Every society has a Shangri-La of some sort, the kind of place where age is virtually non-existent and the troubles of the world vanish away as everybody lives in harmony. The idea of returning to such a paradise is engrained into most beliefs, including Christianity, with the belief that our furthest ancestors, Adam and Eve, were expelled from paradise and we’ve been on a journey to return to that more innocent and peaceful time ever since. The film Lost Horizon imagines a world in which a paradise such as this exists deep in the mountains of Tibet, and those who live there live for hundreds of years without disease and the strife of the outside world. Few can visit there, and those that live there generally never want to leave.
But with any paradise, there is always someone who wants to alter it. That goes for filmmakers and studios, too. When Lost Horizon first hit cinemas in early 1937, it didn’t take long before meddlers got involved and started chopping whole scenes out of it for various reasons. The film wasn’t even a year old before fourteen minutes were excised from it. As the years went by, more and more snips were done to the negative, including a misguided attempt to remove any references that may be interpreted as communist propaganda.
By 1952, this film was so badly edited down that it barely ran over ninety minutes, and that was the only version that was available to everyone for decades. There wasn’t a proper restoration of the original film until the late 1980s, and by then, some of the original elements were gone, seemingly forever. For the version we have today, about seven minutes of footage is still missing, although the audio still exists, so we have a semblance of what was lost. Much of what had been cut out is essential to understanding the whole point of the film, and director Frank Capra went to his grave dissatisfied with the butcher job that was done to his film. At least he lived to see it get as proper a restoration as possible after nearly fifty years.
The film opens on a revolutionary uprising in China. Several Westerners are fleeing the area for Shanghai, but their plane is hijacked and sent off-course, crashing in the mountains of Tibet. Onboard are writer, soldier, and diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman); his younger brother George (John Howard); paleontologist Alexander Lovett (Edward Everett Horton); notorious swindler Henry Barnard (Thomas Mitchell); and the bitter, terminally ill Gloria Stone (Isabel Jewell). The pilot of the plane is killed in the impact and, shortly afterwards, a rescue party, led by Chang (H. B. Warner), arrives on sight to guide the five survivors back to a veritable paradise in the middle of the snowy mountains, a small, isolated city they call Shangri-La.
In the city, they find an extreme version of isolation. The city is untouched by the outside world. The newcomers are anxious, at first, to return home but eventually grow to love Shangri-La, especially Gloria, who appears to be recovering from her terminal illness. The sole exception is George, who feels like a prisoner here and is determined to leave by any means necessary. This desire is further boosted by his meeting Maria (Margo), a woman living there who is also determined to leave. The leader of Shangri-La, the High Lama (Sam Jaffe), is over two hundred years old and is finally succumbing to old age and is looking for a replacement. That is the reason Robert was brought here in the first place. Robert is convinced that this place has magical properties and wants to stay, but George insists that he has been brainwashed into believing a fairy tale and takes Maria with him to escape once and for all, with Robert following behind, trying to convince him to turn back before it is too late.
Frank Capra’s sprawling film is not without its problems. For one, he put too much emphasis on themes and not enough on the characters. This is most obvious in the characters of George and Maria, neither of whom is given enough motivation for their views and actions. We get a few token lines about why Maria is so determined to leave Shangri-La, and we get the point that George doesn’t believe what he is being told about it or her, but his responses seem far too strong for what we are given. At one point, he pulls a gun and starts shooting at people and has to be knocked out to keep him from killing someone.
The film is excessively talkative at times, too. The scene when Robert meets with the High Lama seems to go on forever and doesn’t justify the sheer amount of screen time given to it. It doesn’t help that this scene is staged in such a way as to feel stagnant while it is taking place. Frank Capra is a gifted filmmaker, but there are times during this production where it feels like no effort went into certain moments.
And then there are other times when the way it is shot and the visuals are breathtaking. The plane crash and the hike through the snow to Shangri-La is obvious to the modern eye but would have been amazing to see back during its first run. The matte work looking down into the valley at the lush scenery of the city is first-rate and impressive, though I found myself wishing Capra had had the option of Technicolor at his disposal. I don’t advocate for colorizing black-and-white films, but I do wish this could have been filmed in color originally. Shangri-La would have looked even more gorgeous had it been so.
Aside from Robert, there is very little character development amongst the other leads. Henry is described as a swindler on the run from the law, but it feels more like he was a victim of a company that went under, leaving him and his investors with a large supply of useless stock. Naturally, he wants to stay in Shangri-La, where the law cannot catch up with him. Lovett is resistant to staying at first, but his vanity begins to get the better of him as he sees himself in the mirror and realizes the place has rejuvenating effects on him. Gloria, of course, enjoys the healing effects of the city as it has given her a new lease on life.
This film has a magical quality to it that makes a place like Shangri-La appear ideal for just about anyone, which makes some of what happens in the plot puzzling. Maria’s insistence that all the magical effects everyone has been talking about are a lie makes no sense unless she is lying just to get a chance to leave. Her motivations work on a superficial level but not any deeper than that. It needs an explanation for her actions that the film never really supplies. The film relies more on our enchantment with the concept than on any real thought about the realities such a life would be. It’s beautiful to look at, and there is no denying the production work involved, but it just doesn’t have enough depth to elevate it beyond that.
Academy Award Nominations:
Outstanding Production: Frank Capra
Best Supporting Actor: H. B. Warner
Best Scoring: Columbia Studio Music Department
Best Sound Recording: John P. Livadary
Best Art Direction: Stephen Goosson (won)
Best Film Editing: Gene Havlick and Gene Milford (won)
Best Assistant Director: C. C. Coleman Jr.
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Release Date: March 2, 1937
Running Time: 132 minutes
Not Rated
Starring: Ronald Coleman, Jane Wyatt, Edward Everett Horton, John Howard, Thomas Mitchell, Margo, Isabel Jewell, and Sam Jaffe
Directed By: Frank Capra
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