LEAST HORIZON

LOST HORIZON (1973)
dir: Charles Jarrott

LEAST HORIZON
MAD #163, December 1973
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Angelo Torres

This was one of the last of the big-screen musicals when Hollywood didn't realize they were dying off and thought this genre would still be a big moneymaker for the studios.

The movie is about people narrowly escaping a revolution in an unnamed Asian country, their plane is hijacked then crashlands somewhere in the Himalayas and end up in the fictional paradise of Shangri-La, where nobody ever dies or grows old. On the plane are U.N. Peace officer Richard Conway (Peter Finch), his younger brother George (Michael York), businessman Sam Cornelius (George Kennedy), entertainer Harry Lovett (Bobby Van), and depressed pill-popping journalist Sally Hughes (Sally Kellerman). After the plane crashes they are rescued by a lama named Chang (John Geilgud).

Chang telling them he went to Oxford is how they could get away with Geilgud playing an Asian while still having a British accent. They are welcome, fed, and clothed, but some find it hard to adjust. Sally attempts suicide, but George falls in love with Shangri-La native Maria (Olivia Hussey)

Richard meets Catherine (Liv Ullman), a schoolteacher, and starts seeing her. She does a musical number (see link below), that like the rest of the numbers in the movie, are not particularly memorable.

Richard is summoned to meet the High Lama (Charles Boyer) who is told his plane was hijacked and he was brought there on purpose. As a diplomat, he is to be the next High Lama. Sam finds gold in the river and shows Sally, who has decided she wants to stay there, and convinces him to give up material possessions and stay there too.

Sam uses his business prowess to bring irrigation to Shangri-La. Harry is also convinced to stay when he discovers he has a rapport with the children of the land. The Americans can now return to civilization but have decided they want to stay. All except George, who wants to go back and bring Maria with him. He thinks she is in her twenties, but she is actually 100 and has been there for eighty years, and if she crosses back she will revert to her real age. She denies this is true.

Richard and George go back and bring Maria with them, but she is exhausted and it turns out Shangri-La did keep her young. This is too much for George to take and he jumps off a cliff. Richard ends up being crushed by an avalanche and when he wakes up in the hospital, he tries to convince the doctors Shangri-La was not just a dream and goes back to find it.

This was a remake of an earlier film that was not a musical.