The work of Frank Capra is considered the real magic of cinema. In 1973, the master of burlesque comedy makes a fantasy project called The Lost Horizon. The script of the picture was based on the James Hilton novel of the same name.
Revived Roerich's canvas
The story of the film itself deserves an adaptation. The project had a colossal budget for that time of $ 4,000,000; tape production lasted for many months. Initially, the Oscar winner was planning to shoot a picture in color, but due to the fact that the key avalanche scenes in the Himalayas were only in black and white, the director abandoned his idea. The premiere did not go unnoticed, met with a flurry of criticism and negative reviews from the censors. Therefore, in 1942, the creators had to remove the 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. The American Film Institute took 13 years to painstakingly restore the masterpiece. Filmmakers practically managed to assemble the original with the exception of seven minutes of video. The Lost Horizon is an immortal classic that does not need recommendations.
Plot
The story begins with the audience acquaintance with the main character - British diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Coleman), a famous writer, disappointed with the idealist and war hero, taking out almost a hundred of his compatriots from the Japanese city of Baskul occupied by the Japanese. At the end of the evacuation, he, along with his brother George (John Howard), paleontologist Alexander P. Lovett (Edward Everett Horton), hiding from the police bankrupt financier Henry Barnard (Thomas Mitchell) and suffering from tuberculosis Gloria Stone (Isabel Jewell) plane. None of the passengers notice how the dead pilot is replaced by the Mongol, directing the plane along a different route. An airplane lands an emergency landing in Tibet, while the pilot dies. Heroes are almost doomed to certain death. However, the Supreme Lama (Sam Jaffe) comes to their aid, escorting the unfortunate to the Blue Moon Valley, where the mythical city of Shangri-La is located - a paradise lost in the mountains.