Lost Horizon (1937)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Lost Horizon (1937) – F. Capra

I have owned this on VHS for many years but watching it again now, it seems rather long and drawn out.  The story (from James Hilton) is a good one. The British foreign secretary (Ronald Colman), sick of war and conflict, is lost in the Himalayas when his plane is hijacked and goes down.  There he finds (or is found by) the Lamas of Shangri-La who live in a peaceful idyllic community protected on all sides by mountains.  Somehow there is no stress, no sickness, no strife – humans have everything they need.  Colman and some notable character actors (Thomas Mitchell, Edward Everett Horton) grow to realize that Shangri-La is better than the world outside.  But yet some of the plane crash survivors and even some residents of the valley wish to leave.  Colman helps them but then finds that he can’t face ordinary human society and (we learn in a third person rendering) he does everything he can to make the incredibly arduous journey back to the peaceable theocracy.  Director Frank Capra avoids the big issues and just lets the characters spout some platitudes.  Maybe the film’s heart is in the right place but last night it seemed just too fantastic.