| Author | Message | ||
     Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 160.6.1.47 |
It felt like early Spielberg. The opening clearly inspired the plane sequence in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (both films are set in 1935). The sentiment wavers between cloying and genuine and it doesn't quite succeed in the tricky trick of making Eden interesting. However the characters from outside drag such hard-edged shadows behind them that they are reality enough. Capra burned the first reel of the film after a bad preview. It's lost. Best moment: Ronald Colman about to plunge outside into the blizzard, takes one last look back at Shangri-La. You can actually see his heart break. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.154.242.64 |
Yep, I like this film. I recall seeing it first one sunday afternoon when it was the last weekend of the summer holidays, and the next day would be the first back at school after all those weeks off, so it had an even bigger effect on me than perhaps it would have otherwise. I got Debs to watch it recently and she liked it, but wasn't bowled over. Was this the long version with stills in it, proto? | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 160.6.1.47 |
Yes, that's the one. I understand that the original rough cut was 6 hours long! I, too, liked it a lot, but wasn't bowled over. It has some clunky film-making techniques (e.g., spinning newspapers for exposition). | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
It's actually the birth of the Shangri-La myth, is't it? A Capra movie. Wonderful. Yes, I've onyl ever seen it once, too. Wa son a matinee showing on TV some time in the 70s or 80s, and I have good memories of it. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.131.124 |
The World is a Circle without a beginning! | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.154.242.64 |
Wow! | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Actually, the Shangri-La myth is born in James Hilton's novel. The world is a circle without an end, more like, if we're talking of the interminable musical. I recall that during the London press show, when the eternally youthful inhabitant of Shangri-La admits to having been there for a hundred years, a disgruntled reviewer amused all of us greatly by responding "So have we." | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.154.242.64 |
The really annoying thing about the musical version was that supposedly the studio kept the original out of circulation for some time when the musical came out. I've not had the 'pleasure' of seeing the later film, although I recall vividly the drubbing it got on its release. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.154 |
The DVD details the changes made to the film after war broke out. The internal Chinese conflict that starts the picture was changed to be a rout by "Japanese butchers". Talk of pacifism was also cut. I haven't seen the musical version, but the very idea is awful. (Hold on, the hand grenade I lobbed into another thread looks like it's causing agro. Won't open that one for a bit. Let's just stay here where it's toasty.) | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.154 |
"The World is a Circle without a beginning!" Eh? The world is like sellotape? | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
But less sticky. Yes, of course. James Hilton's novel. That's it. There's a nice section about it in Michael Wood's book IN SEACRH OF MYTH. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
Or IN SEARCH OF SPELLCHECK. |