LOST HORIZON 1973 - The Complete Version

Hey Chuck, I was wondering if you were on this! 

 

I'm very much looking forward to hearing someone's review.

 

Amazon, has it as  unavailable - But I received a message from Amazon last week saying the release date was moved up. Still not shipped

 

Has it been postponed?

Warner Archive still has it up for sale and my order Monday is still in process.  Usually it does not ship until Friday after the order.  If it ships, I'll let you know. 
 

 

Having produced the laserdisc version of this, I would love toknow whats onit - particularly if this is in stereo or not.
Sony specs do not say.

Joe - I still have that exceptional laserdisc and I am anxious to compare the two.  Thanks for giving us a heck of a standard to use to compare. 

I immediately ordered this on Amazon and got an email back saying that it was not available and that they would keep trying to get it until early November.

I too have the excellent laserdisc edition and have played it many times -- as far as I can tell, all the surviving songs dropped from the premiere version and included on the laserdisc are in the new dvd edition. Don't know if this footage has been restored or not as it was pretty hoary even on the laserdisc, although the sound was fine. It seems there will be vintage promotional footage included on this release, although as it was shown in 70mm, I'll be intrigued by the movie's aspect ratio when it comes out.

The movie isn't as bad as it's reputation suggests, but the producers were wise to drop the songs they did before sending the movie out on general release -- I felt very sorry for Peter Finch and Liv Ulmann coping with "If I Can Go Back" and can imagine the audience reaction at the premiere. Both Peter Finch and Bobby Van steal the movie, but there are good things throughout for fans of the post-Sound of Music '65-75 era studio musicals -- many see them as elephantine and over produced, but I find most of them odd but interesting.

Joe - here is a quote from the Sony announcement. 

 

This fully restored extended version, with a length of 149 minutes, includes deleted musical numbers not previously seen and sequences restored from the original roadshow version of the film, featuring a newly remixed 5.1 stereo soundtrack.  Also included in this sought-after DVD release are original song demos performed by Burt Bacharach (with photo gallery) and special vintage featurettes

 

Sony official announcement says 5.1 stereo.

Finally watched the "Fertility Dance" ( What were they thinking?...but brought a great big campy smile on my face)....first time in 39 years! Yup I just got the DVD of LOST HORIZON. Looks great..all the smog is clearly visible. It's in stereo 5.1 Special features A 36 min Ross Hunter Short
Original Trailers and TV spots
A 10 minute short "Ross Hunter on His Way to Shangri La
Alternate scene- "I Come To You"
This campy...awful film...always puts a smile on my face. I'm so glad it's uncut version is out on DVD! I watch and smile for 150 minutes tonight when I watch it in its entirety!

I had the old LD of LOST HORIZON and I vaguely remember a Director (Charles Jarriott) commentary?

No commentary Charles, not even the trailer--the lost songs put back in were enough, believe me.

I don't think the director or any of the stars would want to be involved in any kind of looking back as it was pretty much something everyone wanted to forget -- except a lot of those who saw this version as kids (like myself) and never forgot how good it looked in 70mm (to us anyway) and thought the songs left in the picture were fine.

I remember the performances of the cast and how they made a great impression--I saw the Frank Capra version, naturally a much darker take on the story, and probably the first 40 or so minutes of this remake keeps that same tension -- once the singing starts, it's 'Sound of Music' until a trip back into the snow for the pictures' last third.

I'm in Australia and if this ever gets a local release, it will be a miracle (even with Burt Bacharach touring down here next April), but it was a big hit here -- played for 6 months on average in the main theatres -- hopefully one day it will be on sale, other than MOD availability.

There are 4 trailers on the new DVD

Just got my copy, and was getting ready to simulate a roadshow experience,,,,,,and found out the film is not presented in stereo!!! What a shame! What happened??
Paul

Mono sound will be a bitter disappointment with this release.

I was just watching (and listening), and I can't believe it's in freaking mono. How the hell did that happen? The laserdisc is in gorgeous stereo. What incompetence. Please don't anyone buy this disc until they fix it.

Well, I guess that will be a great selling point for the release of the movie on bluray -- 'now with its original stereo soundtrack, restored!'

The digital tv broadcasts of the movie down here had the original stereo sound (and whittled down to 120 minutes, broadcast here locally).

The only logical reason I can come up with the mono sound on this release is that with the new numbers back in the movie (never saw that 'fertility dance' number other than the captures on this thread, looks delightfully awful), the sound these days may only exist as mono.

I think of the first release of "The Poseidon Adventure" on dvd in the late 90s, also in mono and released in theatres in the same year, 1972/73 -- a lot of those 6-track stereo soundtracks either decomposed or were lost -- I'm pretty sure this is the case of TPA as it is these days in 2.0 stereo on the special edition dvd set, and I suspect this could be the case with LH.

Your theorys about wstereo are wrong in both films.

When I saw poseidon Adventure in new York whane it opened it was mono there.

Two Sony can't be running Lost Horizon on tv with the original stereo because they don't have it. The Laserdisc was remixed by me from stereo music tracks. There is NO reason why Sony could not release this in stereo, even with thefew brand new musical sequences.

But if they don't have the stereo, for whatever reason, you do NOT send out a press relese saying it is 5.1 stereo. What a crock !!!

What a disappointing, frustrating, mindboggling development!

 

Is there anyone who knows who to contact to get a reliable, trustworthy response from Sony on this?  Like, pretty quickly, before this gets old?

 

Has anyone that received their copy of LOST HORIZON received it from Warner Archive?  I have had it on order for over a week and it seems to be taking a lot longer for it to be shipped.  Here's to hoping that they are holding up the order to fix the sound on LOST HORIZON.  That is the only reason I can see for the hold up. 

Mine just got shipped from Warners yesterday. Butif you thinkits late becauseSony took time to fix it (for who? A smallmOD crowd?)then you
are very good at dreaming.

Mine shipped yesterday via Next Day Air. Hopefully, it's waiting for me when I get home. I'll report back this evening.

Did Sony include theIntermission and the Intermission music??

Was "Lost Horizon" ever released with an intermission? After the poor box office reults of Columbia Pictures "1776" I would doubt "Lost Horizon" ever had an intermission (it may have been planned as a Roadshow but by 1972 roadshows came to an end and it (along with "1776") were re-cut for general release only.

 

If the film was only released in Mono in 1973 - I can understand why SONY is issuing a mono print (this is MOD after all, they are not going to spend a lot of money re-creating a stereo sound track.  Does Pioneer own the stereo sound track made for the laserdisc? Could that track even be used (it is almost 20 years old)

 

When Peter Hunt re-cut "1776" in 2002 the soundtrack was re-mixed in Stereo (the laserdisc tracks were not used)

 

Fankly we should be happy with this film on DVD since for the longest time SONY refused to release it. The screen shots look very good. But why advertise 5.1 sound if it is a mono film?

 

 

 

 

 

Grover Crisp attended a screening of the film at the Egyptian Theater in LA. Michael York was also there and spoke about the film - "they all thought it was going to be a big success - on paper".

 

Crisp acted surprised when the audience told him there was a longer cut of he film and about the missing fertility dance (really -  Crisp didn't know about those until the screening? hard to believe)

 

Crisp said the film would never be released on video. So here we have a MOD DVD with missing footage - pretty good.

 

By the way, the audience loved the film - warts and all, and there was two or three really big (unitenional) laughs that really made the experiance so much better! The screening must have been a success since the Egyptian has run the film again