1937 - LOST HORIZON, Capra's Waterloo

 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.

The story clearly appealed to Capra's innate belief in the goodness of mankind and Capra's hope that people would eventually come together to create a better world.  Today these Capra themes seem rather quaint if not downright ridiculous, the world is a very complex place.

 

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.

1926 - THE STRONG MAN, Frank Capra's first film a real winner.

Frank Capra's first major film is a very good comedy with silent film actor Harry Langdon.  For a time Langdon was considered as important an artist as Chaplin, Keaton or Lloyd.  

The Strong Man is full of  many inventive bits of comedy. You can definitely see that Capra was a talented young director to watch.

The film expertly combines humor, pathos and a large scale action scene toward the end.  It also knows not to over stay it's welcome and runs just a little over an hour.

A real pleasure to watch and possibly a comedy masterpiece from the silent era.

75 minutes, written by Arthur Ripley, Hal Conklin, Robert Eddy and Reed Heustis.

1931-DIRIGIBLE, Frank Capra action director

The writer Frank Wead (who was played by John Wayne in the Wings of Eagles) wrote this action/adventure story about a United States Navy blimp flying to the rescue of some arctic explorers trapped at the South Pole.  Frank Capra directed this film with a very high degree of talent and intelligence at the start of this best period.

 

Capra tells the story at a fairly brisk pace and for the most part moves things along from one exciting situation to another.  Capra's photographer, Joseph Walker who worked with Capra on almost all of  his famous Columbia films, photographed the film with lots of style, the scenes at Lakehurst with the navy men working with the blimps are very well lit and photographed.  The flying scenes with the blimps contain actual on location photography, combined with rear projection, models and miniatures.  It's all edited and blended together very effectively, at times the special effects still look very impressive.

 

Probably the most tiresome parts of Dirigible are the scenes with Fay Wray as the wife of the daredevil pilot who doesn't want him to fly anymore.  This type of character was already a cliche even in the early 1930's.   Capra didn't seem very comfortable with the dialog and situation, he must have been aware that this junk slowed down the picture.  These scenes are somewhat compensated by Fay Wray who is very easy to look at.  The fact that this type of female character still shows up in films today says a lot about the way Hollywood still views women.

 

It might have been interesting to see what type of action films Capra would have made, had he continued to work in this genre.  Instead Capra went on to make his social problem and humanitarian pictures, Mr Smith Goes To Washington, Mr Deeds Goes To Town, Meet John Doe and Lost Horizon.

Dirigible is a very impressive film for an early sound film.

100 minutes of no Capra corn.