Lost Horizon

The first Sunday of the month, the Fort Worth Library shows classic films for free.

This Sunday the choice was Lost Horizon, a black and white film made in 1937.  Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt stared in this adventure-fantasy directed by Frank Capra.  It was nominated for 7 Oscars.

The British author, James Hilton, wrote the book in six weeks, but it took Capra  two years (and half of Columbia Pictures’ annual budget that year to bring it to the screen).  The Shangri-La set is considered to be the largest ever built in Hollywood history.

What was so cool about this film is the restoration that took place.  By the late 1960’s, the original film negative had detereiorated to the point of being practically unusable.  Restoration started in 1973 and took almost 10 years to complete.  The complete sound track was located and restored.  But there was 7 minutes of missing footage of the film, so still shots were used to fill that gap.  It made for an interesting addition to an already amazing film.