'Lost World' screening at Flying Monkey in Plymouth, N.H moved to Wednesday, Nov. 6

A scene from 'The Lost World' (1925).

This week's upcoming screening of 'The Lost World' (1925) at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse in Plymouth, N.H. has been moved to Wednesday, Nov. 6 due to UCITA.

That's the acronym for "Unforeseen Circumstances Involving The Accompanist."

Apologies to all who planned on attending this week's screening. I've been unexpectedly called out of town, which is what prompted the last-minute date change.

Many thanks to the folks at the Flying Monkey for their ability to quickly change course and arrange for an alternate date that's just two weeks later.

Everything else will be the same, as you'll see in the revised press release below. 

Again, sorry for the short-notice switcheroo, and I hope everyone who was planning to see 'The Lost World' will be able to make it on Wednesday, Nov. 6.

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A trade publication ad promoting 'The Lost World' (1925).
 

MONDAY, OCT. 21, 2024 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Silent film classic 'The Lost World' at Flying Monkey on Wednesday, Nov. 6

Ground-breaking first-ever dinosaur thriller to be shown with live music; rescheduled from original October screening date

PLYMOUTH, N.H.—Before there was 'Jurassic Park' or 'Godzilla' or even 'King Kong,' there was 'The Lost World.'

The movie, a blockbuster hit when released in 1925, paved the way for Hollywood's enduring fascination with stories pitting mankind against larger-than-life creatures.

See for yourself when a restored version of 'The Lost World' is screened on Wednesday, Nov. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center, 39 Main St., Plymouth, N.H.

General admission is $10 per person.

The screening will feature live accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based composer who specializes in creating music for silent films.

The screening was originally scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 23, but was moved to the new date of Wednesday, Nov. 6

'The Lost World' is a silent fantasy adventure film based on Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel of the same name. The movie was produced by First National Pictures, a precursor to Warner Brothers, and stars Wallace Beery in the lead role as Professor Challenger.

An original release poster for 'The Lost World' (1925).

'The Lost World' tells the tale of a British exploration team that journeys to South America to confirm reports of long-extinct creatures still roaming a remote high plateau deep in the jungle.

The landscape they discover, filled with a wide range of dinosaurs and other fantastic creatures, was enough to astonish movie-goers when 'The Lost World' first hit movie screens in February 1925. Scenes of a brontosaurus on the loose in central London broke new ground in terms of cinema's visual story-telling possibilities.

Early viewers of the film were especially impressed by special effects breakthroughs that allowed live actors to appear simultaneously on-screen with stop motion models of prehistoric creatures. This led to rumors that the filmmakers had actually discovered living prehistoric creatures.

The film featured pioneering stop motion special effects by Willis O'Brien, who would go on to create the effects used to bring 'King Kong' to the screen in 1933.

Arthur Conan Doyle's novel and the movie version of 'The Lost World' proved so influential in the dinosaur genre that the title was borrowed by author Michael Crichton for his 1995 novel, and then used by director Steven Spielberg for 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park' (1997), the sequel to the original 'Jurassic Park' movie of 1993.

In 1998, the original 'The Lost World' (1925) was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Touring London: a scene from 'The Lost World' (1925).

Despite the film's popularity, only incomplete copies of 'The Lost World' survived from its initial run in the silent era. In recent years, historians have been piecing together 'The Lost World' from fragments found scattered among the world's film archives.

The version to be shown at the Flying Monkey includes footage from eight different prints. At 93 minutes in length, it's the most complete version of 'The Lost World' available. The edition includes rare footage of Arthur Conan Doyle that has been missing from most prints since the film's original release.

To accompany the film, Rapsis will use a digital synthesizer to recreate the texture of a full orchestra. For each film, the score is created live in real time as the movie is screened.

Rather than focus on authentic music of the period, Rapsis creates new music for silent films that draws from movie scoring techniques that today's audiences expect from the cinema.

The restored 'The Lost World' will be shown on Wednesday, Nov. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center, 39 Main St., Plymouth, N.H.

General admission is $10 per person. For more info, visit www.flyingmonkeynh.com or call (603) 536-2551.