Lost Horizon (1937)

Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt dwarfed by the set
'Lost Horizon' is a dramatic adventure film made in 1937, directed by Frank Capra and starring Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, H. B. Warner, Thomas Mitchell and Sam Jaffe.

The story is based on the hugely successful 1933 novel of the same name by English author, James Hilton, which was based on the life and death of real-life mountaineer George Leigh-Mallory, who died during a climb of Mount Everest in 1924. In 1934, Hilton had another great success with 'Goodbye, Mr. Chips' which was also successfully made into a Hollywood movie.

Although the film did not do well at the box office and was criticised for being verbose and dull, it was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, and won two Oscars, for Best Interior Decoration and for Best Film Editing.

The movie was remade in 1973 as a musical, starring Charles Boyer, Peter Finch, John Gielgud, Olivia Hussey and Michael York but was not a commercial success.

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Plot

Production

From the start Capra wanted Ronald Colman for the pivotal role of Robert Conway but as Colman was not available in late 1934, Capra moved on to another project – and made another classic - ‘Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'.

Casting the important role of the High Lama proved difficult. The first two actors chosen each died, the first after a screen test and the second, without ever being tested. After a long search Capra finally chose Shakespearean actor Sam Jaffe who, at 38, needed clever make up to age him for the part. Capra spent 6 days filming his monologues, and reshot the scenes with Walter Connolly as the Lama, before he decided he was satisfied with Jaffe’s appearance.

The movie was Columbia's most expensive project to date and there were serious cost overruns. For instance the huge sets of Shangri-La, designed by Stephen Goosson, had been constructed adjacent to the busy Hollywood Way, which necessitated much filming at night and heavily added to production costs. Also many of the outdoor shots were filmed at various locations such as the Mojave Desert, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Ojai Valley, and the Lucerne Valley, and the transportation costs added greatly to the ever increasing budget.

In addition, Capra favored using multiple cameras to cover every scene from different angles, which created many thousands of feet of wasted and expensive film.

The end result was that the original budget was exceeded by more than three quarters of a million dollars and the film did not recoup its production costs for five years.

Shooting began in March, 1936 and filming overall took 100 days, about one month longer than scheduled. As originally produced the film was six hours long and Columbia seriously considered releasing it in two parts, eventually deciding the idea was impractical and unprofitable. Capra finally trimmed the running time to 3½ hours for the first trial run of the movie in Santa Barbara in November, 1936. The results of the preview were almost wholly negative. First Capra made more cuts and then Harry Cohn intervened, editing the film's length himself. When the film finally premiered in San Francisco in March, 1937, it was a more acceptable 132 minutes long.