Tuesday, October 20, 2015

PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES: FRANK CAPRA'S "LOST HORIZON"


Frank Capra's wistful 1937 fantasy, Lost Horizon, begins dramatically with a chaotic mob scene at an airfield in war-torn Baskul, China, highlighted by a spectacular explosion and fire. In the midst of the fray, British diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) is managing the evacuation of 90 Westerners from the melee. But time is running out; he and a disparate party of five barely escape on the last plane to take flight. Struggling to board and flee with Conway are his younger brother, George (John Howard), Lovett (Edward Everett Horton), a paleontologist, Barnard (Thomas Mitchell), a businessman, and Gloria (Isabel Jewell), a floozy. Unbeknownst to the passengers, their European pilot, a crony of Conway's, was forcibly removed from the cockpit just before take-off and replaced by an Asian flyer.

Left to right: Mitchell, Horton, Colman, Howard and Jewell
The aircraft's spacious cabin promises as comfortable a journey as possible for the frazzled travelers. Resembling the interior of a plush Pullman lounge car, it sports roomy riveted-leather club chairs, polished wood paneling, stylish glass ball lamps atop glossy side tables and outsized windows offering expansive views of the terrain they will cross. In this posh setting the passengers begin to unwind. Lovett, a fussy eccentric, trades gibes with his worldly opposite, Barnard, a shady American. Gloria, a heavily rouged blonde, is unwell and her cough suggests a bad case of TB. George Conway, an impetuous sort, exults in his brother's heroism at Baskul's airstrip and his impending appointment to Foreign Secretary when they return to England. Robert Conway is diffident in the face of his brother's enthusiasm and seems far more exhausted than excited. As the flight lumbers on, Conway has a drink or two and as he nears inebriation he laments that though 90 Westerners were saved in Baskul, thousands of natives were left behind to be slaughtered. He goes on to bemoan the state of the world, bitterly asserting, "Everybody wants something for nothing - if you can't get it with smooth talk, you send your army in." 

Last flight out
Unexplored territory

After a while it becomes obvious that the plane is off-course, flying west rather than east to Shanghai. Worse still, the group discovers that their original pilot has disappeared, that his replacement is brandishing a gun and that their flight has been hijacked. Through high winds and a blinding storm the stolen plane climbs up, up, up, threading its way between towering mountain peaks. Finally, out of fuel, it crashes in a snowbank. The pilot is found dead and Conway and the rest find themselves stranded in icy "unexplored territory." As Conway formulates a survival plan, a party of rescuers suddenly appears out of the snow-bleached landscape. Led by an enigmatic figure named Chang (H.B. Warner), the five are guided on a harrowing trek through snow fields, along perilous mountain paths and across a rickety footbridge until they reach an overlook that surveys what looks like a dream world: a compound of grand white buildings perched on a cliff above a lush valley, the Valley of the Blue Moon, in a land called Shangri-La.

Reacting to a first glimpse of Shangri-La
Shangri-La: the lamasery and the Valley of the Blue Moon

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For many, just hearing the syllables "Shangri-La" stirs the imagination with visions of an idyllic utopia or unspoiled Eden. The word first appeared in British writer James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon in 1933, referring to a faraway valley hidden in the Himalayas where life is peaceful, harmonious and bountiful. Hilton's book was published in the midst of the Great Depression, just as Adolf Hitler came to power and began his drive to inflict a grandiose and barbaric conception of Germany's so-called Third Reich on all of Europe. Lost Horizon's tale of a remote Tibetan land dedicated to protecting human knowledge and understanding against a looming world-wide threat struck a deep chord at an uncertain time and became an immediate bestseller. Thanks to the novel and Frank Capra's film adaptation, "Shangri-La" entered the lexicon as a synonym for paradise.

Capra's production of Lost Horizon was an epic undertaking for the director and an event much anticipated by the legion of movie-going fans of the popular book. By the time filming began, Capra was riding very high. In 1935 It Happened One Night (1934) brought him the first of his three Oscars and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) was about to bring his second. He was the king of the Columbia lot and, increasingly motivated by artistic aspirations, ready to tackle a big picture with big themes. Hilton's story provided the ideal material for such ambition. And it helped that Capra and his close collaborator, screenwriter Robert Riskin who'd brought the novel to him, both identified strongly with the story's protagonist, Robert Conway, a gallant and world-weary British consul on assignment in modern-day China.

Ronald Colman as Robert Conway
Lost Horizon would be Columbia Pictures’ most expensive venture up to that time, with an enormous amount spent on Stephen Goosson's elegant sets recreating Shangri-La's lamasery compound, the film's central setting, other special sets and several location shoots. Snowy scenes were filmed in the downtown Los Angeles Ice and Cold Storage Warehouse. There, machine-made snow blanketed Himalayan sets. While most most Shangri-La exteriors were shot on Columbia's Burbank Ranch, location work included filming in Tahquitz Canyon near Palm Springs, Lucerne Dry Lake near Victorville, and Sherwood Forest (now Westlake Village) north of L.A. Capra even leased a Douglas DC-2 from American Airlines for the role of the hijacked airliner. The sets for Shangri-La were widely acclaimed, particularly those for the plane crash and the lamasery, and Stephen Goosson would take home the Best Art Direction Oscar for his efforts.

Frank Capra was interested only in Ronald Colman for the role of Robert Conway and was willing to wait the two years it took for Colman to become available. The handsome British actor with the "crushed velvet" voice was a great star of Hollywood's classical era who projected a soulful gravitas that perfectly suits the noble but disillusioned Conway character. Capra made sure Colman would be supported by several first-rate featured players, most notably Mitchell, Horton and Warner. 

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The lamasery

Robert Conway, his brother, Lovett, Barnard and Gloria are taken to Shangri-La's lamasery, a breathtaking Tibetan moderne compound where they hope to rest and recuperate before beginning their sojourn back to civilization. Through Conway's ongoing dialogue with Chang, the history and philosophy of Shangri-La emerge. Chang describe's a credo of moderation in all things, including virtue, and a core tenet of kindness and courtesy to others, always. Chang explains that there is no crime in the land and no monetary system. There is gold ore in the mountains, he tells Conway, and this gold is, from time to time, exchanged with the outside world for what is needed in Shangri-La. Since the Valley of the Blue Moon is fertile and the country produces its own food and most other goods, the gold is primarily traded for cultural materials and artifacts: mankind's important books, music and objects of art that are housed with care in the lamasery. Chang tells Conway of Shangri-La's origins in the 18th century when a Belgian priest, Father Perrault, came to the valley, the sole survivor of a religious expedition. Perrault stayed on to found a collective society, establishing its principles and way of life. Conway is fascinated and he finds that he feels contentment in Shangri-La, its tranquility gives him a sense of well-being and he realizes that this is a place where he might like to stay.

Conway is later told that his plane was intentionally diverted because he was on board. Shangri-La's ancient High Lama (Sam Jaffe) has hopes Conway will some day take his place as the spiritual leader of the land.

The other passengers acclimate to their surroundings at different rates and in different ways. It is the refusal of Conway's younger brother, George, to adapt at all that feeds a growing tension between them and leads to a moment of truth for Conway. In the end, he must choose between embracing this new-found world and his place in it or accepting his brother's rejection of it and leaving with him. Loyalty to his brother wins out and the two men, along with a woman George has become smitten with, attempt the treacherous journey back to civilization.

In the high mountains

Only Conway survives the expedition and it leaves him with a mysterious gap in his memory. Shipboard and on his way back to England, he suddenly recalls Shangri-La, that spiritual oasis in a world mired in an "orgy of greed and brutality." With memory restored, Robert Conway bolts from the modern world. By boat, by plane, by train, but mostly by his wits and on foot he searches for the high mountain pass that will take him back to the paradise he found and lost.

Back in London Lord Gainsford, the foreign office man who tried to pursue Conway after he fled their homeward-bound ship, recounts the Conway saga over drinks with colleagues at his club. Asked whether he believes Conway's story, he considers and replies, "Yes, I believe it because I want to believe it," and raises his glass with, "I give you a toast. Here's my hope that Robert Conway will find his Shangri-La. Here's my hope that we all find our Shangri-La."


Frank Capra's Lost Horizon was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture; it won two, for art direction and film editing. The book made the reputation of James Hilton and he went on to have a successful career as both novelist and screenwriter. It took five years for Capra's adaptation to recoup its production costs but it became, and remains, one of the most beloved films in his canon. Though aspects of the story of Lost Horizon may seem dated today, Conway's spiritual yearnings and the ideal represented by Shangri-La possess lasting appeal that transcends the passage of time and changing tastes.

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In 2005, the PBS series In Search of Myths & Heroes featured an episode on "The Search for Shangri-La." Shangri-La, it claimed, was James Hilton's fictionalization of the legendary Tibetan paradise of Shambala. The ancient myth of the lost sacred valley, it said, may actually have originated in India, and the story of Shambala first became known to Westerners when Europeans visited the Mughal Empire in the 16th century. According to the series, the legend tells of a land hidden deep in the Himalayas where an isolated society lives in accord with Buddhist teachings. The kingdom's mission is to preserve the wisdom of humanity, waiting for the day the world is ready to live in peace.

The Dalai Lama has said that he believes Shambala exists purely as a spiritual realm and observes that “Tibetans say that the need to find paradise elsewhere is what keeps us from having it.”

 ~

This is my entry for the Classic Movie Blog Association's fall blogathon, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, click here for a complete listing of participants and links to their contributions.

 

Notes: 

Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success by Joseph McBride (Simon & Schuster, 1992)
 

14 comments:

  1. I think Capra and Riskin succeeded beautifully in capturing the spirit of "Lost Horizon". Along with his innate storytelling abilities, Capra was a genius with is casting of the character people in his pictures and he was so right to wait for Ronald Colman. You have reminded me of how fond I am of this picture that I haven't seen in too long a time, and I thank you.

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    1. I agree. Later in his life, Capra expressed some misgivings about perhaps "getting lost in the architecture" of Shangri-La, but I think he was being hard on himself, it all works for me. And, yes, Colman was more than worth the wait.

      There's a DVD out now with some excellent extras on the production.

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  2. Can't believe I haven't seen this! I've gotta check it out ASAP. It looks like a gorgeous movie, and what a great cast, too. Loved your review. :)

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    1. While there are plenty of spoilers in my piece, I left quite a bit out, too, so you have a surprise or two in store. I hope you enjoy Lost Horizon.

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  3. What a beautiful post about a magical film. I will never forget the first time I saw it and how I have never forgotten it.

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    1. Thank you! I remember falling in love with Shangri-La and Ronald Colman the first time I saw Lost Horizon.

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  4. "Lost Horizon" is my personal favorite Capra film - it really is magical; it speaks to the romantic idealist in us all. This film really made a deep impression on me when I first saw it broadcast as a child, and you've really done a superb job, Eve, of capturing its mystique in your concise and beautiful descriptions. I believe the themes of this story speak powerfully to the world we live in today, to the longing that many of us share for a society that's enlightened and respects the humanity in us all. You've inspired me to return to this classic (it's been quite a while) - I'm sure I'll see even more this time around.

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    1. Lost Horizon is my favorite Capra film, too. He took a great deal of care to express the story's idealism and appreciation for social as well as intellectual and spiritual enlightenment. It's beautifully filmed, the sets are really "out of this world" and Ronald Colman as Conway is one of the best examples of perfect casting I can think of. There's a DVD out there now with great extras - excellent back story and history plus an alternative ending (which I could swear I saw on TV as a child).

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  5. This was one of my father's favorite films (that's not surprising because he loved the novel and was a Ronald Colman fan, too). It's a beautiful film, although I always wish that someone other than John Howard was cast as Conway's brother. His performance makes George seem so petty that I resent him deeply when Conway decides to leave with him. By the way, I think the musical remake was judged too harshly. Yes, it's flawed,, but still interesting and with a couple of nice songs.

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    1. I'm so glad you mentioned John Howard, Rick. I edited out a reference to his casting. At the time, David Niven was suggested for the role but was deemed "too light." Thinking of Wuthering Heights, A Matter of Life and Death, Separate Tables and even The Bishop's Wife, it's clear that passing on him was a mistake. Howard's George isn't much more than a whining brat. I think Niven would've given the character and his resistant point of view the credibility Howard failed to. Only the nobility and consideration Colman brought to his character makes it possible to believe Conway would leave Shangri-La because of his brother's hysterical accusations.

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    2. Great review Lady Eve, and I very much enjoyed the historical note on the model for Shangri-La. The film itself seems veiled in mists, a work of lost time, with fantasmic art-deco sets that could only be pure fantasy. Yet we suspend disbelief in watching this story and so identity with Conway. Great selection for the blogathon.

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    3. Thanks, Christian. Capra did a fine job of depicting and contrasting the turmoil before arrival in Shangri-La with the serene, dream-like quality he created for the lamasery compound and the valley. I have always loved the grandiose "moderne" architecture and grounds of the compound, a real 1930s fantasia.

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  6. It's been many years since I have seen this film. I cannot even comment on whether I liked it or not. Think that means I need to watch it again. Loved all the background information, and as always well done.

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    1. In earlier comments I mentioned a DVD that's available now that you might want to check out. I believe it was UCLA and the AFI that began its restoration many years ago and so scenes that were cut and thought lost are now included. + extras. I recommend Lost Horizon even to those who are not great fans of Capra.

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