The lost horizon (musical film)

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Movie
German title The lost horizon
Original title Lost Horizon
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1973
length 150 minutes
Age rating FSK 12 (1973)
currently unknown
Rod
Director Charles Jarrott
script Larry Kramer
production Ross Hunter for
Columbia Pictures
music Burt Bacharach ,
Hal David
camera Robert Surtees
cut Maury Winetrobe
occupation

The lost horizon (original title: Lost Horizon ) is an American musical film by producer Ross Hunter and director Charles Jarrott from 1973. The screenplay comes from Larry Kramer and is considered a disastrous adaptation of James Hilton's 1933 novel Lost Horizon . Harry Warren's Broadway musical Shangri-La from 1956 served as the musical template . The shots are a remake of Frank Capra's literary film adaptation Lost Horizon from 1937.

The leading roles were played by Peter Finch , Liv Ullmann , Sally Kellerman , George Kennedy and Michael York . Despite the star cast , the cinema musical, like the Broadway production, was a huge box-office flop and is one of the “Fifty Worst Films of All Time”.

action

The British UN Ambassador Richard Conway leads a peace mission in the Southeast Asian (fictional) state of Baskula. During a riot he tries to have several foreigners flown to Hong Kong . His brother, the journalist George Conway, assists him with the evacuation. In addition to the two brothers, the last cargo plane that the refugees can take off is the American engineer Sam Cornelius, the American photojournalist Sally Hughes and the American comedian Harry Lovett. After the plane deviates from course, the passengers discover that an Asian pilot has taken over the machine before take-off and they are kidnapped . During a snowstorm, the plane crashes in the Himalayas , killing the pilot. The five survivors are rescued and taken by monks to a hidden valley called Shangri-La . The place is a paradise, the residents age slowly and keep their youthful appearance.

The newcomers adapt quickly, especially Richard Conway is very comfortable. He falls in love with Catherine, a teacher. It turns out that Sally is addicted to drugs and suicidal . However, after empathic conversations with the monks Chang and To-Lenn, she found healing and inner peace. Sam discovers gold in the valley, which he wants to smuggle out of Shangri-La. Sally convinces him to use his knowledge as an engineer better in building irrigation systems for the residents of Shangri-La. Harry takes pleasure in entertaining the children of Shangri-La with songs, jokes, and dances. Except for George, all newcomers to Shangri-La are happy. He falls in love with the dancer Maria, but wants to leave Shangri-La and take her with him. Chang explains to Richard that Maria came to Shangri-La as a 20-year-old over 80 years ago and warns that if she left the valley she would age quickly.

Richard finds access to and trust in the High Lama of Shangri-La. He informs him that he had the plane hijacked to offer Richard the leadership and responsibility of Shangri-La. Shortly afterwards the High Lama dies. Sherpas arrive that same night , with whom George and Maria want to leave Shangri-La. Together they convince Richard to come with them without saying goodbye to Catherine. After leaving the valley, Maria suddenly ages and dies, whereupon George falls to his death from a mountain. Richard struggles alone through the snow-covered highlands, collapses and wakes up in a Chinese hospital. After his recovery, he flees to the mountains and miraculously finds his way back to Shangri-La.

Songs

  • Share The Joy (Maria)
  • The World Is a Circle (Catherine, Harry and Children)
  • Living Together, Growing Together (To-Lenn and Ensemble)
  • I Might Frighten Her Away (Richard and Catherine)
  • The Things I Will Not Miss (Sally and Maria)
  • If I Could Go Back (Richard)
  • Where Knowledge Ends (Catherine)
  • Reflections (Sally)
  • Question Me an Answer (Harry and Children)
  • I come to you (Richard)
  • Lost Horizon (sung by Shawn Phillips in opening and closing credits )

Theatrical releases

  • USA: March 14, 1973
  • Great Britain: March 26, 1973
  • Ireland: July 6, 1973
  • Japan: July 7, 1973
  • Denmark: September 11, 1973
  • West Germany: September 14, 1973
  • Sweden: September 19, 1973
  • Finland: November 23, 1973
  • Netherlands: December 20, 1973
  • Spain: February 8, 1974
  • France: April 3, 1974

Reviews

Ross Hunter's musical film is one of the biggest flops in cinema history. As a remake of Frank Capra's literary adaptation Lost Horizon (1937), it is listed among the “Fifty Worst Films of All Time”. Worldwide the reviews are devastating to this day. The New York Times described the film as a "big, stale marshmallow ". Charles Champlin called the remake "dull and boring" in the Los Angeles Times . For the Esquire it is "the worst movie ever". The Daily News simply described the film as “garbage” and “empty forest and meadow musical”, the songs as “terrible” and the quality of the dance scenes corresponded to the “performances of every half in the Super Bowl ”. According to the critics of The Great Hollywood Musical Pictures magazine , the "story of the script was out of date", the "music was the worst" and the choreography was "impossible".

The reviews in German-speaking countries are also consistently negative. For example, the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit gave the film the predicate “annoying” and stated: “Charles Jarrott and his producer Ross Hunter screwed up Capra's beautiful dream into a bland, lying gazebo idyll. Your Lost Horizon is a musical escape from civilization listlessly set to music by Rodgers and Hammerstein - epigones , excessively long, poorly played and full of embarrassing pseudo-humanistic messages. "The film service comments on the musical film:

“The depiction of Hilton's utopia, which fluctuates between realistic and fairytale-like symbolic form, has a sentimental and kitschy effect due to the clumsy design and the incoherently built-in musical numbers. Also questionable is the simple-minded presentation of ethical principles, which lead to flight from responsibility, comfort and mediocrity. "

As with the Broadway production of 1956, the main cause of the failure is cited as the fact that James Hilton's hit novel Lost Horizon from 1933 is in no way suitable as a plot for a musical or a music film. In addition, the inevitable comparison with Capra's Oscar-winning classic from 1937 caused the world flop. The deviations start with the characters. The original Robert Conway became Richard Conway in the remake. The industrialist Barnard turned into the engineer Sam Cornelius. Gloria Stone, suffering from tuberculosis, transformed into drug addict Sally Hughes. The paleontologist Alexander P. Lovett took over from the comedian Harry Lovett. Conway's brother Georg became an intrusive newspaper reporter. The character of the teacher was retained, but her name was now Catherine and no longer Sondra Bizet.

Other than that, the plot remained practically the same. The music and the dances from the Broadway musical Shangri-La from 1956 have been added, rewritten or re-set to music . Song texts that are too simple, such as “Learning can be a lot of fun”, and dialogues such as “Have you ever been from a place far from Dreamed of everything, where the air you breathe is soft and clean and children play in green fields and the sound of guns no longer knocks in your ears? "are the main weaknesses of the script. In addition, only Sally Kellerman, Bobby Van and James Shigeta could sing of the main cast. Jerry Hutman doubled Peter Finch's vocals. Diane Lee sang for Liv Ullmann, who seemed far from a natural musical presence, and Andrea Willis lent her voice for Olivia Hussey.

The film set could not be compared either. In the original 1937 film, the Shangri-La set was an extraordinary feat of art and is still considered the greatest film set ever made in Hollywood. For the remake, Ross Hunter had to be content with the set of the 1967 musical film Camelot that still existed on the Columbia Ranch and had been remarkably little modified . In a film review 2013 was summarized:

“Charles Jarrott didn't achieve a single consistency in the film. The film begins like a thriller with spectacular action scenes. As soon as the protagonists are in Shangri-La, however, the film turns into a musical with mixed, often sloppy results. Larry Kramer followed closely the script of the original, but brought no new or compelling point of view into the story. The music contradicts the prosaic texts, and the realistic elements do not match the utopian ones. What worked in Frank Capra's film seems exaggerated here. The remake is a serious, excessively long and strange film that collapses under its own ambitions. "

Effects

The disastrous ratings related to the artistic and economic failure. Estimates of financial loss are $ 51 million. This sum was also stated by the then main investor of Columbia Pictures Herbert Allen Jr.

The studio had for Lost Horizon to the Golden Globe Award winning director Charles Jarrott taken with Russ Hunter one of the most successful producers in Hollywood under contract. Firm engagements with the Oscar-winning screenwriter Larry Kramer , the two Oscar-winning composers Burt Bacharach and Hal David and several Oscar-winning film stars were also agreed. Even before filming began, the studio started a gigantic promotion . In the extensive print and television advertising, several of the stars explained how proud they were of their involvement in the film. Even the governor of California, Ronald Reagan , was involved in the PR campaign .

In every country where the film was shown, it was shown on posters with sentences such as “Come to a new world of music, a new world of adventure and a new world of love! Come to Shangri-La! ”Advertised. This culminated in a ZDF interview with Ross Hunter's announcement: "Here a completely new form of entertainment film has been found that the audience wants to see today." In fact, Lost Horizon meant a setback in their careers for several participants:

  • Charles Jarrott was denied engagements for major film productions until the end of his life. He turned to British and US television in the early 1980s, where he had several successes.
  • Larry Kramer never received an offer again from producers as a screenwriter for feature films. He himself later stated that he was not proud of his script for the musical film, but emphasized that the fee negotiated in advance with Ross Hunter would free him from financial worries for the rest of his life. Kramer later became a successful LGBT activist and founded the organizations Gay Men's Health Crisis and Act Up .
  • Burt Bacharach stated in his autobiography that the film nearly put an end to his musical career. Even he judged the music and the songs to be bad because, according to his statements, they were completely isolated in the context of the film plot. He had already criticized this during rehearsals and was even undesirable because of his criticism in the recording studio. He saw the cause in the differences that had arisen with David, who, in his opinion, gave him insufficient support. Bacharach never composed the music for a musical film again, but became very successful with the compositions of studio and live albums.
  • Hal David's winning streak also fell apart after the flop. Even David saw the music and the songs as unsuccessful during the preparatory work, but saw Bacharach's fault. Eventually, both of them refused to work together even before their assignment was completed. The hostilities culminated in a series of lawsuits between the composer and the songwriter.
  • Ross Hunter's career as a film producer was virtually over after Lost Horizon . It was his last cinema production. He moved to Paramount Television in 1974 and worked for television there until the end of the decade. In an interview conducted in 1975, he admitted mistakes, but also considered the failure of the soundtrack to be the main cause of the megaflop. For him, the musical film stood and fell with the music and the songs. Hunter stated verbatim, “When we hired Bacharach and David, we didn't know they were about to end their partnership. After all, they didn't deliver the music until we were in preproduction. And then it was too late. The result was an ass. We knew that, but we couldn't do anything about it. "
  • Columbia Pictures faced bankruptcy after the film. Investment banker Herbert Allen Jr. took control of the studio after losing $ 50 million and swapped all management . As a result, several divisions were spun off from the company for cost reasons. In 1982 Columbia Pictures was bought by The Coca-Cola Company and ultimately taken over by Sony Pictures Entertainment in 1989 .

The film was never released on VHS . It has been available as a DVD since 2011 and as a Blu-ray since 2012 from Sony Pictures Entertainment and Warner Bros. Entertainment , but only in English, Portuguese and Spanish. These versions contain additional features , including with producer Ross Hunter, as well as original song demos played and sung by Burt Bacharach. These include texts by Hal David that do not appear in the final version of the film.

See also

Web links

literature

  • John Wilson: The Official Razzie Movie Guide. Enjoying the Best of Hollywood's Worst. Grand Central Publishing, 2005.
  • Constantine Santas, James M. Wilson, Maria Colavito, Djoymi Baker: The Encyclopedia of Epic Films. Scarecrow Press, 2014.
  • John Whalen-Bridge, Gary Storhoff: Buddhism and American Cinema. SUNY Press, 2014.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael R. Pitts: Columbia Pictures Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films, 1928–1982. McFarland, 2010, pp. 137-138.
  2. ↑ Ken Mandelbaum: Not Since Carrie. Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops. St. Martin's Press, 1992, pp. 163-164.
  3. ↑ Trivia The Lost Horizon (Shangri-La) 1973 in: IMDb, accessed on November 16, 2018
  4. ↑ John Wilson: The Official Razzie Movie Guide. Enjoying the Best of Hollywood's Worst. Grand Central Publishing, 2005. p. 44.
  5. ↑ The biggest box office bombs all time, Newsweek, July 23, 2018 in: newsweek.com, accessed on November 22, 2018
  6. ↑ Information on The Lost Horizon (1973) in: IMDb, accessed on November 23, 2018
  7. ↑ John Wilson: The Official Razzie Movie Guide. Enjoying the Best of Hollywood's Worst. Grand Central Publishing, 2005. p. 44.
  8. ↑ review Lost Horizon (1973) , The New York Times (Engl.) In: The New York Times , accessed on November 21, 2018
  9. ↑ Michael R. Pitts: Columbia Pictures Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films, 1928–1982. McFarland, 2010, pp. 137-138.
  10. ^ Die Zeit: Filmtipps dated September 21, 1973 in: zeit.de, accessed on November 23, 2018
  11. ↑ Review of The Lost Horizon , Filmdienst in: filmdienst.de, accessed on November 23, 2018
  12. ↑ Tom Shea: Broadway's Most Wanted. The Top 10 Book of Dynamic Divas, Surefire Showstoppers, and Box-Office Busts. Potomac Books, 2004, p. 18.
  13. ↑ Michael R. Pitts: Columbia Pictures Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films, 1928–1982. McFarland, 2010, pp. 137-138.
  14. ↑ Review Lost Horizon (1973) in: thedigitalbits.com, accessed November 23, 2018
  15. ↑ Michael R. Pitts: Columbia Pictures Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films, 1928–1982. McFarland, 2010, pp. 137-138.
  16. ↑ Sony Pictures Entertainment: Brief Description In the Shackles of Shangri-La. in: sphe.de Film presentation, accessed on November 24, 2018
  17. ↑ Trivia The Lost Horizon (Shangri-La) 1973 in: IMDb, accessed on November 16, 2018
  18. ↑ Review Lost Horizon (1973) in: thedigitalbits.com, accessed November 23, 2018
  19. ↑ The biggest box office bombs all time, Newsweek, July 23, 2018 in: newsweek.com, accessed on November 22, 2018
  20. ↑ JD Connor: Hollywood Math and Aftermath. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018, p. 67.
  21. ↑ Friday Feature: Lost Horizon (1973) in: theseconddisc.com, accessed November 25, 2018
  22. ^ The lost horizon (1973), Taglines in: IMDb, accessed on December 19, 2018
  23. ↑ German poster advertisement Lost Horizon 1973 in: Cinematerial, accessed on November 25, 2018
  24. ↑ Ronald Bergan: Obituary. Charles Jarrott. in: The Guardian, March 7, 2011, p. 34.
  25. ^ Alonso Duralde: When Larry met Lawrence. in: The Advocate, May 27, 2003, pp. 54-55.
  26. ↑ Burt Bacharach: Anyone Who Had A Heart. HarperCollins, 2012, p. 154 f.
  27. ↑ dpa: Hit writer Hal David is dead. Hannoversche Allgemeine, September 2, 2012 in: haz.de, accessed on November 24, 2018
  28. ↑ Eunice David: Hal David. His Magic Moments. Dorrance Publishing, 2016, p. 112 f.
  29. ↑ Trivia The Lost Horizon (Shangri-La) 1973 in: IMDb, accessed on November 16, 2018
  30. ↑ JD Connor: Hollywood Math and Aftermath. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018, p. 67.
  31. ^ Anthony Slide: The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry. Routledge, 2014, p. 43.
  32. ^ Trivia The Lost Horizon (Shangri-La) 1973 in: IMDb, accessed on November 23, 2018
  33. ↑ DVDtalk: Lost Horizon. DVD Savant, 2018 at dvdtalk.com, accessed November 23, 2018