Adapted from Hilton's novel and Frank Capra's classic film translation of 1937, this film was one of the bigger bombs at the box office in the 1970s. The picture opens with foreigners being evacuated by plane from a revolution in southeast Asia and crashing into the Himalayas. There they
find Shangri-La. The production cost more than $7 million and returned only half of that to Columbia. During shooting the film was criticized by the Japanese-American Citizens League for casting Gielgud as an Oriental. Songs include "Lost Horizon" (sung by Shawn Phillips), "Share the Joy," "The
World Is a Circle," "The Dance of the Fathers," "Living Together, Growing Together," "I Might Frighten Her Away," "The Things I Will Not Miss," "If I Could Go Back," "Where Knowledge Ends (Faith Begins)," "Question Me an Answer," "I Come to You," and "Reflections" (Burt Bacharach, Hal David).
Kellerman, Kennedy, Van, and Shigeta did their own singing, while Finch, Ullmann, and Hussey were dubbed by, respectively, Jerry Whitman, Diana Lee, and Andra Willis. Before word got out of the ineptitude of this film, it was chosen for a Command Performance before Queen Elizabeth--the first US
film in 17 years to get such an honor. The choreography by Pan received widespread criticism. There had originally been a "fertility dance" featuring muscular bikini-clad men dancing in a "ring-around-the-rosy" fashion. Supposedly the preview audience laughed so hysterically that it was cut from
the final print.
