MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: LOST HORIZON (1973)

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Thursday, February 28, 2019

LOST HORIZON (1973)

BATTLEFIELD EARTH/’00 and GOTTI/’18 give John Travolta two. Eddie Murphy’s shows on THE ADVENTURES OF PLUTO NASH. PEPE/’60, an old default, finds Cantinflas doubling down on AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS to his regret. And honorable mention to George Lucas for HOWARD THE DUCK/’86 and RADIOLAND MURDERS/’94. All canonical choices for Worst Film of All Time (big-budget division). But after viewing a restored to full-length DVD of this Ross Hunter clunker, a remake of James Hilton/Frank Capra’s 1937 nutjob classic LOST HORIZON (see below), now sprinkled with twinkly tunes from Burt Bacharach’s lowest drawer, it surely sweeps the boards! A ghastly representation of a late ‘60s/early ‘70s ‘Family Musical,’ with Peter Finch finding Shangri-La, a valley of Love, Peace & spontaneous lobotomy, run by John Gielgud & Charles Boyer, hidden from the war-torn world amid the snowy Himalayas, alongside fellow travelers Sally Kellerman, George Kennedy, Michael York & Bobby Van. (Bobby Van? The sole cast member with musical comedy chops, he’s all but unwatchable.) Liv Ullmann, like a Zombie Julie Andrews without talent or voice for the genre, gambols with the children of this Utopia and gazes longingly at stout, sagging Peter Finch while Olivia Hussey longs to flee this gilded cage with York. Technically shabby from top to bottom (editing & voice dubbing particularly inept), with exteriors that rival a super-sized Putt-Putt course for beauty, and interiors that glow like a pre-fab Tiki-themed Las Vegas conference room. But only truly reaching its peak on one of its excruciating songs, with a fertility dance invaded by a unit of Polynesian(?) Chippendale dancers in color-coordinated Speedos and waving dancing ribbons. Sounds like mad, campy fun, no? No. Hack megger Charles Jarrott hasn’t a clue. Poor Ross Hunter. After hit mellers with Douglas Sirk and smash coy sex comedies with Doris Day back at Universal, he’d just been pushed out by mogul-in-charge Lew Wasserman after bringing in AIRPORT/’70, the biggest hit of the year*. Moving over to Columbia, this initial project insured he’d never make another feature again.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: The Frank Capra 1937 version, nearly as silly/just as racist (Shangri-La your basic slave state with Euro overlords living in a palace while Asians work & live in the fields), does cast a spell of sorts thanks to Ronald Colman’s graceful playing & preternatural empathy, along with the pace, excitement & comic relief of Capra’s directorial legerdemain. For a quick lesson in moviemaking, compare the opening reel of the two versions. The loss of craft between ‘37 and ‘73 painfully evident. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/07/lost-horizon-1937.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *In Hollywood politics, Lew Wassermann’s distaste for Hunter could have survived a flop or two. But owing the survival of his currently struggling studio to the unprecedented success of a Hunter corn-fest like AIRPORT was more than he could stand.

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Thursday, February 28, 2019

LOST HORIZON (1973)

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