When dinos go wild: Dengue Fever scores ‘Lost World’ at the Castro

By Kimberly Chun

Surprise: no theremins in earshot at the Castro Theatre on May 5 when Dengue Fever unleashed its new score for the 1925 silent adventure film, The Lost World, as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Instead the seemingly sold-out audience got plenty of laughs, the compelling Wallace Beery as the seemingly mad Professor Challenger, herky-jerky yet still marvelous stop-motion dinosaurs, shameful black-face in the form of Sambo sidekick (Jules Cowles), and the fab scene of an astonishingly resilient Brontosaurus crashing through London city streets before plummeting from the famed bridge. The latter moment clearly evoked King Kong – and no wonder: the special effects were produced by Willis O’Brien, who also coaxed Kong to life.