Up next! Scoring original dinosaur flick 'The Lost World' on Wednesday, 7/16 at Leavitt Theatre

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

Even pre-history had to start somewhere!

And with the movies, 'The Lost World' (1925) generally gets the credit as the first-ever dinosaur movie. 

Based on the Arthur Conan Doyle story, the film pioneered stop-motion animation techniques that allowed long-extinct creatures to be brought to life on the big screen.

It'll be my privilege to create live music for a screening of this classic adventure thriller on Wednesday, July 16 at 7 p.m. at the Leavitt Theatre in downtown Ogunquit, Maine.

Lots more info in the press release below. Hope to see you at the Leavitt for this amazing picture, which really must be seen on the big screen, as dinosaurs are not small creatures.

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'The Lost World' combined stop motion animation with live action footage.

MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2025 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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

Dinosaurs! Silent film classic 'The Lost World' at Leavitt Theatre on Wednesday, July 16

Ground-breaking thriller, first to bring prehistoric creatures to the big screen, to be shown with live music; based on Arthur Conan Doyle story

OGUNQUIT, Maine—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 dinosaurs and other larger-than-life creatures.

See for yourself when a restored version of 'The Lost World' is screened on Wednesday, July 16 at 7 p.m. at the Leavitt Theatre, 259 Main St., Route 1 in Ogunquit, Maine.

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

Tickets are $15 general admission and available at the door.

The Leavitt is celebrating its 100th anniversary, having served the community continuously since 1925. To honor this long record, the venue has planned a season of vintage silent movie classics from 1925 with live music.

The series gives area film fans a chance to see movies from the pioneering days of cinema as they were intended to be shown—on the big screen, with an audience, and accompanied by live music.

 

A two-page trade journal ad for 'The Lost World' (1925). Click on the image to enlarge.

 

'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.

'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.

Terrorizing downtown London—and predating Godzilla in Tokyo by three decades.

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.

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 Leavitt 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.

Following 'The Lost World' (1925) on Wednesday, July 16 at 7 p.m., other programs in this year's Leavitt silent film series include:

• Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025, 7 p.m.: "The Freshman" (1925) starring Harold Lloyd. Welcome football season with Harold Lloyd's blockbuster silent-era hit about a college boy who dreams of success on the gridiron. One of Lloyd's all-time best!

• Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, 7 p.m.: "Risky Business" (1925) starring Vera Ralston, Zazu Pitts. No, not the 1986 film starring Tom Cruise. In this silent-era 'Risky Business,' Zasu Pitts stars with Vera Reynolds in a tale of a society girl's love for a country doctor in a film that is by turns harrowing, hilarious, and heart-warming.

• Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, 7 p.m.: "Phantom of the Opera" (1925). Long before Andrew Lloyd Webber created the hit stage musical, this silent film adaptation starring Lon Chaney helped place 'Phantom' firmly in the pantheon of both horror and romance. See it if you dare!

The restored 'The Lost World' will be shown with live music on Wednesday, July 16 at 7 p.m. at the Leavitt Theatre, 259 Main St. Route 1, Ogunquit, Maine; (207) 646-3123; admission is $15 per person, general seating.

For more information, visit www.leavittheatre.com.

'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.

Dinosaurs and Dixieland! 'Lost World' tonight, then 'Safety Last' with live band on Sunday, 7/9

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

It's 'The Lost World' tonight, and then a new world of Dixieland this coming Sunday!

New to me, anyway, as it's the first time I've collaborated with a Dixieland band in scoring a silent film—or in anything, really!

Be that as it may, it's back to making music after a 4th of July weekend break.

First up is 'The Lost World' (1925), which is running tonight (Thursday, July 6) at the Capitol Theatre in Arlington, Mass.

It's the original 'dinosaur' movie—the one that showed the way for filmmakers all the way through Steven Spielberg's 'Jurassic Park' and beyond.

Showtime is 8 p.m. We've been getting good crowds at the Capitol silent film series, and it's turning out to be a great place to experience silent film the way it was intended: in a theatre, with live music, and with an audience.

And then on Sunday, July 9, the music will take a turn for New Orleans, with a screening of Harold Lloyd's great comedy 'Safety Last' (1923) in 35mm at the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square, Somerville.

Harold checking the time.

The show starts at 2 p.m. And with me in the pit will be Sammy D and the Late Risers, a local Dixieland ensemble.

I first heard Sammy and the band a few months ago at the Aeronaut Brewery, also in Somerville, when they were jamming prior to one of my Sunday night silent film programs.

I've always had a sweet tooth for the classic Dixieland sound—and for a bunch of guys from New England, they seemed to come pretty close!

If you'd like to get a sense of their sound, here's a clip of them in action. It's wild, uninhibited stuff and really effective in live performance.

(For our show, we're using trumpet, clarinet, banjo, bass tuba and drums. (Plus me on keyboard, as appropriate.)

And as I listened, it occurred to me that 'Safety Last' was coming up at the Somerville Theatre, and I was looking for a different approach, as we'd run the title a few years ago.

I also remembered seeing 'Safety Last' more than 10 years ago at a Boston area venue that will remain nameless.

The print had arrived unexpectedly without a recorded soundtrack, and so the theater's solution was to play a CD of Scott Joplin piano rags.

There's nothing wrong with Scott Joplin. And 'Safety Last' is one of the great thrill rides of cinema—even today the climax can be a nail-biting and nerve-wracking emotional roller coaster.

But two great things don't always go together. And in this case, I was struck how the steady, measured ragtime beat of Joplin's rags totally flattened the film!

Rather than amp up the excitement, the music removed all the peaks and valleys, leaving it a cinematic flat tire.

Wow! That was one of the reasons I began doing music for film—because, I reasoned, even I could do a better job, and something like that should never be allowed to happen to one of the cinema's great treasures.

So how to integrate a Dixieland group into the score? Carefully!

To that end, Sammy (full name Sammy Dechenne) and I have worked out a cue sheet that identifies when and where his group will play, and what kind of music will work. And in some places, I'll take over with just keyboard.

I think we've come up with an effective balance, and also a plan that will help Lloyd's great film come to life on Sunday afternoon.

Please join us and see what you think! See you on Sunday at the Somerville!

Coming up this weekend: Two screenings of 'The Lost World' (1925)

What happens when British literature meets silent film?

You get 'The Lost World' (1925), the ground-breaking adventure film that started Hollywood's long-lasting love affair with larger-than-life creatures.

The film is based on a 1912 story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who seems to have invented the "dinosaurs still living" genre after hearing lectures about expeditions in remote parts of Bolivia by British explorer Percy Harrison Fawcett.

Unhappily, 'The Lost World' nearly became 'The Lost Film,' as for years all we've had are severely truncated excerpts. But happily, in recent times film historians have pieced together a nearly complete version of 'The Lost World' that now gives us a good idea of what the excitement was all about.

And if you'd like to see 'The Lost World' as it was intended to be shown—on the big screen in a theater, with an audience and with music—well, you're in luck.

I'm accompanying 'The Lost World' twice in the next week: first on Thursday, July 3 at the Leavitt Theatre in Oqunquit, Maine, and then again on Sunday, July 6 as part of a double feature at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre.

I've done the film a couple of times before, and it's become one of my favorites because audiences really do respond strongly to it, even after all these years.

Yes, the stop motion animation of the pre-historic creatures is a little primitive by today's standards. But still, it's good enough for you to lose yourself in the story, and so the film still works.

My favorite screening came a few years ago at an annual convention for sci-fi and fantasy enthusiasts in Boston.

The audience was not your usual silent film buffs, but still hard-core into this kind of material. And everyone seemed to appreciate that this version of 'The Lost World' is the direct ancestor of so much beloved cinema to come—everything from 'King Kong' (1933) to Jurassic Park (1993).

So during the film's climax, in which a brontosaurus escapes and causes mayhem, everyone cheered lustily, as if they were present at the birth of an art form. Which they were, in a way.

One thing about 'The Lost World' is that I had no idea how many adaptations have been made since the original. Wallace Beery as Professor Challenger was succeeded by, among others, Claude Rains (1960); Basil Rathbone (1966); John Rhys-Davies (1992); Jonathan Pryce (2000); and even Bob Hoskins (2001).

But none of the adaptations that followed had an actor who really lit up the original: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself!

Yes, among the footage that's been restored is a prologue featuring scenes of the great author at his estate, smiling and apparently more than ready for his close-up.

Hope you can join us for one or the other of these screenings of a great movie. For more info, below is the press release for the Ogunquit screening. The Wilton screening is Sunday, July 6 at 4:30 p.m. and is part of a double feature, paired with 'Tarzan and the Golden Lion' (1927).

* * *

MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2014 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more info, contact: Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Leavitt Theatre to screen restored 'Lost World' on Thursday, July 3

Ground-breaking first-ever dinosaur movie to be shown with live music

OGUNQUIT, Maine—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 the Leavitt Theatre in downtown Ogunquit screens a restored version of 'The Lost World' for one showing only on Thursday, July 3 at 8 p.m. Admission is $10 per person.

'The Lost World' is the latest in the Leavitt Theatre's summer-long silent film series, which aims to show the best of early cinema the way it was intended to be seen: on the big screen, with live music, and with an audience.

Live music for 'The Lost World' will be performed by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based composer and one of the nation's leading silent film accompanists.

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

The film was directed by Harry O. Hoyt and 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.

'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.

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.

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 Leavitt 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 Lost World,' Rapsis will use a digital synthesizer to recreate the texture of the full orchestra. 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 Thursday, July 3 at 8 p.m. at the Leavitt Theatre, 259 Main St., Ogunquit. Admission is $10 per person. For more information, call (207) 646-3123 or visit www.leavittheatre.com. For more information on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.