Pictures and the Picturegoer (Jan-Dec 1925)

60 THE LOST WORLD. (Continued from page 38.) Paula went first and one by one they followed, Malone and Professor Challenger going last. When they reached the plain below there was Zambo grinning his great pleasure at the return of his masters and at his own prowess. " Roun' dis rock, boss," he said. " It fell a hul wik ago, an' I'se fed it on greenstuff ever since. Look !" It was the brontosaurus. It lay where it had fallen, bruised, very battered and weak, but still very much alive. Professor Challenger could not restrain his delight. " Ropes !" he cried. And soon they had the monster more or less secured against escape on its recovery until they could make other plans for its restraint and removal. """They set to work at once; a vast crate or cage was constructed, with the expenditure of colossal energy and a wearying amount of time, and finally the great beast was embarked and with the aid of the boats of the expedition set afloat on the upper reaches of the Amazon. Of the difficulties experienced on the memorable voyage down the river to the port on the coast only the members of the party themselves could tell, and the time came when they wearied of the telling. They were able to keep the capture of the brontosaurus a secret from all outsiders, and when the port was reached he was got aboard and into the hold of their own boat under cover of night. Professor Challenger's second great meeting at the Universal Hall was not advertised as a lecture but as' a "Mammoth Revelation." Nobody knew quite what to expect, but everybody expected much. The hall was crowded to its capacity an hour before the advertised time of commencement. Nobody was quite prepared for the revelation that Professor Challenger made. " Two years ago," he began, " I faced my critics in this hall. I made statements which were, to say the least of it, openly scoffed at by my audience. You expected proof. I have brought proof. Outside — " He stopped. A door at the side of the platform was flung open and in dashed Zambo, a look of wildest fear on his features. He tottered to the professor's table and began to gesticulate violently. What he was saying reached only the ears of a few people in the first rows of the audience. " The brontosaurus is loose ! A brontosaurus! Loose!" The startling news was already abroad when the crowd emptied itself into the streets. People were shouting it along Knightsbridge and Piccadilly. The monster was said to be travelling at an unthinkable pace towards the City, with half of London at its heels. Malone and Paula White and Pro The P/c/-\jre9ver fessor Challenger travelled in the professor's powerful car eastward, and their first sight of the brontosaurus was gained in Ludgate Circus where he was busy uprooting one of the mammoth stone columns there. I— le tore past St. Paul's which for some obscure reason he seemed to fear, and fled away to the left hand, coming up before the Exchange and the Bank of England. A bus he casually kicked out of his way and it collapsed with its screaming human load two hundred yards off. Then the great beast swung round, sniffed at the air and made for the river. Down to the river. Down by the Tow«r, and beyond to the Tower Bridge. And there, for the first time, the beast began to show some traces of an emotion that might have been happiness. It lifted its head and bleated. It pawed the turrets of the bridge and seemed to be making up its mind as to the course to pursue. And then suddenly it dashed forward, thrust the towers out of its path and plunged on to the bridge. The watchers gasped. A great cheer rose up from bewildered London, a cheer that became immediately a hoarse cry almost of disappointment. The wide span of the Tower Bridge creaked, sagged and collapsed under the strain of the monster's body. Girders crumpled under it and fell with a wild splash. And in the midst of the chaos the wide bulk of the creature could be seen as it floundered about and then turned its face to the distant ocean and began to swim. " Look, there he is still !" cried Paula, pointing. " Oh, but it's wonderful— to be in at the end now, as we were in at the beginning. It's magnificent — historic. . . I don't know what it is, except that it's the end. . ." In the excitement of the occasion Majone had taken her arm. " You know what you said just now. about its being the end." Malone said as they went along. Need it be?" She looked at him. " I went out to the Lost World to do something big for a girl," Malone went on. " But now I learn that she has preferred to marry a cross-word champion in my absence. I am not a champion. Perhaps I excel in nothing. But if my head is not so bright as that of the cross-iword champion perhaps my heart is in the right place. The girl I tried to do something big for was not Gladys Hungerford. I thought it was, but it wasn't. The girl was — Here's a taxi. Shall we get in? I want to talk to you." Paula laughed. " Very well. To talk about the Lost World?" " No," said Malone. " To talk about nothing that is lost, but about something which is found. Something I have found. . ." They got into the taxi. NOVEMBER 1925 FLIRTING WITH DEATH. (Continued from page 21.) The screen villains tied Mary in a sack and threw her overboard. She was supposed to wriggle out of the sack and swim to safety, but she became entangled in some way and went down like a stone, the waters of the mighty river sweeping over their helpless prisoner. Finally, a lifeguard, stationed on a tug-boat to prevent accident, dived in and brought her to the surface. But before she could gasp for air she was suddenly hurtled downward into the waters again. The lifeguard had come up directly in the path of the oncoming tug-boat, and the only way of saving his life and Mary's was to dive under the boat. Douglas Fairbanks has had many thrills during the years of his picturemaking, but the most painful accident that befell him was during the filming of The Nut. In this picture he was supposed to give a flying leap through a window, but in some manner his foot caught on the sill and he was flung to the concrete floor of the stage. Throwing out one hand to protect his head, he became conscious of an excruciating pain. Two bones in his hand had been broken in the fall. When you see North of '36 on the screen note particularly ihe scenes in which Lois Wilson on horseback fords the river at the head of a mighty herd of cattle. In mid-stream, where the water was very deep she was lifted completely from the seat of her saddle by the force of the water. Feeling herself slipping down under the plunging hoofs of the swimming herd, the actress made a desperate grab and succeeded in clutching the pommel of the saddle, to which she clung for dear life. She managed to keep her senses until shallow water was reached. Bert Lytell and Claire Windsor faced death together on the Sahara Desert when A Son of the Sahara was being filmed. A horde of natives had been engaged for a scene depicting a desert raid. They were provided with swords, spears, guns and other battle equipment, and instructed to ride down upon the camp to a given mark, where they were to halt. What wild spirit may have swept through them, no one knows, but, brandishing their glistening weapons in the sunlight, they swept down the steep hillside on their Arabian horses uttering wild cries and paying no attention to the shouts of Mr. Carewe, the director, and his assistants. Caught totally unaware when he saw that the Arabs were beyond, Lytell says that he did the quickest thinking of his life. A small tent stood nearby, and into this be dashed with Miss Windsor. He is certain that this action alone saved their lives.