Lost Horizon (1937)

Hark back to Shangri-La

Do yourself and your family a favor and rent this brilliantly restored 1937 classic, based on James Hilton's 1933 novel, featuring the gallantry of Ronald Colman and the innocence of Jane Wyatt. This masterful suspense story of an airplane kidnapping and its eventual landing in the fictional city of Shangri-la in the Himalayas offers up timeless questions such as What is the meaning of life and How do we want to spend our time here on earth.

Eastern mystical philosophy is contrasted with the materialism of the west while characterizations of the more mellow Asians are juxtaposed with the often self-absorbed Britishers. Amongst the spectacular and surprising architecture of the spiritual city, we find ourselves asking: Mightn't I incorporate more seeking of Shangri-la in my own life?

Instead of purchasing this film which includes the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of its creation (selection of Sam Jaffe for the role of head monk, plus tension between director Frank Capra and producer Harry Cohen) donate the money to a charity of your choice! January 7, 2008

Reconstructed Classic

"Lost Horizon", made at enormous expense by the famous Frank Capra in 1936, was based on a popular novel by James Hilton. It tells the story of a group of plane crash survivors who discover heaven on earth in Shangri-La, a word which entered the English language to mean a place of eternal happiness. The film has a timeless quality and Ronald Colman warmly fleshes out the leading character, a professional soldier and diplomat who has been summoned to Shangri-La to replace its dying leader the Hi-lama. Colman's talent is what makes the film work. He is an enigmatic and romantic hero. Jane Wyatt, most famous as the wife in the TV show "Father Knows Best", plays opposite Colman as the resident of Shangri-La with whom he falls in love. Wyatt is fresh and natural which helps her credibility in an almost impossible role. Her love scene with Colman in the garden is memorable. The story has a lot to say about the state of the world and this was timely in 1937.

The film was a controversial production. It ran way over budget, costing Columbia studios an enormous proportion of their annual budget. It took years to earn back its costs and Capra scrapped the first 2 reels after a disastrous preview. The film was subsequently cut in 1937 from 132 to 116 minutes for rural distribution and then cut further to 108 minutes for re-release during the war.

Due to the committed efforts of the American Film Institute and a world wide search for prints, this DVD contains the complete soundtrack of the original 132 minute version with 7 minutes of missing screen time reconstructed from stills. The reconstruction varies in quality depending on the quality of the source material itself.

All of this information is recorded in a terrific documentary which also recreates using stills the reels which Capra discarded and other cuts made along the way. The material gives a fascinating insight into the construction of the masterpiece and the director's conclusions concerning what was commercial and what was not. Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia studios, also demanded some costly retakes.

The DVD also contains a worthwhile commentary about the film itself, deleted scenes and an alternate ending which was changed within a few weeks of the release. This DVD is an outstanding package and no viewer could not fail to become intrigued by the reconstruction as the search for the remaining 7 minutes of film continues. December 18, 2007

a true cinema classic

Frank Capra's LOST HORIZON, based on the bestselling novel by James Hilton, is truly one of the milestones of modern fantasy cinema. The cast is impeccable, the sets inspired, and audience fascination for the material has only increased throughout the years. This DVD presents the film complete and restored to it's original 132 minute theatrical running-time.

British diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) and a group of planecrash survivors find salvation in Shangri-La, a utopian civilisation nestled in the Himalayan mountains. The peaceful mantra of the Shangri-La community soon wins over the jaded members of the rescued party, and Robert finds tender romance with Sondra (Jane Wyatt). But the peace is shattered by Robert's hostile brother George (John Howard), and his suspicious mind.

LOST HORIZON is filled with wonderful performances. The planecrash survivors are played with great skill by Edward Everett Horton, Isabel Jewell and Thomas Mitchell; with a finely-understated and regal Sam Jaffe playing Shangri-La's mythical High Lama. H.B. Warner also has a great presence as Chang, and the seldom-remembered Margo Albert plays George's scheming girlfriend Maria.

Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt's performances lie at the very heart of LOST HORIZON. Their romance provides the base from which the entire story pivots; and I can't think of a better actress to play the lovely Sondra than Jane Wyatt. She is absolute perfection here.

LOST HORIZON has had a very checkered past. When originally released in 1937, it's running time was a hefty 132 minutes. That was quickly cut down to 118 minutes for it's General Release; and further trimmed to 108 minutes in certain prints. During World War II, LOST HORIZON was re-released as "Lost Horizon of Shangri-La", running 95 minutes with the opening titles changed to implicate Japan into the plot. TV prints were utilised from the WWII reissue, and the full-length version was never heard from again.

This new DVD version presents the complete, uncut LOST HORIZON for the very first time since 1937. The UCLA Film and Television Archive spent 25 years researching, restoring and gathering all possible materials to introduce audiences to director Frank Capra's original vision. The final product is sensational, displaying the beautiful Art Deco designs of Stephen Goosson, the haunting score of Dimitri Tiomkin, and of course the tender performances of Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt.

DVD extra features include newly-discovered deleted scenes, audio commentary by UCLA restorer Robert Gitt and film historian Charles Champlin, photo documentary narrated by film historian Kendall Miller, the alternate 1941 reissue titles, alternate ending, and restoration comparison. October 7, 2007

A gem of a movie.

It's been decades since I last saw this movie. This DVD, except for the footage that could not be reproduced/digitized, was as if I saw the movie yesterday. This was an excellent purchase. September 3, 2007

Paradise lost

In 1933, when James Hilton's utopian novel LOST HORIZON was published, the threat of the world again at war was such that novel about finding a hidden and peaceful paradise could become a bestseller in the United Kingdom and the United States (it was, incidentally, the first contemporary novel to become a Penguin paperback because of its popularity). It was inevitable that it would become a movie, and Frank Capra was probably the ideal person to direct it, given his interest in happy endings and his previous film on war-torn China THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN. His 1937 LOST HORIZON evokes that earlier film in its superbly suspenseful opening scenes on a Chinese airfield as its city is overrun by invaders. These early scenes and the subsequent sequence on a hijacked plane (which Steven Spielberg clearly did homage to in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM) and the subsequent sequence with the pane's crashing in the Himalayas, and the passengers making passage through the mountainous waste to the hidden haven of Shangri-La, are about as fine as anything Capra ever did in terms of sheer suspense, and could scarcely have been bettered. It's only once we get to Shangri-la itself--which, as Graham Greene famously noted, looks like a film star's Beverly Hills mansion--that the film runs into trouble. The tedious scenes with Sam Jaffe as the High Lama passing on wisdom to the film's hero (Ronald Colman) are just about insufferable, and paradise hardly seems the best topic for a film (it inevitably looks pretty boring, as Shangri-La does here). But Colman and the rest of the cast are in fine form; few directors could get such consistently strong and naturalistic work out of their actors as could Capra. Colman is superb, as are John Howard (as his dissatisfied brother George) and Margo (as a Russian woman eager to leave Shangri-la); Jane Wyman does a fine job with the awful role of Sondra, who was born and raised in the mountain enclave, and she gets a sexy nude swimming sequence that must have been inspired by Hedy Lamarr's work a few years earlier in ECSATSY.

The film was notoriously and fatally trimmed soon after its release, but eventually the entire soundtrack was restored and most of the missing film sequences; those few sections still missing the actual film footage are allowed to run with the soundtrack and stills to show what happened. The cinematography is excellent. Much of the outdoor scenes in the Himalayas were clipped from the German Bergenfilms on the 30s, but Capra at least had the wisdom to steal from the best: some of the shots are absolutely breathtaking especially given their age. July 30, 2007

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