Lost Horizon, and Mr. Smith goes to Washington

Lost Horizon (1937) is something of an iconic film today, with the prototypical utopia-hidden-in-the-hills. It starts with British hero Robert Conway (Ronald Coleman) trying to rescue some westerners from riots in China, but the last plane out - his plane - is hijacked and taken high into the Tibetan mountains, where it crashes. He and his companions are rescued and taken to Shangri La, a lush land in the mountains where everything is peaceful, and people apparently live for well beyond a hundred years.

Conway is instantly taken with the place, but his companions are not so sure. Most of them eventually come around (including paleontologist Alexander Lovett, played by the crotchety-as-ever Edward Everett Horton), except for Conway's brother George.

As befits its locale, Lost Horizon is a remarkably non-violent film once our heroes leave China. There are a couple of incidents as the outsiders adjust, but the main struggle is entirely one of temperament and personality, as George can't wait to leave the place. Meanwhile, Robert has fallen in love with Sondra (Jane Wyatt, known to SF geeks as Spock's mother) which makes it more difficult for him to leave.

This seems a rather daring film for its time. Wyatt has a nude scene - from a distance, but it's quite clear that she's nude. And the philosophy of non-violence and rejection of the outside (read: western) world seems rather ahead of its time where Hollywood is concerned. The visual effects are also pretty good considering when the film was made. (While watching the scenes in the airplane at the beginning, I kept thinking, "Boy, these effects are way better than the lame plane animation in Doctor Strangelove - by a wide margin!") There is an awful lot of snow, however!

This is a fine film, which I do recommend seeing.

The other end of the double feature was Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), in which Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) is appointed interim Senator from his state, travels to Washington, and gets entangled in corruption and graft in the Senate, involving the senior Senator from his state, who was a friend of his father's.

Apparently the Library of Congress even today screens this film for incoming congressmen, which is fairly impressive since despite its patriotic flag-waving, it is fairly blatant and brutal in portraying the political favoritism in government, and the way in which it can crush an idealistic new recruit. It touches on details of procedure in the Senate, and the way the system can be manipulated. It doesn't allow a lot of room for typical Hollywood plotting stunts for the hero to solve his dilemmas.

Stewart does his wide-eyed, idealistic best as Jeff Smith, but his performance is somewhat overshadowed by Jean Arthur as his secretary Saunders, and Claude Rains as Senator Joseph Paine, the aforementioned senior Senator. Although Stewart's performance in his 24-hour filibuster speech is excellent, Arthur's character is a little harder to pin down as she evolves from cynic to believer in Smith's idealism, and Rains does an outstanding job at playing the stern senator controlled by private interests, who isn't entirely sure he's doing the right thing. Without Rains' performance, I'm not sure the confrontations in the second half would be half as effective.

Strange casting detail: The Senate Majority Leader is played by H.B. Warner, who also played Chang in Lost Horizon.

Mr. Smith is also interesting from an historical standpoint. As Smith takes a tour of the city of Washington he sees many famous monuments, but you also realize how many American icons occurred after 1939: Raising the flag at Iwo Jima, and the Vietnam Memorial. The White House looks subtly different. Then there's the detail of Smith's filibuster, where he can hold the floor so long as he doesn't sit down, stop speaking, or leave the room. No mention is made of the fact that a supermajority of 60% of the senators can forcibly end a filibuster if they so vote, as can be done today, so I wonder if the rules have been changed since 1939.

The film ultimately ends rather abruptly, with no denouement at all, which I found a little jarring. I'd expected some final newspaper headlines or a final exchange between Smith and Saunders, but there isn't anything. The details of the resolution are not entirely clear, but I guess you're supposed to fill in the blanks yourself.

Overall, I didn't find this film lived up to its historic place in cinema, but it's still quite good.