Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Lost Horizon (dir by Frank Capra)

Posted on March 4, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Long before there was Lost, there was Lost Horizon!

Much like the famous television show, the 1937 film Lost Horizon begins with a group of strangers on an airplane. They’re people from all walks of life, all with their separate hopes and dreams. When the plane crashes, they find themselves stranded in an uncharted land and, much like the Lost castaways, they are shocked to discover that they are not alone. Instead, they’ve found a semi-legendary place that is ruled over by a man who has lived for centuries. Much as in Lost, some want to return to civilization while others want to remain in their new home. Both Lost and Lost Horizon even feature a terminally ill woman who starts to recover her health after becoming stranded.

Of course, in Lost, everyone was just flying from Australia to America. In Lost Horizon, everyone is trying to escape the Chinese revolution. Among the passengers on the plane: diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman), his irresponsible brother, George (John Howard), a con artist named Henry (Thomas Mitchell), a paleontologist (Edward Everett Horton), and the very ill Gloria (Isabel Jewell).

While Lost featured a plane crash on a tropical island, Lost Horizon features a plane crash in the Himalayas. In Lost, the sinister Others sent spies to infiltrate the survivors. In Lost Horizon, the mysterious Chang (H.B. Warner) appears and leads the survivors to a place called Shangri-La.

Shangi-La is a lush and idyllic valley that has somehow flourished in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. The happy inhabitants inform the survivors that they never get sick and they never fight. They’re led by the High Lama (Sam Jaffe), a philosopher who explains that he is several hundred years old. The valley is full of magic and the Lama tells the survivors that Shangri-La is their new home.

Now, I’ve seen enough horror movies that I spent most of Lost Horizon waiting for the Lama to suddenly reveal that he was a vampire or an alien or something. Whenever anyone in a movie seems to be too good to be true, that usually means that he’s going to end up killing someone about an hour into the story. But that didn’t happen in Lost Horizon. Instead, the Lama is just as wise and benevolent as he claims to be and Shangri-La is as much of a paradise as everyone assumes. I guess we’re just naturally more cynical in 2018 than people were in 1937.

Of course, the Lama isn’t immortal. Not even the magic of Shangri-La can prevent the inevitably of death. The Lama is looking for a successor. Could one of the survivors be that successor? Perhaps. For instance, Robert absolutely loves Shangri-La. Of course, his brother George is determined to return to the real world. He has fallen in love with one of the inhabitants of Shagri-La and plans to take her with him, despite the Lama’s warning about trying to leave…

Frank Capra was a huge fan of James Hilton’s book, Lost Horizon, and he spent three years trying to bring it to the big screen. Based on Capra’s previous box office successes, Colombia’s Harry Cohn gave Capra a budget of $1.25 million to bring his vision of Shangri-La to life. That may not sound like much today but, at the time, that made Lost Horizon the most expensive movie ever made. The production was a notoriously difficult one. (The original actor cast as the elderly Lama was so excited to learn he had been selected that he dropped dead of a heart attack.) As a result of both its ornate sets and Capra’s perfectionism, the film soon went overbudget. When Capra finally delivered a first cut, it was over 6 hours long. Capra eventually managed to edit it down to 210 minutes, just to then have Harry Cohn order another hour taken out of the film. When Lost Horizon was finally released, it had a running time of 132 minutes.

Seen today, Lost Horizon is definitely an uneven work. With all the cutting and editing that went on, it’s hard to guess what Capra’s original vision may have been but, in the final version, much more time is devoted to the characters discussing the philosophy of Shangri-La than to the characters themselves. (It’s always good to see Thomas Mitchell but he really doesn’t get much to do.) Since you never really feel like you know what any of these characters were like outside of Shangi-La, it’s hard to see how being in Shagri-La has changed them. You just have to take their word for it. That said, it’s a visually stunning film. Capra may have gone over budget creating the look of Shangri-La but it was money well-spent. If I ever find myself in a magic village, I hope it looks half as nice as the one in Lost Horizon.

Despite all of the drama that went on behind the scenes and a rather anemic box office reception, Lost Horizon was nominated for best picture. However, it lost to The Life of Emile Zola.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #4: The Talk of the Town (dir by George Stevens)

Posted on June 25, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The fourth film on my DVR was the 1942 film, The Talk of the Town. The Talk of The Town originally aired on TCM on March 20th and I recorded it because it was a best picture nominee. As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, it’s long been a goal of mine to watch and review every single film nominated for Oscar’s top prize.

The Talk of The Town is an odd little hybrid of comedy, melodrama, and a civics lecture. Michael Lightcap (Ronald Colman) is a brilliant attorney and legal professor. He’s been shortlisted for the Supreme Court and he’s also a widely read author. In fact, he’s even rented a house for the summer, so that he may work on a book. The owner of the house — teacher Nora Shelley (Jean Arthur) — will also be acting as his secretary.

As well-read as Prof. Lightcap may be, he’s also rather stuffy and out-of-touch with what’s going on outside of the world of academia. He knows how the law should work but he has little understanding of how the law actually does work. Fortunately, he gets a lesson in reality when he arrives at the house and eventually meets the gardener, Joseph (Cary Grant). Joseph turns out to be surprisingly intelligent and very passionate about politics. Lightcap and Joseph have many debates about whether or not the American legal system actually protects the working man.

What Lightcap doesn’t know is that Joseph is actually Leopold Dilg. Leopold is a labor activist, the type who you always see in old documentaries, standing on a street corner and preaching about unions. Leopold is also a fugitive. He was accused of setting fire to a mill, a fire that apparently led to the death of the foreman. Despite the fact that he loudly proclaimed his innocence, Leopold was arrested and prosecutors announced that they would seek the death penalty. Convinced that he would never get a fair trial, Leopold escaped from jail and fled to Nora’s house.

Nora and Leopold went to school together. They love each other, even though circumstances — mostly his political activism — conspired to keep them apart. When Lightcap moves into the house, Nora and Leopold’s attorney, Sam (Edgar Buchanan), hope that they can convince him to take on Leopold’s case. However, they also have to not only convince Leopold to reveal his true identity but also convince Lightcap to put his supreme court appointment at risk by defending a politically unpopular defendant. Their solution is to trick Lightcap into falling in love with Nora and then convince him to take on the case for her.

However, Nora soons finds herself falling in love with Lightcap for real. Who will she choose in the end? Cary Grant or Ronald Colman? Today, it seems like a pretty easy decision but apparently, in 1942, Columbia Pictures actually shot two different endings for the movie.

The Talk of The Town is an odd little movie. For the most part, it’s a drama. But it also has plenty of comedic elements, mostly dealing with the attempts to keep Leopold’s identity a secret. In the end, it’s a little bit too preachy to really work as either a drama or a comedy. That said, I still liked The Talk Of The Town because it made a strong case for the importance of due process, which is a concept that a lot of people take for granted.

(At the same time, The Talk of the Town was made in 1942 so you never have any doubt that Lightcap’s belief in the American legal system will eventually be vindicated. With America having just entered World War II, 1942 was not a time for cynicism. If Talk of the Town has been made in the 30s, it probably would have been a very different movie.)

Probably the best thing about Talk of the Town is the cast. It may not be a great film but, when you’ve got Cary Grant and Jean Arthur in a scene together, it almost doesn’t matter.

The Talk of the Town was nominated for best picture but it lost to Mrs. Miniver.

Cleaning Out The DVR #15: Random Harvest (dir by Mervyn LeRoy)

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This morning, as a part of my continuing effort to watch 38 films by Friday and clean out the DVR, I watched Random Harvest, a romantic melodrama from 1942.

And when I say that Random Harvest is a melodrama, I’m not exaggerating. During the first hour of the film, I found myself thinking that if Random Harvest were made today, it would probably be a Lifetime movie. By the time the second hour started, I realized that it would actually probably be one of those heavily hyped miniseries that ends up being broadcast on A&E, Bravo, and Lifetime at the same time. This is one of those big, epic stories where, every few minutes, a new plot twist emerges.

When the film opens during the first World War, John Smith (Ronald Colman) is a patient at a British asylum. He knows that he was once a soldier. He knows that he was gassed during a battle. He knows that he’s recovering from extreme shell shock and it’s still a struggle for him to relate to other human beings. He knows that he will probably spend the rest of his life as a patient at the asylum. He also knows that his name is not John Smith. He’s not sure what his real name is because he suffers from amnesia.

One night, a message comes to the asylum. The war has ended! All of the doctor and orderlies go out to celebrate, leaving Smith unguarded. Smith simply walks out of the asylum and eventually makes his way to a nearby town. It’s there that he meets Paula (Greer Garson), a kind-hearted singer who invites Smith to join her traveling theatrical troupe.

Paula and Smith fall in love, end up getting married, and have a child together. Paula encourages Smith to become a writer and eventually, a publisher in Liverpool asks to meet with him. However, when Smith goes to Liverpool, he ends up getting hit by a car. When he regains consciousness, he suddenly knows that his name is Charles Rainier and that he’s rich! However, he no longer remembers that he was once named John Smith, that he’s married to Paula, or that he has a child.

The years pass. Charles returns to his old life of servants, money, and political ambition. His stepniece, Kitty (Susan Peters), falls in love with him but Charles, for his part, cannot stop wondering about what happened between getting gassed in World War I and getting hit by that car in Liverpool.

Meanwhile, Paula refuses to believe that Smith had abandoned her. Even after she has him legally declared dead, she continue to believe that he’s out there. And then one day, she sees a picture of Charles Rainier. She also learns that Rainier needs an executive secretary, which just happens to be what Paula does when she’s not singing…

Just from reading that plot, you probably think that Random Harvest is an incredibly silly film, that type that, if it were made today, would star Katharine Heigl and maybe a British guy who had a minor role on Game of Thrones. But, dammit, Random Harvest works! Filmmakers in the 30s and 40s knew how to make this type of melodrama totally compelling and believable. There’s not a hint of snarkiness or cynicism to be found in Random Harvest and, as a result, it feels almost churlish to criticize the plot for being implausible. Sincerity saves this film.

Random Harvest was nominated for Best Picture but it lost to another film starring Greer Garson, Mrs. Miniver. However, Garson gave a far better performance in Random Harvest than she did in Miniver. When you watch most of her film today, Greer Garson always comes across as talented but a little boring and obvious in her technique. (She was the Meryl Streep of her day.) In Random Harvest, Garson actually gets to sing and danger and laugh and behave like a human being. After seeing her in Blossoms In The Dust, Mrs. Miniver, and Sunrise at Campobello, watching her performance in Random Harvest is akin to an acting revelation.

Meanwhile, Ronald Colman also does a great work at both Smith and Charles (and they really are two separate characters). Admittedly, Colman does come across as being a little bit too old for the role (and the age difference between him and Susan Peters does add a certain odd subtext to the scenes between Charles and Kitty) but, otherwise, he’s totally and completely credible as the character. When he’s Smith, he speaks in a halting, uncertain tone and he walks like he’s still learning how to put one foot in front of the other. When he becomes Charles, he’s definitely more confident but he still moves like a man who feels as if it’s his duty to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

(I have to admit that I’ve always found it strange that Margaret Mitchell apparently wanted Ronald Colman to play Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind. Watching his performance here, I still could not see Colman as Rhett but he would have made a great Ashley Wilkes.)

The beautiful Susan Peters was nominated for best supporting actress for her performance as Kitty. Random Harvest was her first major role and she gives such a great and likable performance that it makes it all the more tragic that her career was cut short. Just three years after appearing in Random Harvest, Susan was accidentally shot by her husband. Though she survived, she would never walk again. When she died, at the age of 31 in 1952, the official cause was pneumonia but it was also said that she had stopped eating and drinking and had literally lost the will to live. Whether you love Random Harvest or you think it’s just a silly melodrama, you should watch it just to see Susan Peters’s great performance and to consider what could have been.

Cleaning Out The DVR #5: Around The World In 80 Days (dir by Michael Anderson)

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, as a part of my effort to clean out my DVR by watching and reviewing 38 movies in 10 days, I watched the 1956 Best Picture winner, Around The World In 80 Days.

Based on a novel by Jules Verne, Around The World In 80 Days announces, from the start, that it’s going to be a spectacle. Before it even begins telling its story, it gives us a lengthy prologue in which Edward R. Murrow discusses the importance of the movies and Jules Verne. He also shows and narrates footage from Georges Méliès’s A Trip To The Moon. Seen today, the most interesting thing about the prologue (outside of A Trip To The Moon) is the fact that Edward R. Murrow comes across as being such a pompous windbag. Take that, Goodnight and Good Luck.

Once we finally get done with Murrow assuring us that we’re about to see something incredibly important, we get down to the actual film. In 1872, an English gentleman named Phileas Fogg (played by David Niven) goes to London’s Reform Club and announces that he can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. Four other members of the club bet him 20,000 pounds that he cannot. Fogg takes them up on their wager and soon, he and his valet, Passepartout (Cantinflas) are racing across the world.

Around The World in 80 Days is basically a travelogue, following Fogg and Passepartout as they stop in various countries and have various Technicolor adventures. If you’re looking for a serious examination of different cultures, this is not the film to watch. Despite the pompousness of Murrow’s introduction, this is a pure adventure film and not meant to be taken as much more than pure entertainment. When Fogg and Passepartout land in Spain, it means flamenco dancing and bullfighting. When they travel to the U.S., it means cowboys and Indians. When they stop off in India, it means that they have to rescue Princess Aouda (Shirley MacClaine!!!) from being sacrificed. Aouda ends up joining them for the rest of their journey.

Also following them is Insepctor Fix (Robert Newton), who is convinced that Fogg is a bank robber. Fix follows them across the world, just waiting for his chance to arrest Fogg and disrupt his race across the globe.

But it’s not just Inspector Fix who is on the look out for the world travelers. Around The World In 80 Days is full of cameos, with every valet, sailor, policeman, and innocent bystander played by a celebrity. (If the movie were made today, Kim Kardashian and Chelsea Handler would show up at the bullfight.) I watch a lot of old movies so I recognized some of the star cameos. For instance, it was impossible not to notice Marlene Dietrich hanging out in the old west saloon, Frank Sinatra playing piano or Peter Lorre wandering around the cruise ship. But I have to admit that I missed quite a few of the cameos, much as how a viewer 60 years in the future probably wouldn’t recognize Kim K or Chelsea Handler in our hypothetical 2016 remake. However, I could tell whenever someone famous showed up on screen because the camera would often linger on them and the celeb would often look straight at the audience with a “It’s me!” look on their face.

Around The World in 80 Days is usually dismissed as one of the lesser best picture winners and it’s true that it is an extremely long movie, one which doesn’t necessarily add up to much beyond David Niven, Cantinflas, and the celeb cameos. But, while it may not be Oscar worthy, it is a likable movie. David Niven is always fun to watch and he and Cantinflas have a nice rapport. Shirley MacClaine is not exactly believable as an Indian princess but it’s still interesting to see her when she was young and just starting her film career.

Add to that, Around The World In 80 Days features Jose Greco in this scene:

Around The World In 80 Days may not rank with the greatest films ever made but it’s still an entertaining artifact of its time. Whenever you sit through one of today’s multi-billion dollar cinematic spectacles, remember that you’re watching one of the descendants of Around The World In 80 Days.

Insomnia File #1: The Story of Mankind (dir by Irwin Allen)

Posted on August 15, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If, last night, you were suffering from insomnia at 3 in the morning, you could have turned on TCM and watched the 1957 faux epic, The Story of Mankind.

I call The Story of Mankind a faux epic because it’s an outwardly big film that turns out to be remarkably small on closer inspection. First off, it claims to the tell the story of Mankind but it only has a running time of 100 minutes so, as you can imagine, a lot of the story gets left out. (I was annoyed that neither my favorite social reformer, Victoria C. Woodhull, nor my favorite president, Rutherford B. Hayes, made an appearance.) It’s a film that follow Vincent Price and Ronald Colman as they stroll through history but it turns out that “history” is largely made up of stock footage taken from other movies. The film’s cast is full of actors who will be familiar to lovers of classic cinema and yet, few of them really have more than a few minutes of screen time. In fact, it only takes a little bit of research on the imdb to discover that most of the film’s cast was made up of performers who were on the verge of ending their careers.

The Story of Mankind opens with two angels noticing that mankind has apparently invented the “Super H-Bomb,” ten years ahead of schedule. It appears that mankind is on the verge of destroying itself and soon, both Heaven and Hell will be full of new arrivals. One of the angels exclaims that there’s already a housing shortage!

A celestial court, overseen by a stern judge (Cedric Hardwicke) is convened in outer space. The court must decide whether to intervene and prevent mankind from destroying itself. Speaking on behalf on humanity is the Spirit of Man. The Spirit of Man is played by Ronald Colman. This was Colman’s final film. In his heyday, he was such a popular star that he was Margaret Mitchell’s first choice to play Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind. However, in The Story of Mankind, Colman comes across as being a bit bored with it all and you start to get worried that he might not be the best attorney that mankind could have hired.

Even more worrisome, as far as the future of mankind is concerned, is that the prosecutor, Mr. Scratch, is being played by Vincent Price. Making his case with his trademark theatrics and delivering every snaky line with a self-satisfied yet likable smirk on his face, Vincent Price is so much fun to watch that it was impossible not to agree with him. Destroy mankind, Mr. Scratch? Sure, why not? Mankind had a good run, after all…

In order to make their cases, Mr. Scratch and the Spirit of Man take a tour through history. Mr. Scratch reminds us of villains like the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu (John Carradine) and the Roman Emperor Nero (Peter Lorre, of course). He shows how Joan of Arc (Hedy Lamarr) was burned at the stake. The Spirit of Man argues that, despite all of that, man is still capable of doing good things, like inventing the printing press.

And really, the whole point of the film is to see who is playing which historical figure. The film features a huge cast of classic film actors. If you watch TCM on a semi-regular basis, you’ll recognize a good deal of the cast. The fun comes from seeing who tried to give a memorable performance and who just showed up to collect a paycheck. For instance, a very young Dennis Hopper gives a bizarre method interpretation of Napoleon and it’s one of those things that simply has to be seen.

And then the Marx Brothers show up!

They don’t share any scenes together, unfortunately. But three of them are present! (No, Zeppo does not make an appearance but I imagine that’s just because Jim Ameche was already cast in the role of Alexander Graham Bell.) Chico is a monk who tells Christopher Columbus not to waste his time looking for a quicker way to reach India. Harpo Marx is Sir Isaac Newton, who plays a harp and discovers gravity when a hundred apples smash down on his head. And Groucho Marx plays Peter Miniut, tricking a Native American chief into selling Manhattan Island while leering at the chief’s daughter.

And the good thing about the Marx Brothers is that their presence makes a strong argument that humanity deserves another chance. A world that produced the Marx Brothers can’t be all bad, right?

Anyway, Story of Mankind is one of those films that seems like it would be a good cure for insomnia but then you start watching it and it’s just such a weird movie that you simply have to watch it all the way to the end. It’s not a good movie but it is flamboyantly bad and, as a result, everyone should see it at least once.