The immortal classic "Lost Horizon". Fantasy 1973

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Frank Capra's work is considered true movie magic. In 1973, the master of burlesque comedy filmed a fantasy project called Lost Horizon. The film was based on the novel of the same name by James Hilton.

Revived Roerich's canvas

The story of the making of the film itself deserves to be filmed. The project had a colossal budget for that time of 4,000,000 dollars, the production of the tape stretched for many months. Originally, the Oscar winner planned to shoot the film in color, but due to the fact that the key scenes of the avalanche in the Himalayas were only in black and white, the director abandoned his idea. The premiere show did not go unnoticed, met with a real flurry of criticism and negative reviews from the censors. Therefore, in 1942, the creators had to remove an almost 13-minute anti-war monologue, and in 1952 the timing was significantly reduced for promoting the ideology of communism and excessive admiration for China. After some time, the film "Lost Horizon" was completely lost. It took the American Film Institute 13 years to painstakingly restore the masterpiece. Filmmakersalmost managed to collect the original with the exception of seven minutes of footage. Lost Horizon is a timeless classic that needs no recommendation.

Storyline

The story begins with the viewer's acquaintance with the main character - British diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman), a well-known writer, disillusioned idealist and war hero, taking out almost a hundred of his compatriots from the Japanese-occupied Chinese town of Baskul. At the end of the evacuation, he, along with his brother George (John Howard), paleontologist Alexander P. Lovett (Edward Everett Horton), bankrupt financier Henry Barnard (Thomas Mitchell), who is on the run from the police, and Gloria Stone (Isabel Jewell), suffering from tuberculosis, board the airplane. None of the passengers notice how the killed pilot is replaced by a Mongol who directs the plane along a different route. An airplane crash-lands in Tibet, killing the pilot. The characters are practically doomed to certain death. However, the High Lama (Sam Jaffe) comes to their aid, escorting the unfortunates to the Blue Moon Valley, where the mythical city of Shangri-La is located - a paradise lost in the mountains.