The director Frank Capra had been on an impressive run of critical and commercial films for Columbia pictures. Tough guy studio head Harry Cohn who Capra had a beneficial but rather rocky relationship with OKed Capra's dream project, a film version of a successful novel called Lost Horizon.
Lost Horizon is a fantasy about a hidden valley which is a utopia for those lucky to be living in it. The valley is ruled over by a mysterious Lama who lives in a monastery overlooking the valley. Into this valley comes Ronald Coleman playing a diplomat named Robert Conway along with Conway's brother and some other survivors of a plane crash. It seems that Conway has apparently been kidnapped and brought to the valley for some mysterious purpose.
As this was Capra's dream project in spite of the large budget a small studio like Columbia pictures gave him, Capra's quest for perfection allowed the film to run way over schedule. Capra's initial cut was 6 hours long which was totally unworkable. Studio head Harry Cohn stepped in and began cutting it much to Capra's dismay.
Capra had made some of his most best films under Cohn but the mess that Lost Horizon turned out to be seriously affected their working relationship. Capra's longtime screenwriter Robert Riskin also fought with Capra during and after the production of the film about the tone and final outcome of the fim.
It would be nice to say that Lost Horizon turned out to be a commercially successful classic but audiences were rather indifferent to the final film and it took years for the film to break even. The lesson learned here is that sometimes it's best to keep a dream project just that, a dream. The film is in many ways an impressive achievement just not the classic everyone working on it hoped for.
The current running time is 132 minutes.
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