Lost Horizon

Director: Frank Capra

Overview

"Columbia Pictures became a major Hollywood studio with the release of Lost Horizon, so it comes as no surprise that the picture is given a very detailed and thoughtful DVD release. The source material is a bit of a hodgepodge and so is the full-screen (s

Product Details

Release Date:	05/27/2008
UPC:	0043396076396
Original Release:	1937
Rating:	NR
Source:	Sony Pictures
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[B&W, Full Frame]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital]
Language:	English
Time:	2:14:00
Sales rank:	18,005

Special Features

Digitally remastered audio and anamorphic video; Production notes; Interactive menus; Subtitles: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai; Alternative ending; Restoration: Before and After Comparison; Three deleted scenes; Photo documentary with narration by historian Kendall Miller; Restoration commentary [1988] by film critic Charles Champlin and U.C.L.A. film restoration expert Robert Gill; Theatrical trailer; Scene selections

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Ronald Colman	Robert Conway
Jane Wyatt	Sondra
Margo	Maria
Edward Everett Horton	Alexander P. Lovett
Thomas Mitchell	Henry Barnard
Isabel Jewell	Gloria Stone
H.B. Warner	Chang
Sam Jaffe	High Lama
Hugh Buckler	Lord Gainsford
John Miltern	Carstairs
Lawrence Grant	1st Man
John Burton	Wynant
John T. Murray	Meeker
Max Rabinowitz	Seiveking
John Tettener	Montaigne
Boyd Irwin	Assistant Foreign Secretary
Leonard Mudie	Senior Foreign Secretary
David Clyde	Steward
Val Duran	Talu
Noble Johnson	Leader of Porters
Denis d'Auburn	Aviator
Milton Owen	Fenner
George Chan	Chinese Priest
Eric Wilton	Englishman
Chief John Big Tree	Porter
Richard Loo	Shanghai Airport Official
Beatrice Curtis	Passenger
Mary Lou Dix	Passenger
Beatrice Blinn	Passenger
Arthur Rankin	Passenger
Wyrley Birch	Actor,Missionary
David Torrence	le Premier ministre
Norman Ainsley	Actor
Sonny Bupp	Actor
David Cavendish	Actor
Robert Cory	Actor
Jack Deery	Actor
John Howard	George Conway
Neil Fitzgerald	Actor
Jeremy Irons, Sr.	Assistant Foreign Secretary
Willie Fung	Bandit leader
Margaret McWade	Missionary
Henry Mowbray	Englishman
Wedgewood Nowell	Englishman
Ruth Robinson	Missionary
Carl Stockdale	Missionary
Victor Wong	Bandit leader
Ronald Coleman	Actor
Dimitri Tiomkin	Composer
Max Steiner	Composer

Technical Credits

Robert Riskin

Sidney Buchman

Frank Capra	Producer
Ganahl Carson	Special Effects
Roy Davidson	Special Effects
C.C. Coleman Jr.	Assistant Director
Robert Riskin	Screenwriter
Sidney Buchman	Screenwriter
Edward Bernds	Sound Effects,Sound Mixer

Scene Index

Side #1 --
0. Scene Selections
1. Start [3:11]
2. Baskul [4:43]
3. Five Refugees [6:52]
4. Shanghaied [9:47]
5. Crash Landing [4:45]
6. Rescued [4:19]
7. Shangri-La [6:07]
8. No Contact [6:27]
9. "What is Shangri-La?" [3:59]
10. Father Perrault [6:12]
11. The Valley of the Moon [4:31]
12. Masks Removed [4:14]
13. Amazing News [2:18]
14. The High Lama [10:22]
15. "Lullaby & Goodnight" [2:03]
16. Sondra's Pigeons [10:53]
17. Waiting for the Bump [6:09]
18. "Age is a Limit." [2:29]
19. Transfer of Command [3:31]
20. "We're Leaving." [3:08]
21. Tales of Madness [9:40]
22. "He Will Return." [3:02]
23. Target Practice [1:45]
24. Avalanche [1:15]
25. The Echo Fades [4:52]
26. Found Alive [2:12]
27. Gainsford's Report [2:42]
28. Paradise Regained [1:22]

Menu

Side #1 --
Play Movie
Subtitles
English
Spanish
Portuguese
Chinese
Korean
Thai
Theatrical Trailer
Special Features
Restoration: Before and After Comparison
Alternative Ending
Photo Documentary with narration by historian Kendell Miller
Restoration Audio Commentary (1998) by Charles Champlin & Robert Gitt
On
Off

Editorial Reviews

Frank Capra's Lost Horizon belongs to a genre that reached its heyday in the 1930s: the philosophical drama. Usually based on plays, films such as Street Scene, Death Takes A Holiday, On Borrowed Time and The Petrified Forest dealt with driving issues of the day and embraced weighty questions of life and death. Adapted from the novel by James Hilton, Lost Horizon proved more popular and enduring than any of them, principally because the filmmaker pulled out all the stops in translating the material to the screen. It was the grandest production ever attempted by Columbia Pictures, a studio which, for all of its renown and respect, was little more than a Poverty Row outfit when financing was concerned. Aided by Dimitri Tiomkin's outsized score, Capra created an utterly convincing screen portrayal of Shangri-La, and his audience's suspension of disbelief was such that no one even thought to ask how the inhabitants of Shangri-La could have gotten their grand piano over those mountain passes. The most compelling element of the film, however -- proof of Capra's keen sense of public mood -- was its message. At the time of the movie's release, it was clear that the First World War, still very much in peoples' minds, had been fought in vain; the world was preparing to tear itself apart anew. Lost Horizon offered a notion of hope, based in fantasy, that it was essential for good men to keep themselves at the ready, to lead when the carnage ceased. In a sense, the movie was a not-so-distant cousin to a British production of the same era, Things To Come, which presented a similar idea in science-fiction terms. Capra's choices in casting were uncanny, particularly Ronald Colman as disillusioned diplomat Robert Conway and John Howard as his brother -- Howard had taken over the role of Bulldog Drummond from Colman in a series of films from the same period, and they looked enough alike that they might've been brothers.