Quite unlike his other major films in his run of great movies from 1935 to 1946, Frank Capra's "Lost Horizon" is something of an epic which ran way over budget and actually failed to make money on first release. There's no denying its ambition though especially with the elaborate sets used to recreate Capra's vision of author James Hilton's Utopian Shangri La mountain village to where British foreign diplomat and coming man Ronald Colman and a small group of disparate passengers, including his brother, are abducted by plane at the start of the film.
Once there they all react differently to the perfect gilded cage in which they find themselves so that by the end only one of the original five actually still wants to return back to "civilisation" and leave their new surroundings. As for Colman, the ancient High Lama of the place has special plans for him. Will this formerly ambitious man, with important work to do in his home country as it prepares for war, be tempted to stay in this idyllic setting with a pretty young girl now at his side, well, what would you do?
While the allegory of blissful communal living in a self-sufficient bountiful land protected from the elements, without care or responsibility as compared to the hurly-burly realism of life in contemporary London is perhaps over-simplified and possibly not the best example to set for movie-goers with war clouds on the horizon (sorry!) remembering it is only a movie, I was rather charmed with the fairy-tale-like scenario Capra presents.
He certainly picked the right man with the required gravitas as his lead actor in the form of Ronald Colman who is excellent throughout. There's light humour among the supporting cast with Thomas Mitchell and Edward Everett Horton bantering with each other and romantic interest supplied by Jane Wyatt and the enigmatically named Margo who separately attract the disharmonious brothers, while H.B Warner and Sam Jaffe come across all inscrutable, zen-like and benevolent as the Yoda-like leaders of the lamasery community.
The Art Deco sets and exterior location work featuring a spectacular air crash and a torrid trek through Arctic-like snowstorms are well rendered and while the film does lapse occasionally into recognisable Capra-esque sentimentality and naivety, looked at from the relative calm of today, I certainly enjoyed being transported to this magical mystical other-world for an hour or two.
Once there they all react differently to the perfect gilded cage in which they find themselves so that by the end only one of the original five actually still wants to return back to "civilisation" and leave their new surroundings. As for Colman, the ancient High Lama of the place has special plans for him. Will this formerly ambitious man, with important work to do in his home country as it prepares for war, be tempted to stay in this idyllic setting with a pretty young girl now at his side, well, what would you do?
While the allegory of blissful communal living in a self-sufficient bountiful land protected from the elements, without care or responsibility as compared to the hurly-burly realism of life in contemporary London is perhaps over-simplified and possibly not the best example to set for movie-goers with war clouds on the horizon (sorry!) remembering it is only a movie, I was rather charmed with the fairy-tale-like scenario Capra presents.
He certainly picked the right man with the required gravitas as his lead actor in the form of Ronald Colman who is excellent throughout. There's light humour among the supporting cast with Thomas Mitchell and Edward Everett Horton bantering with each other and romantic interest supplied by Jane Wyatt and the enigmatically named Margo who separately attract the disharmonious brothers, while H.B Warner and Sam Jaffe come across all inscrutable, zen-like and benevolent as the Yoda-like leaders of the lamasery community.
The Art Deco sets and exterior location work featuring a spectacular air crash and a torrid trek through Arctic-like snowstorms are well rendered and while the film does lapse occasionally into recognisable Capra-esque sentimentality and naivety, looked at from the relative calm of today, I certainly enjoyed being transported to this magical mystical other-world for an hour or two.