Lost Horizon

NTSC/Region 0. James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon proposes a perfect hidden community within the uncharted Himalayas, a land where peace reigns and the inhabitants live for hundreds of years. Director Frank Capra spared no expense in creating Hilton's paradise onscreen and the results are magical: shimmering, seductive, and maybe a bit foolish, truly the creation of an idealist. Ronald Colman, also an idealist, at his most marvelously elocutionary, plays a wise diplomat whose plane crashes in the snows of Tibet. He and the other survivors are guided to Shangri-La, where they wrestle with the invitation to stay. The young Jane Wyatt plays Colman's love interest, but leaving a more lasting impression are H.B. Warner, as the benevolent Chang, and Sam Jaffe, in great old-age makeup, as the wizened High Lama.