Review of Lost Horizon (1937) by Mike B — 25 Apr 2007

Jane Wyatt and Ronald Coleman show us a Christian-Lamaist utopia which we can never forget. The meek have inherited the Earth in Shangri-la and they willingly practice moderation in ALL things. Sam Jaffe plays the High Lama whose religion of kindness has rubbed off on everyone else in the community.

Actually, he's a 200 year old Catholic Priest, but he's had enough time and a set of fortuitous material circumstances: a significant geographical space with perfect weather, soil and best of all something which keeps people healthy and gives them extreme longevity.

Shot during the real-time Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s, this 1937 film imagines a better world is possible, a world of joy and peace, achieved through adequate production for use and need, combined with everyday kindness.

See the version which includes the outakes which ended up on the cutting room floor--if you can find it. Jane Wyatt is nude in her swim scene...now there's an incentive. But remember the time and circumstances in which this film was made e.

G. in 1937, racism was rampant and "moderate" racism was considered liberal. Segregation in the USA was the law of the land below the Mason Dixon Line and Jews were routinely excluded from housing which rented only to Gentiles.

The Germans were living under Hitlerism and the Japanese were well on the way towards occupying significant portions of China. The Italians were living in a fascist dictaroship, gassing Ethiopians in a vain attempt to reconstruct the Roman Empire and Spain was locked in civil war and revolution at the same time.

Hell, Durruti was defending the gains of libertarian communism, while shooting Franco supporters and Stalinists. The old Czarist Russian Empire had become the Soviet Union; ruling classes were trembling and world war was threatening to engulf the planet.

So yeah, sometimes the dialogue is going to sound hokey i.e. outdated. No matter, "Lost Horizon" is worth seeing.