Lost Horizon (1937)
Lost Horizon (1937), directed by Frank Capra.
Years ago, I remember my first serious thought about cinematography was while watching this film -- projected in some campus venue -- and being moved by the scenes of the gateway to Shangri-La, the interface of the howling Himalayan wilderness with the hidden utopian valley:
I thought: "They could not do this shot today. Too lushly romantic, it would be ridiculed". Films were in an anti-romantic phase then. And yet how well the images tell the story. Thank Joseph Walker, Capra's long-time photographer, for that.
Romance and adventure are strong in this one. Being hijacked and flown deep into central Asia, a thousand miles beyond the map to a hidden civilization: that's real Indiana Jones stuff.
The well-intentioned message is still touching: in a world descending into war, a vision of escape to a life ruled by the principle "Be Kind". A dream of life after the war, when Shangri-La would still be waiting, having preserved all the good things.
On the down side, when Capra is earnest he tends to be talky and some conversations drag on a while. His rough cut was six hours long and a three hour version was shown to a test audience. He got it down to 132 minutes, the official release. It has a complicated editing history thereafter: pacifist sentiments by the hero were cut almost immediately and other political considerations took their toll.
Notes:
Ronald Colman is perfect as the weary philosopher-soldier-diplomat. He was Capra's first and only choice.
In the airport chaos of the first scene, he says "We need to rescue ninety white people!" Later, on the last plane, morose and drinking: "We left ten thousand natives to be massacred". (The background was probably lingering memories of the Boxer Rebellion).
His pacifist musings do seem naive set against the looming nazi reality. Well, he was drinking and spinning fantasies. And yet: he found his fantasy world and was able to live there for a while.
I hadn't remembered: Shangri-La was built by a Belgian priest starting in 1713. It is the capital of the valley.
Somehow I had thought the valley endowed immortality, but no: residents are healthy and long-lived, but mortal.
Even in Shangri-la the doors have locks.
The Himalayan exteriors were shot in a huge "ice house" where it was really cold, enough to jam the cameras.
Comic actor Edward Everett Horton often got thinly-concealed gay parts. Here he and Thomas Mitchell almost seem like a couple during the middle of the film.
While appreciating what the High Lama has done, Sam Jaffe gives him a weirdly fanatical intensity.
Those distance shots of Jane Wyatt swimming nude: that's a body double. They had to reassure the distributors: "Yes, of course she's wearing a top. You just can't see it. Naked? Certainly not!" But she was.
I last saw Jane Wyatt as Spock's mother in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), made 49 years later.
Dimitri Tiomkin score.
My thumbnails are from an all-region imported Blu-ray by "ViaVision / Madman / Columbia Tristar". In 1998 a complete 132m version of the film was assembled from bits and pieces from all over. According to the cover of the Blu-ray:
quote
Now for the first time this world premiere on Blu-ray showcases the stunning all new digital 4k 2014 restoration, completed using the preservation negative created in 1998 as the primary source, scanned at 4k and integrated with the director's personal nitrate print and features an additional one minute of previously lost footage preserving the original performance and another full minute of picture previously represented by the original soundtrack and still images.
The running time is almost identical to the North American DVD created from the 1998 source. Image quality of the Blu-ray is quite a lot better, both in detail and in contrast. The whites on the DVD were often blown out and that is corrected here.
Quality declines during some moments (some of the recovered segments are from worn 16mm prints) and the whole title shows heavy grain or what is probably just age.
As with the DVD, a few minutes of missing film are replaced with stills while the soundtrack continues.
The Blu-ray does not have the subtitles or commentary track from the DVD, but these fit the Blu-ray version perfectly when extracted.
