NFR Project: 'Lost Horizon' (1937)

 

NFR Project: ‘Lost Horizon’

Dir: Frank Capra

Scr: Robert Riskin

Pho: Joseph Walker, Elmer Dyer

Ed: Gene Havlick, Gene Milford

Premiere: March 2, 1937

132 min.

One of America’s best fantasy films was a hellish shoot, but it produced a beautiful, idealistic adventure that served as a summary of director Frank Capra’s sentiments, and affirmed the possibility of mankind’s better instincts saving it from destruction.

The film is an adaptation of James Hilton’s 1933 novel. Hilton was an incredibly popular writer of the time, and many of his works would be adapted to film, including Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Random Harvest. One might say he wrote with one eye toward the screen. The book is epic in scale, and contains much philosophical talk as well. If you can handle the fusion of the two, you will find the book and the film very rewarding experiences.

We are thrust into action immediately. The time is the present. The famous diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) is helping “white people” escape from a violent revolution in Asia. It is night; a city burns in the distance. We are at an airfield throbbing with people trying to get out. Conway sends plane after plane off. Finally, he and four others get on the last plane out of the riot.

However, they are not flown to safety but kidnapped by the mysterious pilot flying the plane. They fly far, covering plains, deserts, and mountains. Finally, they run out of gas and crash-land high in the Himalayas, subsumed by a blizzard. Natives appear out of the rocks and guide the travelers to Shangri-La.

Shangri-La is a valley protected by high mountains, green and fruitful. Its inhabitants are peaceful and content, happy to live in isolation from the outside world. They are ruled over by a sect of priests led by a High Lama. Initially, the visitors can only think of getting home; however, the pleasures and contentment Shangri-La provides soon make them happy to remain. Only Conway’s brother George (John Howard) insists on leaving, unhappy with this paradise on earth.

It turns out, of course, that Conway was brought there deliberately, to take over the ruling of Shangri-La from the High Lama (Sam Jaffe), an immensely old priest who stumbled into the valley centuries ago. He has a master plan – he sees the contemporary world destroying itself, and he seeks to preserve all of mankind’s knowledge and culture at the Shangri-La lamasery, to share with the world after its recovery from destruction.

Will Conway stay? Is Shangri-La all it’s cracked up to be? The screenplay by Robert Riskin is clear, precise, and nimble. Of note are the solid contribution of character actors Edward Everett Horton, Thomas Mitchell, and H.B. Warner. Capra shoots on a lavish budget (Shangri-La is Art Deco!) – and over his budget he went, going 34 days over schedule, shooting miles of film as well and coming up with an initial 6-hour cut. Capra saw this film as almost a crusade. The optimistic, humanistic philosophy behind all his celebrated comic fables reaches its apogee here.

The film was reduced to three hours, then to 132 minutes. In this form, it played – and failed to make its money back. It damaged the relationship between Capra and Columbia studio head Harry Cohn, and between Capra and Riskin.

The film stood shorn of much footage for decades, until a near-complete restoration brought the film back to its original length. Now best seen on a big, big screen, Capra’s lavish filmmaking is a visual treat. His philosophizing can be seen as naïve, but it is also earnest and moving.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Awful Truth.

NFR Project: 'With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain' (1937-1938)

 

NFR Project: ‘With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain’

Dir: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Herbert Kline

Pho: Jacques Lemare, Robert Capa

1937-1938

20:21

This film, part of a fundraising effort, documents the actions of the Lincoln Brigade, a group of volunteers who fought the Fascists in Spain.

OK, some context. The Spanish Civil War took place from 1936 to 1939. The conflict was between the leftists, known as the Republicans (and as the Loyalists and as the Popular Front), versus the right-wing Fascists, monarchists, and conservatives under the command of military leaders, known as the Nationalists.

Republican soldiers were, by and large, Communists, and recruiting was heavy across the Western world. Eventually, approximately 3,000 Americans joined more than 35,000 volunteers from more than 50 countries round the world, their working-class compatriots, in the ranks of the Republicans.

The Republicans were doomed. Although they were backed by the Soviet Union, Francisco Franco, the Nationalist leader, had Hitler and Mussolini helping him with materiel, weapons, strategy, and more. Towns were bombed. Partisans were shot. The Republicans were outmanned and outgunned.

Thus the need for the film. It was intended as a fundraising tool for a Rehabilitation Fund for wounded American soldiers trying to return home from the front. It was created by the great French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson along with Herbert Kline, who visited the conflict during the summer and autumn of 1937. Their footage, combined with some front-line footage made by Robert Capa, were spliced together to provide a portrait of the people involved in the conflict.

“THESE NEWSREEL SCENES JUST ARRIVED FROM THE FRONT AND HAVE BEEN QUICKLY ASSEMBLED SO THAT YOU MIGHT SEE WITHOUT DELAY THESE FIRST CLOSE UPS OF THE BRAVE FIGHTERS,” the opening title proclaims. We see many short shots of the soldiers – a ragtag bunch. We see them bathing, eating, marching. We see them convalescing after a battle.

Finally, the film’s title cards exhort the viewer to contribute to the Fund. “THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA MUST HELP THESE BOYS. IN SPAIN – THE LINCOLN BRIGADE WITH THE PEOPLE OF SPAIN STILL FIGHT ON AGAINST FASCISM . . . IN AMERICA – WE MUST CONTINUE OUR TRADITION OF FIGHTING FOR DEMOCRACY. THEY OFFERED THEIR LIVES! WILL YOU OFFER YOUR HELP!”

Though more aid was forthcoming, it was not enough. On Nov. 1, 1938, the volunteers said farewell to the Spanish people at Barcelona. They returned to the United States, where their participation in such a Communist-driven affair meant that they were considered security risks. They were denied military appointments and government jobs. The veterans of the Brigade were placed on the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations. “Veterans were fired, spied upon, harassed, labeled Communists to employers, denied housing, and refused passports for decades.”

Later creative works would deal with the Civil War, as in Picasso’s epic and arresting painting Guernica from 1937, and Ernest Hemingway’s 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Franco consolidated his power and ruled as a repressive dictator for decades. The Lincoln Brigade vets who lived into the 1970s gradually gained a general respect for their service.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Lost Horizon.

NFR Project: 'George Washington Carver at Tuskegee Institute' (1937)

 

NFR Project: ‘George Washington Carver at Tuskegee Institute’

Filmed by C. Allen Alexander

1937

12:21

George Washington Carver (1864-1943) was one of the top agricultural scientists in history. Born into slavery, he persevered and got the kind of education he deserved. He received his master’s degree in 1896.

That same year, Booker T. Washington, head of the historically Black Tuskegee Institute, induced Carver to join the faculty. For the next 47 years, Carver taught there. He researched the causes of soil depletion – the encroachment of infertility – and championed the rotation of crops to replenish the land with nutrients. He experimented with and advocated the use of crops such as peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, and others. He wrote many instructional papers to aid the farmers, and in particular the Black and impoverished farmers, to improve their farms and their lives.

The color footage we see was taken by an amateur – a surgeon named C. Allen Alexander. It is grainy but serviceable 16-millimeter film. In it, we see Dr. Carver in his office, outside his office, and walking around the grounds of Tuskegee. We also see the school’s marching band, and watch a bit of a football game. All in all, a completely typical university experience.

The film reads just like the home movies of the time – extended takes, medium shots, no real editing to speak of. Alexander did this filming on the fly. It is remarkable to see Carver in the flesh, but more importantly it speaks to the advances of Black culture that a place like Tuskegee provides. Here are college students, researchers, administrators – all Black. In a time when segregation and racial prejudice dominated the relations between Black people and white, it must have been heartening to see an institution devoted to improving Black lives succeeding.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain.