![]() ![]() Richard has been chosen to be Shangri-La's next leader, to keep it safe until the war-obsessed outside world is ready to embrace its wisdom. The High Lama says that people in Shangri-La grow old very slowly and that he himself is over 200 years of age. The High Lama divulges secrets about the purpose of Shangri-La, and why Richard was brought there, but his story is so fantastic that Richard is afraid to believe it. ![]() Engineer Sam Cornelius (George Kennedy), suicidal Sally Hughes (Sally Kellerman) and optimistic entertainer Harry Lovett (Bobby Van) all find reasons to stay in Shangri-La forever. ![]() Richard's younger brother George (Michael York) falls in love with young citizen Maria (Olivia Hussey) but is frustrated by Richard's lack of desire to return to civilization. The head monk Chang (John Gielgud) affords his guests every accommodation but avoids questions about how they got there, or when they can leave. Shangri-La has little or no contact with the outside world, yet seems to know exactly what's happening elsewhere. The survivors become guests in the palace of the mysterious High Lama (Charles Boyer), who has not admitted a visitor in years. Richard immediately feels as if he belongs there, especially when the pleasant Catherine (Liv Ullmann) smiles in his direction. There the weather is always pleasant, sickness and need are unknown, and peaceful harmony reigns. Crashing on a mountain peak, they are miraculously rescued and taken through the deep snow to an incredible place called Shangri-La, in The Valley of The Blue Moon. But in place of Hong Kong, the plane takes them high into "the unexplored region beyond civilization" in the west of China. Diplomat Richard Conway's latest peacemaking effort in Southeast Asia has failed, and he must flee with several other Americans on a small DC-3. The storyline of Lost Horizon closely follows Frank Capra's classic Ronald Colman version from 1937, using that film as a virtual storyboard for many scenes. Lost Horizon has enjoyed a strong video life as an ugly duckling musical, ever since a 1990s laserdisc restored scenes that had been cut during its initial release. But when he waded into the dangerous, woefully outdated cultural territory called Shangri-La, his movie and a bushel of talented actors sunk into the quicksand of AMR: Awful Movie Remakes. Ross Hunter represented old-fashioned Hollywood glamour and scored big with his retro- soap opera airplane jeopardy movie Airport. Ross Hunter's maladroit 1973 musical Lost Horizon has over the years been the butt of many jokes and snide remarks. Written by Larry Kramer from the novel by James Hilton ![]() Starring Peter Finch, Liv Ullmann, Sally Kellerman, George Kennedy, Michael York, Olivia Hussey, Bobby Van, James Shigeta, Charles Boyer, John Gielgud, Kent Smith, John Van Dreelen, Miiko Taka. Street Date Decem/ available through Screen Archives Entertainment / 29.95 Calling for a budget four times that of contemporary films.1973 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 149 min. Research and interviews aided by access to inherited “stills,” “rough cuts,” camera logs, and memoirs make for the DVD’s special features, which speak to (among other things) – the filming of the airport evacuation (using the then Metro Airport, Van Nuys, and employing 500 Chinese-speaking “extras”) the refueling scene (Mohave Desert) the high-altitude plane’s Himalayan overflights (a Douglas DC-2, with the Sierra Nevada Mountains as stand-ins) the crash-landing and Himalayan trek (filmed in a 24-degree cold-storage warehouse located in downtown Los Angeles) mixed with authentic documentary long-shots of high-altitude expeditions the “soulful wonderment” of Shangri-La’s “idealized structure of dramatic proportions” created in a 500-foot-wide 1,000-feet-long sound stage, which accommodated a 90-foot-high central façade with outdoor scenes filmed at Columbia Pictures Ranch, Burbank (later a mall), and at Palm Springs, Malibu State Park, and Sherwood Forest, Westlake Village. Of special interest is the DVD that incorporates the archival finds and restoration work of the American Film Institute. ![]()
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