College of Business Administration

Lost Horizon:

Lost Horizon
US (1937): Fantasy/Adventure
CineBooks' Motion Picture Guide Review: 5.0 stars out of 5
132 min, No rating, Black & White, Available on videocassette and laserdisc

Although this film is of the quality of Frank Capra's masterpieces MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939); MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN (1936); IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946); and IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934), LOST HORIZON is also unlike any other film he made, departing from the usual "Capraesque" middle-class milieu for a world of strange adventure and fantasy.

Synopsis
"The Roof of the World" Faithfully adapted from Hilton's popular novel, the film opens as a gallant British diplomat, author, and Far Eastern historian Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) comes to the aid of some refugees from a Chinese revolution. The group takes off in a small passenger plane, the motley collection including Robert; his younger, impressionable brother, George (John Howard); a swindler wanted by the law, Henry Barnard (Thomas Mitchell); a prostitute with tuberculosis, Gloria (Isabel Jewell); and a fussy fossil-hunting scientist, Alexander P. Lovett (Edward Everett Horton). Robert notices that the plane is not headed for safety but is climbing into the snow-topped Himalayas and into Tibet, "The Roof of the World." Moreover, the passengers discover that the pilot is not the European they had believed him to be, but an Asian.

Shangri-La. The plane crashes and the passengers struggle out, sinking into deep snow. Just when they are about to give up all hope of surviving, they are rescued by an odd-looking party led by an ancient Chinese, Chang (H.B. Warner) who appears to have been looking for the Europeans. He gives them warm clothing and they join the rescuers' caravan, heading over the terrain to a remote, small pass. Suddenly, as the group crosses over a narrow bridge between towering mountains, the blizzard conditions vanish, and they stand within a beautiful, snowless, sun-filled world known as the Valley of the Blue Moon, looking down upon the majestic landscapes that make up the lamasery of Shangri-La.
Taken to a magnificent structure and given luxurious rooms, the Europeans soon discover the marvelous tranquility of this hidden, unknown land where nothing is known of greed, war, hatred, or crime. Robert, while trying to learn more about this mysterious place, is told by Chang-who is an assistant to the High Lama-that Shangri-La was discovered and founded by Father Perrault, a missionary who established the lamasery in 1713 as a place for contemplation, free from worldly concerns.

The High Lama. After being enraptured by the sight of a beautiful young girl, Sondra (Jane Wyatt), Robert is summoned by the High Lama, (Sam Jaffe). Listening to High Lama as he relates the history of Shangri-La, Robert realizes with shock that the High Lama and Father Perrault are the same person-that this wise old man is more than 250 years old. The High Lama tells Robert that at last he is dying; furthermore, he has chosen Robert to replace him as High Lama, which is why Robert's plane was hijacked and flown into the mountains. The High Lama predicts that the outside world will be devastated by war and that his Shangri-La will serve as a safe haven for those wishing to preserve the ideals, culture, and future of civilization.

Paradise lost. Robert is perfectly content to shed his worldly burdens and assume the role The High Lama has designated for him, planning to marry Sondra. For George, however, the beautiful, deathless valley is nothing more than a lovely prison, and he insists that he and Robert must escape. He too has fallen in love-with an exotic Oriental beauty, Maria (Margo). Though Maria looks 20, Chang tells Robert that she is really a 60-year-old Russian whom Shangri-La and its eternal peace have kept young. George refuses to believe this, and Robert is swayed to his side when Maria tells him that Chang and the High Lama are lying, that she is not an old woman and that the old men are insane.
After Maria bribes some porters, she, George, and Robert climb through the pass into the outer world, struggling through the snow. The porters fall to their deaths in a ravine, and George and Robert are horrified to see Maria's face rapidly wither into old age. That night she dies, a shriveled old hag. (Her deeply wrinkled face in death is one of the most shocking sights in film history.) His mind snapped by the sight of Maria's decomposing body, George commits suicide by throwing himself over a cliff. Robert, now lost in the snows, wanders for days until he stumbles into a Tibetan village, his memory erased. Taken back to England to recuperate, he suddenly remembers Shangri-La and all its wonders, particularly his beloved Sondra. He leaves immediately for Tibet, determined to find his way back to the wonderful Valley of the Blue Moon.

Paradise regained. Afterwards, an admirer who went with Robert, Lord Gainsford (Hugh Buckler) returns to his club in England to report that he failed in his attempt to find the missing adventurer, who somehow slipped past him and vanished in the high mountains. Lord Gainsford lifts his glass, making this toast: "Here is my hope that Robert Conway will find his Shangri-La. Here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La."

At the film's end-a departure from the novel, in which the hero is not seen again, leaving open the question as to whether he was able to find his way back to Shangri-La-Capra shows Robert struggling through the snow and miraculously finding the pass that will lead him back into the fabled valley for a reunion with Sondra and near-eternal bliss.

Critique
High-quality work. Everything about LOST HORIZON reflects quality work. Frank Capra's direction displays a swift pace, inventive shots, and evident vitality. In addition to the film's outstanding special effects, Robert Riskin's script is bright and literate; Dimitri Tiomkin's music is stirring, and Joseph Walker's soft-focus photography is evocative.

Background
Painstaking production. It is fairly certain that novelist Hilton based his main character upon the adventurer and mountaineer George Leigh-Mallory, who was lost in a blizzard and vanished in 1924 while attempting to conquer Mount Everest. Though Hilton wrote the novel (published in 1933) in six weeks, Capra took two years to transfer the tale to celluloid.
The magnificent Shangri-La set constructed by art designer Stephen Goosson was the largest ever built in Hollywood. For two months, 150 workmen labored to build the 1,000-foot-long, 500-foot-wide lamasery, with its deep flights of marbled stairs and huge patio, broad terraces, rich gardens, lily-coated pools, and main building influenced by art deco and Frank Lloyd Wright.
To provide a realistic-looking set for the snowbound mountain scenes, Capra used a huge cold-storage warehouse in which frozen swordfish were stacked to the ceiling, shooting about 20 percent of the film there in freezing temperatures so that actual snow could be created. The plane crash, the climbing sequences, and the avalanche that destroys the porters were all filmed in the warehouse. For distant shots, Capra employed some stock footage from an adventure documentary directed by Andrew Marton in 1930 (the same footage was later used by economy-minded Columbia for its 1952 production STORM OVER TIBET).
Ever the stickler for authenticity, Capra also gained access to a collection of rare horns privately owned by a Californian and obtained ancient Tibetan musical instruments, some as long as eight feet and one brought from the temple of Lhasa in the Tibetan mountains. To make the films "yaks," Capra had yearling steers covered with long hair and did the same with Shetland ponies to simulate the tiny Tibetan horses.

Casting the leads. True to his adventurous spirit, Capra cast two near-unknowns as his female leads: Jane Wyatt, a recent college graduate with only a few minor films to her credit, and Mexican dancer Margo, whose most notable previous film appearance was in Ben Hecht's CRIME WITHOUT PASSION (1934).
Capra had always envisioned Ronald Colman in the starring role, although studio boss Harry Cohn objected to the actor, considering him too polished and refined. Here the mogul was being his usual truculent self, since he knew that Colman was box-office dynamite. (Two years earlier Colman had been selected, at age 44, as the most handsome man on the screen by 22 out of 51 female stars. Clark Gable received eight votes; Fredric March came in third with seven.) Colman stepped onto the LOST HORIZON set with some apprehension, having heard about studio head Harry Cohn's notoriously brutish ways. Accordingly, the star had his lawyers insert a special clause into his contract specifying that he would not have to deal with Cohn, only with Capra. Colman and Capra got along famously, and Capra later wrote appreciatively of his talents, remarking that Colman's star temperament had been overstated.
Cast as his younger brother was Howard, borrowed by Capra from Paramount, where he was a contract player. It was one of the two best roles he would ever play-the other being that of the snob fiancˇ in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940), directed by George Cukor, who also requested his services. Ironically, Howard disliked his LOST HORIZON character, just as he loathed playing his part in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, though he would later look back in gratitude at the two directors who had singled him out.

Finding the High Lama. Capra was far less sure of who should play the High Lama but finally opted for A.E. Anson, a 90-year-old stage actor who had seldom appeared on the screen. Anson, ancient and on his last legs, was found in retirement in the San Gabriel Valley. Capra brought him in for a screen test-shot without makeup-and decided he was perfect. He called Anson's home and got his housekeeper on the phone, telling her to inform the old actor that he had the role. Within an hour, the housekeeper called Capra back: she had told her employer the good news, she reported, at which he had smiled broadly, then died!
Next, Capra cast Henry B. Walthal in the part of the 250-year-old Lama, but Walthal (who had played the Little Colonel in D.W. Griffith's masterpiece THE BIRTH OF A NATION, 1915) was also in failing health and died before Capra could get him on film. At a loss, the director even toyed with casting Charles Laughton in the role until he tested veteran character actor Sam Jaffe, who won the part immediately. Jaffe played his delicate character so effectively that, even though he is on the screen for only a few minutes, he is forever remembered as the ancient missionary.

An eventual blockbuster. Little Columbia Studios and its tough boss Cohn staggered under the burden of the film's $2.5 million cost, which amounted to half of the company's entire yearly budget. However all of the painstaking care Capra took with LOST HORIZON shows. Capra was at a high point, as was Colman-although the quality of their work was not obvious to a snickering audience at the LOST HORIZON's premiere, much to the consternation of Capra, who raced out into a rainstorm and did not return to the theater until the film was over. He later told Cohn that they should dump the first two reels into the studio incinerator. When the film was released in its cut version at 118 minutes, it was universally applauded and Columbia walked away with a box-office blockbuster, which returned many millions to its depleted coffers and remained popular in re-release for decades.
In fact, the film came to epitomize its viewers' image of Utopia. Capra's paradise on earth-with its pure air, bright sun, and untroubled centuries of blissful life-became so entrenched in the public imagination that Shangri-La, the movie's far-off setting, became a household word. (When US planes struck Japan for the first time in the famous Doolittle raid of 1942, even President Roosevelt explained jocularly that American planes had taken off from "Shangri-La.")

Awards
LOST HORIZON received two Oscars: Academy Awards went to the film for Best Editing, and Stephen Goosson also won for Best Art Direction/Set Decoration. LOST HORIZON also earned nominations for Best Picture (losing to THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA), Best Supporting Actor (Warner), Best Sound, Best Assistant Director (C.C. Coleman, Jr.), and Best Score.

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