06 Aug Lost Horizon
Lost Horizon, WWII era movie starring Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt
(1937) A British diplomat is sent to Baskul, China to rescue 90 “white people” from a violent uprising. He and four others hop on the last plane out, but it crashes in the snowy desolate mountains of Tibet. They are rescued and taken to a golden valley called Shangri-la … a perfect magical place.
Frank Capra directed this movie which is based on the 1933 novel by James Hilton, who also wrote Random Harvest. Both films starred British actor Ronald Colman, World War I veteran and the star of many former silent films. Ben Mankiewicz of Turner Classic Movies shared that when the “talkies” arrived, Ronald Colman’s beautiful speaking voice was a wonder to his fans. Not all silent movie stars survived once they had to speak.
The film was first released in 1937, then re-released in 1942 at the beginning of World War II. Many of the original scenes were lost, and in the opening credits you learn about the daunting process begun in the 1970’s to restore the movie, as much as possible, to its original soundtrack.
As the movie neared the end all I could think of was, “How on earth are they going to get out of this … perhaps it was just a Dallas-Bobby-in-the-shower dream.”
No Comments