LECTURE THIRTEEN
THE LOST WORLD (1925)
Harry O. Hoyt
HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1959)
Terence Fisher
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Doyle (or Conan Doyle - Coyle was the family name of his godfather and appears initially as a given name and later seems to be used as a family name) was born to an Irish family living in Edinburgh Scotland. His father,Charles Altamont Doyle, had serious psychiatric problems. His mother Mary Foley was well educated and had a passion for books and was an excellent story teller. Arthur Conan Doyle was raised Catholic and sent to a Jesuit prepatory school where he disliked the corporal punishments and what he saw as hypocricy. He had both a scientific and artistic background having been trained at the University of Edinburgh in medicine, putting within him the two areas which may be seen as rational and anti-rational. Such a split can be seen in the "Lost World" story in which the first 3rd is in London; the second 3rd is near or on the plateau and the last third is in London again, this time with the Brontosaurus running loose.
The Lost World (1925) The film is the granddaddy of all monster movies. A group of people go to far off place and find some kind(s) of monster(s). In many cases they bring one of the animals back to a large city and it get loose. King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms follow the pattern while films like Son of Kong, Unknown Island, have the animals remain on the animals.
The films special effects are by Willis O'Brien, Marcel Delgado and Ralph Hammeras. The first two would go on to make King Kong (1933) and the last was involved with The Giant Claw and The Giant Gila Monster and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Parallel sequences with King Kong
Unlike the monster films of the 50's, in which giant animals are either caused by or released by something atomic, pre 50's films generally account for the appearance of the animals (usually prehistoric) by placing them in some issolated area.
The monsters are not supernatural in any way, simply existing in a different place. This may in some ways be equated with a spiritual world located on a different plane (remembering that Doyle was a firm believer in a spiritual world (seances and the like) but not necessarily a supernatural one (demons, witches and the like). Hence the two different worlds are initially apart and then merged - paralleling the idea that the spiritual and physical world while seen as different may merge. This in effect brings the spritual into the real world.
Doyle wrote many articles, plays, novels and short stories. Two main characters he created are Prof. Challenger and Sherlock Holmes both of whom are involved in several works. It is Prof. Challenger who is the figure in The Lost World whereas Sherlock Holmes is the main character in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Both are modeled after real people at the University of Edinburgh: Challenger after a professor of physiology named William Rutherford, who had lectured at the University of Edinburgh while Conan Doyle studied medicine there; Sherlock Holmes after Prof. Joseph Bell who had the ability to deduce a great deal about his patients.
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the most commonly filmed Sherlock Holmes story. The story is constructed so that there is some question about the ontology (the branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such) of "hound" - is it real or supernatural. One other Holmes film also deals with such a problem ((Sherlock Holmes and) The Scarlet Claw 1944) in which the villagers believe a supernatural being is commiting murders. In both cases the film comes down against the supernatural explanation.
Here again, the idea of the supernatural vs. spiritual is clear.
Reading biographical material about writers is often helpful in understanding some things that the writer has in mind.
While we have set up a rational vs. anti rational dichotomy which represents an artistic vs. scientific opposition, Doyle's work implies a contrast within the anti rational by spliting spirtitual off from supernatural and placing it moe within the rational frame.