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| Ronal
Colman, Jane Wyatt, H.B. Warner, Edward Everett Horton, Thomas Mitchell,
Sam Jaffe, John Howard |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Lord
Gainsford:
Gentlemen, I give you a toast. Here's my hope that Robert Conway will
find his Shangri-La. Here's my hope that we all find our Shangri-La.
A
British diplomat and a few civilians crash-land in the Himalayas and
discover a hidden valley community of peace and harmony.
Director
Frank Capra is most fondly remembered today for enduring popular classics
It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and
It's a Wonderful Life. Lost Horizon was his most ambitious
effort, a utopian fable only imaginable in the frightened years before
the horrors WWII would bring. It was never a huge hit, its enormous
budget even brought Columbia to the brink of bankruptcy, and it was
cut several times for subsequent re-releases. But even though its ideology
ranges from the sweetly naive to disturbingly irresponsible, the film
survives as a uniquely contemplative, skillfully designed and marvelously
executed adventure film with scarcely a dull moment. |
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Identical DVD editions are available for
Region 1 and Region 2.
The black-and-white picture is
framed fullscreen at 1.33:1, closely approximating its original Academy
ratio of 1.37:1. Much of the film's original running time of 132 minutes
had long been presumed to be gone forever, but through years of painstaking
reconstruction work, film archivists have been able to restore the film
to its original running time. Some scenes had only survived in poor
16mm prints, image quality varies from shot to shot. Major flaws and
tears have been corrected with digital restoration, but the variable
quality remains clearly visible. Seven minutes of footage has not been
recovered, so some scenes are represented by stills accompanying the
dialogues on the soundtrack. At first I thought this would be overly
distracting, but it proved to be a surprisingly effective solution,
especially as these lost scenes add a great deal to the film. The transfer
at least is flawless and has not introduced any defects into the conservation
of this historic film.
The monaural soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0. There are
surprisingly few defects and all dialogues are clearly audible and nicely
balanced.
Even
for those who don't particularly enjoy this early Frank Capra classic,
this DVD edition presents a remarkable and unique insight into the difficulties
of film preservation and restoration. The audio commentary track is
hosted by film scholar Charles Champlin, who basically guides chief
restorer Martin Gitt through the many fascinating aspects of the film's
production and troubled history. Although much of the commentary focuses
on the problems they encountered while attempting to bring the film
back to its original running time, both men also know a great deal about
the film's backgrounds and production and share many interesting stories
and anecdotes with the listener.
A short but illuminating feature demonstrates two ways in which digital
technology helped fix tears and an unstable picture in the restoration
process. There are also three deleted scenes, which are the only shots
to be drawn from the original negatives. They show how much of a difference
this makes for the picture, and how beautiful and textured the cinematography
originally was. There is no soundtrack for these scenes, but film historian
Kendall Miller reads the dialogues from the shooting script. His commentary
accompanies all the above features, as well as the alternate ending
that reveals the framing device discarded in favor of a more straightforward
narrational approach, and a 30-minute photo documentary that provides
a great behind-the-scenes look at the production through a wealth of
stills and snapshots. The theatrical teaser trailer rounds out this
great set of extras. The
menu screens have a pleasantly classic design that resembles the film's
lobby cards.
Dan Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: 2001
Click
here for IMDB info on Lost
Horizon .
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