Silent film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel of the same name. Directed by Harry O. Hoyt and featured pioneering stop motion special effects by Willis O’Brien (an invaluable warm up for his work on the original King Kong directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack). In 1922, Conan Doyle showed O’Brien’s test reel to a meeting of the Society of American Magicians, which included Harry Houdini. The astounded audience watched footage of a Triceratops family, an attack by an Allosaurus and some Stegosaurus footage. Doyle refused to discuss the film’s origins. On the next day, the New York Times ran a front page article about it, saying “(Conan Doyle’s) monsters of the ancient world, or of the new world which he has discovered in the ether, were extraordinarily lifelike. If fakes, they were masterpieces”.
It is a film of many firsts: first film to be shown to airline passengers, in April 1925 on a London-Paris flight by the company Imperial Airways; first feature length film made in the United States, possibly the world, to feature model animation as the primary special effect, or stop motion animation in general; first dinosaur-oriented film hit, and it led to other dinosaur movies, from King Kong to the Jurassic Park trilogy.
(Text adapted from Wikipedia)
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Note this film is in the public domain in the US, but may not be in other jurisdictions. Please check its status in your jurisdiction before re-using.
| CLIPS | SHORT | FULL LENGTH SILENT | FULL LENGTH TALKIE |
|---|---|---|---|
Princess Nicotine (1909) 6min | Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) 12min | Last of the Mohicans (1920) 1hr11min | Meet John Doe (1941) 2hr3min |
The Unappreciated Joke (1903) 1min | Frankenstein (1910) 13min | The General (1926) 1hr19min | Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) 1hr19mins |
The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895) 21sec | The Great Train Robbery (1903) 10min | Wolf Blood (1925) 1hr7min | Reefer Madness (1938) 1hr8min |
The Kiss (1896) 25secs | Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (1940) 20min | Battleship Potemkin (1925) 1hr13min | The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) 1hr57min |
Trapeze Disrobing Act (1901) 2min | Are You Popular (1947) 10min | The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) 1hr11min | Scarlet Street (1945) 1hr43min |
Annie Oakley Fires Her Gun (1894) 20secs | The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910) 13min | For The Term of His Natural Life (1927) 1hr33min | The Last Man on Earth (1964) 1hr27min |
Operation Cue (1955) 52sec | Never Weaken (1921) 28min | Intolerance (1916) 2hr57min | Quicksand (1950) 1hr18min |
Dutch Fashion Reel (1969) 1min50sec | Betty Boop: Minnie The Moocher (1932) 7min46sec | The Phantom of the Opera (1925) 1hr46min | Suddenly (1954) 1hr16mins |
Buffalo Dance (1894) 14sec | American Day in Tripoli, Libya (1962) 14min | The Thief of Bagdad (1924) 2hr20min | Five Minutes to Live (1961) 1hr14min |
VD is for Everybody (1969) 1min | Your Name Here (1960) 10min10sec | The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) 1hr11min | Cyrano De Bergerac (1950) 1hr53min |
The Enchanted Drawing (1900) 1min29sec | The Night Before Christmas (1905) 8min44sec | Stella Maris (1918) 1hr13min | Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) 1hr40min |
Time-Lapse Demolition of the Star Theatre, New York (1901) 1min49sec | The Dream of Mrs L.L. Nicholson from Oakland, California (1924) 7min23sec | The Lost World (1925) 1hr8min | Gulliver's Travels (1939) 1hr18min |