Lost Horizon

Now there's an alternate title for my blog!

Welcome to Shangri-la! The name probably rings a bell. Can't remember where you heard it? Shangri-la is a fictitious place imagined by James Hilton, great author of a beautiful novel I read while I was in French Guiana. The isolation of the characters was similar to mine at the time when the place was new to me. Thankfully, the screen adaptation of this spellbinding story was given to one of the best directors in Hollywood.

The irony is that a film about the legend of the fountain of youth has known so much strife for a still incomplete version to be presented to us today. However, a special restoration technique has been used on the film, and this is what I'd like to discuss.

Frank Capra explains in his gripping autobiography that he strated blossoming in his work from the moment on he made films with a message that spoke to him on a personal level, instead of made to order blockbusters for Columbia (these had success anyway, the man had talent!).

And Lost Horizon is from that second part of his career that exalts human kindness at the risk of being over-optimistic, a critique often made about Capra but also a quality that bases his most famous films like Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, It's A Wonderful Life, etc.

Lost Horizon was supposed to be the first 3-hour Columbia blockbuster. Plane crash, avalanche, superb settings are part of the show. Capra wrote he had to cut the first two reels of the film due to a disastrous preview in Santa Barbara: a framing that turned the rest of the film into a giant flash-back. He claims he destroyed the reels himself then. So there would be no chance of ever finding them again. However this can be considered pre-production as the final version of the film had not been released yet.

But the following theatrical releases was the film cut from 132 minutes to 118, then 95. In the seventies, the result was appalling: not only was the negative lost (it deteriorated), but all known copies had several scenes cut. By searching throughout the world, the restoration crew gathered elements including a complete soundtrack, but no complete film. Some scenes were available in poorer quality and the difference does show, but others simply had not survived.

The restoring team made a bold and honorable decision: they kept the complete film and replaced missing portions by stills and production photographs and the result is stunning. The fact that the film is in black and white draws less attention to the technique than in A Star Is Born even if I appreciate the work on that film immensely too.

Enough about technician aspects. About this film, except for the story and the outstanding direction, I recommend Dimitri Tiomkin's great score available on CD (Considering the fate of the film, it is amazing that the soundtrack was preserved). As for the casting, Ronald Colman stars. He also shined in the 1937 version of The Prisoner of Zenda (the best one and it is a tough competition). But secondary characters are just great. First Thomas Mitchell, Scarlett's father in Gone With The Wind, as a good hearted crook, and especially Edward Everett Horton, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers's eternal sidekick in their musicals. Horton has a style his own that you can never forget.

For the anecdote, Capra says he chose an old stage actor for the part of the High Lama and that when his maid announced the tests were good and he had the part, the old man died.


A musical remake was made in 1973, and was instantly panned by critics.

After seeing Lost Horizon, I don't know if I should hope that you find the missing scenes in your attic or if you should find your own Shangri-la.
It is now unthinkable that a good part of the speech of the High Lama was cut when it resonates today just as much as it probably did back in 1937). Run out and buy the restored Blu-ray version if you wish to listen to it. I'm copying a part of it.
Look at the world today. Is there anything more pitiful? What madness there is! What blindness! What unintelligent leadership! A scurrying mass of bewildered humanity, crashing headlong against each other, propelled by an orgy of greed and brutality. A time must come my friend, when this orgy will spend itself. When brutality and the lust for power must perish by its own sword. Against that time, is why I avoided death, and am here. And why you were brought here. For when that day comes, the world must begin to look for a new life. And it is our hope that they may find it here. For here, we shall be with their books and their music, and a way of life based on one simple rule: Be Kind!

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That's all for today, folks!