JohnHowardReid Conway Tearle (Commander Hall), Virginia Valli (Mrs Hall), Ricardo Cortez (Tom Armstrong), Duke Martin (Lieutenant Wallace), Kathryn McGuire (Nancy), Winter Hall (Wilson).Director: EDWARD SLOMAN. Screenplay: Frances Hyland. Dialogue: Charles Kenyon. Story: Jack Natteford. Film editors: Martin G. Cohn, Donn Hayes. Photography: Jackson Rose. Art director: Hervey Libbert. Set decorator: George Sawley. Special effects: Jack Robson, Kenneth Peach. RCA Sound System. A Tiffany-Stahl Production. Recording engineer: Jerry Eisenberg. Sound technician: John Buddy Myers.Copyright 10 December 1929 by Tiffany Productions, Inc. New York opening at the Gaiety: 1 February 1930. U.S. release: 20 December 1929. 8 reels. 6,882 feet. 76½ minutes.SYNOPSIS: A dirigible crash-lands near the South Pole.COMMENT: The Tiffany-Stahl company bills itself as "The Better Entertainment". Better than what, one might ask? The New York Times reviewer had his finger on the pulse when he described all three of the principal performances as "not especially praiseworthy", the story as both unintelligent and uninteresting, the plotting as "clumsy", and the special effects as "far from impressive". Well, maybe he was a little over-hard on the effects. Aside from one or two remarkable achievements like the fall down the snow- cliff, realistic they are not. But some of the glass shots of the dirigible on the ice have a certain pictorial splendor, and some of the model- work is not bad. All the same, the story is trash, the principals are a dull, lifeless trio. Mr. Cortez tries hard to instill a bit of vigor into a thankless role, but wooden Tearle and that impossibly painted doll with her silly little voice, Virginia Valli, are a dead loss. Ed Sloman's tepid, static, colorless direction is no help either.

earlytalkie That this exsists at all is probably a minor miracle. Legend has it that David Selznick purchased all of the Tiffany-Stahl studio's negatives to utilize for the burning of Atlanta sequence in Gone With The Wind. Extant prints of films from this studio are rare, indeed. That aside, The Lost Zeppelin shows that the little studio was indeed trying to be up-to-date in marketing all-talking pictures. The dialouge delivery in the first section of the picture, before we get to the meat of the story, hearkens back to The Lights of New York (1928). Pregnant pauses and actors unsure about how to properly deliver dialouge are apparent. When the story gets to the dirigible party and their problems, the pace picks up and there are some pretty neat (for their time) effects. The studio must be praised for putting forth a story that is at once novel and original. This was released at Christmastime 1929 and it seems to have been successful in some quarters. In it's premiere in St.Louis, for example, the ads reported a take of $30,900 for the Christmas weekend. Pocket change today, but we must remember the time in which it was released. Conway Tearle and Virginia Valli are the top-billed players. The opening credits proclaim that this was "Synchronized by RCA Photophone". The print on the Alpha DVD was acceptably clear. In all, a film which will probably appeal to those who enjoy the early talkies. There are plenty of 20s fashions, hairdos and a huge radio in the living room of the heroine. Radio, in fact, is utilized throughout the film as a way to chart the progress of the Zeppelin. The Zeppelin itself is neatly represented by stock footage and the use of some neat miniatures. This is not an expensive film to buy and will be entertaining to those who enjoy film history.

MartinHafer "The Lost Zeppelin" is a fascinating story when you think about it. Although the sound effects are a bit crude (such as the droning engines), the sound quality is actually very, very good for 1929. Silents were on their way out, but the quality of sound was still very poor and the fact that you can actually clearly hear the dialog is a major plus--this is NOT the case today when you see many 1929 flicks (such as "Coquette"--an Oscar-winner but with horrible sound). It also has awfully nice special effects for 1929. While today they could do much better, for 1929 it was nice.Unfortunately, while the film has its technical merits, the story itself is only fair. Part of the problem is the subplot involving the unfaithful wife and the captain--it just didn't make any sense--especially his reaction when he caught her with one of his officers. The other problem is that despite being an action story, it's all rather slow and dull. It's not terrible...it's just not all that good. In many ways, the film is highly reminiscent of the Leni Reifenstahl film, "S.O.S. Iceberg"--a film that debuted several years after "The Lost Zeppelin"--and I am pretty sure the Reifenstahl film was inspired by "The Lost Zeppelin".

dbborroughs Dated adventure film about an attempt to be the first to fly a zeppelin over the South Pole.The film is essentially two movies. The first is a long drawn out sequence at the start showing how the wife of the head of the expedition is in love with the second in command. This runs for about 25 minutes as they dress go to a send off party and then have guilt over the whole thing. Despite some good dialog this part of the movie is deadly dull. The rest of the film concerns the expedition and is much more interesting. Here we follow the flight as we see the airship fly to toward the Pole and eventually run into trouble (this isn't giving anything away because one need only look at the title to see what happens). This part of the film has some fantastic effects work with the shots of the zeppelin in flight and the Antarctic landscape with all its dangers over powering any feelings that this film is anything less than spectacular. What we see on screen is truly amazing since it was done with out computers and comes across looking oh so more real for it. The films flaws are for the most part limited to the fact that this film was made in the early days of sound and so we either have very talky sequences or ones that are very quiet.If you want to see some stunning effects in a good adventure you might want to try this, though you'll want to fast forward through the first 25 minutes since they really can be dull. (This would make a good double feature with the Red Tent the true story of similar attempt to fly an airship over the North Pole a few years before this was made, and which was probably the inspiration for this film)