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was absurd. No amount of exaggeration could have
obtruded for that very reason. In short an absurdity
cannot obtrude upon an absurdity.
Escape from "a world torn with hatred and greed," Lost Horizon's main sympathetic pursuit, was much desired by the whole world. But where is there any
escape, any real haven of peace or safety from war and rumors of war? Where but in Shangri-la, that
mythical world of tolerance and understanding, of doing unto others as we would have others do unto us. existing only in our imagination. And so Capra and Riskin pictured it, as a dream-world, not tied in or contrasted with anything mundane. It was pictured as remote from every day reality as it exists in our imagination, a Utopia that because of its ethereal qualities is easily grounded by worldly fun-making.
Romance Obtrudes
Despite Edward Everett Horton's surefire comedy technique, suspense in the first half of Lost Horizon increased that movie's grip with the effectiveness of oncoming artillery, an approaching tornado, and there was little relief or let-down when the refugees were rescued because the answer to why they had been shanghaied into a dream-world was expertly withheld. But despite that withholding, critics were unanimous on let-down, many claiming suspense was discharged by the Colman-Wyatt love idyll.
Just what did the love idyll in Lost Horizon do to suspense? For the moment here is an answer from one of our more prominent critics :
"The superb camera work and the splendid editing in those early chapters pile up the thrills and whip up the melodrama to such a pace that when the actual dialog sequences begin you do not feel the dramatic letdown until Mr. Colman and the pleasant Jane Wyatt begin a vastly unimportant and pace-killing love idyll."
Obviously that warring world outside Shangri-la, the flight over the Tibetan mountains with an unknown pilot at the wheel, the struggle up the tortuous icy trail where one misstep meant death, and the mystery of that paradise on earth, Shangri-la, left our critic totally unmoved, the friendliness of the people of Shangri-la, their willingness to answer any and all
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