for a truly definitive, as-complete-as-possible restoration, utilising all the best quality original footage known to exist. One day...

[Todd_Oberly]

Yes, comparing these different releases is maddening. And there's also the original Lumivision DVD, which includes other footage not present in the Image or Fox disks. See sites like

http://www.digitallyobsessed.com/displa ... hp?ID=1134
http://www.silentera.com/video/lostWorldHV.html

for additional notes...which are still incomplete. I thought for a moment that the folks at http://www.movie-censorship.com might have tried tackling it, but no. Even they're not so masochistic.

[Brent_Reid]

Again, there's really no point in comparing DVDs containing differing restorations too closely. It's more than enough to simply get the spec on here of every US and DVD containing them. We're almost there in that department. I'll likely do a detailed comparison of all the LDs, DVDs and BDs on my site eventually, when one or two of the latter are in.

As for Movie-Censorship.com, most of their comparisons can be quite useful, but they're better when comparing like for like. They don't really seem to 'get' silent films, and the issues around different restorations, running speeds, print sources and takes, etc. This is best evidenced by their attempts to match up different restorations and a PD version of Nosferatu (1922) here and here - even trying to align NTSC and PAL DVD timings!

[Darrel_Griffin]

Thanks Todd for those links - those pages are really interesting. It appears there are even more DVD releases than are currently listed on this site. However, in future I expect most people will only want to buy the upcoming Blu-ray from Flicker Alley on 19th September 2017...

...for which I say thanks to Brent for the heads up! I had no idea this was happening. Definitely going on my wish list. However, I share your frustration that the different companies with different unique materials can't get together to make a truly definitive version. I could understand if, for example, Eastman had the rights to ALL the materials and were planning their own release, but my understanding is that no single company owns all of the shots. I would have thought that they could come to some agreement, and all parties involved could take a share of the profits. And surely these are human beings with at least SOME interest in film - do they not consider it in a sense their DUTY to collaborate to make as complete a version as possible for this film? After all, it has a very important place in film history, being arguably one of the best of the silent era, and arguably a major milestone in the use of stop motion animation effects.

By the way, while checking on Amazon for the upcoming Blu-ray, I noticed that on 17th October 2017 there will be a VCI Entertainment Blu-ray release of the 1940 movie "One Million B.C." AKA "The Cave Dwellers" (not to be confused with the 1966 Hammer movie "One Million Years B.C."). I've never seen it, but looking forward to getting this as well. I just love early dinosaur movies (I'm generally not so keen on CGI ones though). This one apparently did not use stop motion, but instead used real lizards dressed up with fins etc. . I only have a couple of DVDs from VCI, and they're not exactly stellar quality, but hopefully they'll do a good job on this one.

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

Listing every single difference on our comparison page would be a chore so this thread will be moved to the reference area and linked to there.
Thanks for all the help.

[Brent_Reid]

I am slowly working on this one and plan to do an in-depth comparison of all the main versions and releases, so bear with me...

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

Take your time! I will pin this to the top.