Idealistic View
Added 11/13/2009
Lost Horizons deals with an idealistic view of man. The movies look and feel are dated, but the ideas are not. The movie proceeds at a slow pace, but gradually sucks the viewer in to its' utopian view. Directed by a legend (Frank Capra) and showcasing Ronald Coleman and Jane Wyman. Most young people probably do not have the patience for the movie, but people over 60 will remember the actors and director and perhaps the concept of Shangri La.
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WAY Ahead of It's Time, a Masterpiece!
Added 10/23/2009
More has been written about Frank Capra's 1937 production of "Lost Horizon" than of nearly any other film of the era, of it's unpopular pacifist message as the world prepared for WWII, of it's fanciful presentation of Asian cultures as channeled through Hollywood stereotypes, of it's ambiguous ending, to audiences expecting a simple resolution. Preview audiences in 1937 were totally confused by the film, allowing Columbia chief Harry Cohn (who hated the movie) to perform one of the most vicious 'hatchet jobs' in film history, destroying Capra's visionary work. It has taken a half-century to reassemble much of what was lost, at least in some form, and one thing, above all else, stands out..."Lost Horizon" truly is a masterpiece, more in tune with our own time than with the world of 1937.
Modern critics love to carp upon the fact that Asians are presented in menial tasks, and Westerners are the movers and shakers in Shangri-La (with an aged Frenchman as the High Lama), but they ignore that the land was a melting pot of many races and cultures, and that in 1937, the bulk of technological advances were from the West. A melding of cultures, which had only begun a hundred years earlier, was certainly going to result in universal equality and opportunity (could you imagine Colman, Wyatt, Jaffe, or Warner's characters accepting anything less?) The argument is a silly one, anyway, more an excuse to dislike the film than a legitimate complaint. The same can be said about those who complain about the pacifist tone of the film. In a Utopian society, why would war be the biggest industry? Improving the lives and health of everyone, protecting the environment, and the pursuit of knowledge and beauty are truly noble ideals, and what was the 'rule' in Shangri-La has become essential to our survival, today, making "Lost Horizon" a truly visionary film.
I admit, I love the film, for many reasons, from Frank Capra's optimistic belief that good people can make a better world, to the career-defining performance by Ronald Colman, who embodied nobility and self-sacrifice better than any other actor, before or since. Dimitri Tiomkin's score sends chills down my spine, it is so beautiful! I don't find Shangri-La's architecture too 'art deco', but austere, futuristic, and universal, looking 'ahead', and not back upon the past. From the insane desperation of the opening 'China' sequence to Colman's superhuman quest at the finale to regain Shangri-La, "Lost Horizon" is a film I'd give SIX stars to, if I could!
I humbly recommend it to everyone!
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lost horizon
Added 9/27/2009
I have always wanted a copy of Lost Horizon. I think they did their best to make all the sound and picture come out together but it was somewhat annoying. I am glad I now have my copy.
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Though much of the film itself has been Lost, the spell it exerts is everlasting
Added 9/22/2009
The 1937 "Lost Horizon" arrives to the informed viewer with a lot of baggage: originally envisioned in color, it was shot in black and white when no suitable stock footage for the mountain sequences could be found; and even in monocolor it was still Columbia's most expensive film to that point at a then-enormous $2 million budget. Capra was so unsatisfied with an initial preview of the "3 hour" cut (referred to by himself in his autobiography, and other sources) that he cut (only) the first two reels, supposedly burning the negative himself! Probably his decision as regards the beginning of the film was a wise one; it starts out in a quite exciting and abrupt manner and really gets us in the action, not letting up for a good half hour. Yet the DVD of the "restored" 132-minute cut offers plenty of evidence that other and more unfortunate deletions which involve the development of many of the secondary characters, and probably change the structure and balance of the film to the negative.
Most damaging is the fact that even this surviving and reconstructed cut is only complete in its soundtrack - just 125 minutes of visual footage survive, so stills are placed at a few points in the film as the dialog plays. And worst of all, none of the footage is from the original negative, which has probably been lost forever. At best the film looks like a grainy dupe print or a slightly fuzzy 16MM original; at worst it's quite washed out and bears little resemblance to what ace cinematographer Joseph Walker actually shot. You can get a glimpse of that by looking at the minute or two of surviving silent deleted footage that does come from the original negative - what a visual feast this must have been in 1937!
And yet for all its flaws, "Lost Horizon" remains a masterpiece, its director's most ambitious film and largely an artistic success. As I mentioned, it starts with a bang as British foreign officer Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) and his younger brother George (John Howard) direct the evacuation of "90 white people" (unfortunately racist, but a comment by Robert shortly afterwards undercuts the Imperialist attitude) from the obscure northern Chinese city of Baskul, saving the last plane for themselves and three last escapees, archaelogist Alexander Lovett (Edward Everett Horton), never-named but quite-obvious prostitute Gloria Stone (Isabel Jewell) and gregarious mystery man Barnard (Thomas Mitchell). Alas they quickly find that their plane has been hijacked and instead of travelling to the coast to Shanghai they find themselves on a long flight to Tibet with no way to escape. Eventually the plane crashes on a snowy plateau, where the party is quickly (and amazingly) met by a group of Tibetans led by the English-speaking Chang (H.B. Warner).
They have crashed on the borders of Shangri-La, a remote enclave in a temperate valley amidst the most forbidding peaks, nearly impassable to even experienced mountaineers and 500 miles from the nearest settlement. Suspicions arise amongst the group that they've been deliberately brought here; George in particular seems adamant about getting answers quickly and leaving as soon as possible - but big brother Robert is of a different mind.
Colman does a beautiful job from the very first of conveying Robert Conway's world-weariness and sad, lost dream of mattering on a war-torn and violent globe. It's mentioned early on that Conway is likely to be appointed the next Foreign Secretary; it's clear that he thinks very little of this idea. In Shangri-La however, he quickly finds peace, time for reflection, beauty and simplicity in lifestyle - and beauty in the physical form of Sondra Bizet (Jane Wyatt). As Conway becomes more and more enamored of this place of peace where even disease and old age seemingly can't find a foothold, as he learns more and more about the history, the purpose, and his potential future from Chang and Father Perrault (Sam Jaffe), the 250-year-old Belgian monk who founded the place, he becomes less and less interested in returning to the mad world he left. But he cannot forget his familial duty even if he starts to dismiss his country's hold on him, and George works him around to the idea that perhaps the whole thing is a fantasy - that in fact the whole group was kidnapped, that there are sinister purposes at work - and Robert must make the choice whether to sacrifice his own happiness, or risk losing his brother forever.
Everything about "Lost Horizon" bespeaks a dedication and an honest hope - if not belief - in the Utopian vision that Shangri-La offers. The art direction and production design are absolutely among the best from the era, the lamasery itself is fascinatingly modern, elegant, and not seeming to belong to any style precisely, and the mountain adventure scenes are as well done as you can reasonably expect in those days of studio-bound production. Dimitri Tionkin's score is one of his very earliest and strikes the right balance of big-scale drama and otherworldly, mystical effects (the music in the pigeon sequence in particular is quite eerie and sounds to me like it makes use of electronics). The female cast seems a bit under-utilized and is less impressive than the male stars, though I think some of this does have to do with the cuts. Jewell's part in particular seems truncated - both Horton and Mitchell, admittedly two of the greatest of character actors, get a lot more to chew on - as does that of Margo, the Mexican actress who plays Maria, a Shangri-La resident who pushes and cajoles George to escape but whose own secrets will lead to no good.
But it's Colman and Capra's show overall: the actor's earnestness and ability to really act with his face more than make up for his occasional hamminess, less of a problem here than in many of his films but still not entirely absent; and Capra manages the delicate balance of keeping Shangri-La both real and wonderful and desirable, and remote, fantastic and perhaps too dreamlike to really exist. I think the difference between Capra's very best work (this, "It's a Wonderful Life", "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", "The Bitter Tea of General Yen" etc) and some of his slightly more problematic films ("Meet John Doe" is a prime example) often lies in whether or not he is able to tie up the disparate strands of fantasy and reality, cynicism and sentiment, into something both believable and desirable - and he hits a home run here. After Robert has left the lamasery, finally giving in to his brother's demands, he loses both George and Maria and must make his way back to civilization alone. Cut to news headlines: "Conway alive", "Conway on Way Back to England", etc. Then, a club in London. Conway's apparently disappeared, and we get a wonderful bit in which Lord Gravesend (Hugh Butler) describes his own travails in trying to find Conway, who jumped ship on his way back home and always remains a step ahead. Finally Gravesend recounts how just a couple of days before he arrived in the most remote Tibetan village, Conway disappeared over an impassable pass, never to be seen again. "I hope he finds his Shangri-La. I hope we all find our Shangri-Las." The last lines, but wait...cue the rising music, a battered and frozen man, the image of the valley before him...Capraesque bells ring out.
Just unforgettable.
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Old time greats
Added 5/22/2009
It was a pleasure to watch this movie even with the missing portions of the movie. It is refreshing to see real acting and no cursing or sex in a movie.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Idealistic View
Added 11/13/2009
Lost Horizons deals with an idealistic view of man. The movies look and feel are dated, but the ideas are not. The movie proceeds at a slow pace, but gradually sucks the viewer in to its' utopian view. Directed by a legend (Frank Capra) and showcasing Ronald Coleman and Jane Wyman. Most young people probably do not have the patience for the movie, but people over 60 will remember the actors and director and perhaps the concept of Shangri La.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
WAY Ahead of It's Time, a Masterpiece!
Added 10/23/2009
More has been written about Frank Capra's 1937 production of "Lost Horizon" than of nearly any other film of the era, of it's unpopular pacifist message as the world prepared for WWII, of it's fanciful presentation of Asian cultures as channeled through Hollywood stereotypes, of it's ambiguous ending, to audiences expecting a simple resolution. Preview audiences in 1937 were totally confused by the film, allowing Columbia chief Harry Cohn (who hated the movie) to perform one of the most vicious 'hatchet jobs' in film history, destroying Capra's visionary work. It has taken a half-century to reassemble much of what was lost, at least in some form, and one thing, above all else, stands out..."Lost Horizon" truly is a masterpiece, more in tune with our own time than with the world of 1937.
Modern critics love to carp upon the fact that Asians are presented in menial tasks, and Westerners are the movers and shakers in Shangri-La (with an aged Frenchman as the High Lama), but they ignore that the land was a melting pot of many races and cultures, and that in 1937, the bulk of technological advances were from the West. A melding of cultures, which had only begun a hundred years earlier, was certainly going to result in universal equality and opportunity (could you imagine Colman, Wyatt, Jaffe, or Warner's characters accepting anything less?) The argument is a silly one, anyway, more an excuse to dislike the film than a legitimate complaint. The same can be said about those who complain about the pacifist tone of the film. In a Utopian society, why would war be the biggest industry? Improving the lives and health of everyone, protecting the environment, and the pursuit of knowledge and beauty are truly noble ideals, and what was the 'rule' in Shangri-La has become essential to our survival, today, making "Lost Horizon" a truly visionary film.
I admit, I love the film, for many reasons, from Frank Capra's optimistic belief that good people can make a better world, to the career-defining performance by Ronald Colman, who embodied nobility and self-sacrifice better than any other actor, before or since. Dimitri Tiomkin's score sends chills down my spine, it is so beautiful! I don't find Shangri-La's architecture too 'art deco', but austere, futuristic, and universal, looking 'ahead', and not back upon the past. From the insane desperation of the opening 'China' sequence to Colman's superhuman quest at the finale to regain Shangri-La, "Lost Horizon" is a film I'd give SIX stars to, if I could!
I humbly recommend it to everyone!
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
lost horizon
Added 9/27/2009
I have always wanted a copy of Lost Horizon. I think they did their best to make all the sound and picture come out together but it was somewhat annoying. I am glad I now have my copy.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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