By RM
saturday, july 19, 2025 at 1:28:00 a.m. edt
Here's an unhappy story: I started to watch Lost Horizon (1937), which I hadn't seen for a while but always liked.
It begins with a group of Americans in China fleeing a violent local uprising. When they're safely aboard the plane, the Ronald Colman character, after having a few drinks, starts pontificating about how they should be ashamed that they, as WHITE people, managed to escape, while leaving the natives behind to their fate! (Yes, he specifically uses "white" in a denigrating manner.)
If that isn't bad enough, he then spouts his idea for ending war: just throw away your weapons, and when the enemy comes, they'll see that you're nice, harmless people, and leave you alone!
No doubt the novel had a pacifist slant, but it's unlikely it was expressed in such a clumsy manner. Since much of the early scenes were originally cut from the movie after a disastrous preview, it's POSSIBLE that audiences reacted negatively to this offensive nonsense! (The screenwriter, of course, was Capra's standard guy, Robert Riskin.)
I was in a bad mood to begin with-I turned it off! Another time...
-RM
N.S.: That's disappointing to hear. I saw Lost Horizon with Nana and loved it, but that was almost 60 years ago, when I was not known for my discriminating taste.
In any event, Frank Capra (1897-1991) and Riskin (1897-1955) dominated the 1930s in a way in which nobody would again dominate a decade until Coppola in the 1970s. Riskin wrote Lady for a Day (1933), It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), and since Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) was a remake of Deeds, ought to have gotten a writing credit for the latter, as well. (Capra frequently re-made earlier successes, especially once he suffered artistic senility.) Riskin also wrote a string of other hits, like Platinum Blonde (1931), which I've yet to see. Capra also made, without Riskin, The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932).
Deeds and Smith are on my list of the Top 50 masterpieces.
Once the 1930s passed, Capra went from being generous about sharing credit with Riskin, to wanting to hog all the credit, which hastened Riskin's break from him. And then Riskin suffered a massive stroke in '45, which ended his career as a screenwriter, or anything else.
(Fortunately for Riskin, he really lucked out in the wife department, marrying a heroic lady named Fay Wray. (Yes, that Fay Wray!) After Bob's stroke, Fay went through his old scripts, copied his best lines, and typed up scripts that the couple would rehearse for when company came to visit. As a result, their friends thought Bob had completely recovered from the stroke! Fay stuck by Bob until his death.)
It's certainly disappointing to learn of Riskin's "liberalism," but I'm in no hurry see Lost Horizon again, and maybe I'll just never find the time!
P.S.: In case anyone should think I'm mocking RM by saying "Breaking news," I look forward to the day when I can say that in a story about Socrates.
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1 comment:
If you saw LOST HORIZON on TV 60 years ago (Gad, you must be nearly as old as me!), it was the "unrestored" version and probably didn't have those scenes (the cuts were made chiefly from the first 20 minutes or so). I'll get back to it eventually- those jarring moments aside, it's likely still a great movie.
The daughter of Fay Wray (the sexiest actress of the 1930s!) and Riskin actually wrote a book about their life together, which I had forgotten about- it's sitting on my bookshelf, still unread! So many books (and movies, and women), so little time...
-RM
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