When reporters asked Franklin Roosevelt where the twin-engine B-25 bombers in which Jimmy Doolittle bombed Tokyo in early 1942 had come from, he replied "from Shangri-La." 277 pp. In the academic community, there is a growing consensus that Shangri-La is a purely unreal, imaginary place in the novel of a utopian genre. From 1973 to 1986 the American Film Institute worked to restore the film - now considered a classic - to its original running time, though seven minutes of soundtrack now play over production stills, as the footage for those segments was never recovered. Since the publication of James Hilton’s Lost Horizon (1933), Shangri-La has become a household term, applied to any peaceful idyll or retreat from the modern world.
Depression-era box office returns were so paltry that Columbia studio chief Harry Cohn then cut another 14 minutes in order to squeeze in more daily screenings. This Utopia closely resembles a film star's luxurious estate on Beverly Hills: flirtatious pursuits through grape arbours, splashings and divings in blossomy pools under improbable waterfalls, and rich and enormous meals." Filming (in various deserts and walk-in freezers) went over budget, and Capra's first cut ran six hours, though it was eventually released at 132 minutes. Greene added "Nothing reveals men's characters more than their Utopias. The 1937 Frank Capra film, which introduced most of the world to the idyllic pacifist paradise of "Shangri-La" in the high Himalayas, starred Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt (who Grahame Greene in "The Spectator" called "one of the dumber stars, who has read all the best books (this one included) and has the coy comradely manner of a not too advanced schoolmistress") along with Sam Jaffe as the High Lama. Original jacket, priced $2.50, is "very-good-minus" with chips to spine corners and some transfer of orange pigment to the rear panel.
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