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Show Capra classic to come to life at Egyptian You, my son, says the High Lama to the astonished British leader, "you will live through the' storm: You will conserve the fragrance of history and add to it a touch of your own mind. You will welcome the weary stranger and teach him the rule of age and wisdom. And when the survivors, weary, bewildered and helpless, begin their search for solace and understanding, understan-ding, they will find them here in the outstretched arms of Shangri-La." Shangri-La." from Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title Last year's film festival gave a new generation a look at the classic silent movie, D.W. Griffith's "Way Down East." This year, as a result of its continuing concern for restoration restora-tion and preservation of archival films, the festival will bring audiences au-diences Frank Capra 's '30s fantasy, "Lost Horizon". It stars Ronald Colman, H.B. Warner, Thomas Mitchell, Edward Everett Horton, Sam Jaffe and Jane Wyatt in Robert Riskin's screenplay about four survivors of a plane crash in the Himalayas who happen onto the lost Utopia of Shangri-La . Restoring the legendary movie based on a legendary novel by .lames Hilton has been an equally epic task, say film restoration experts. ex-perts. It involved a 12-year effort and a worldwide search of archival film vaults to match and repair footage from all the surviving ver sions of the visionary film. The original version of "Horizon," which had a running time of 132 minutes,, was released by Columbia Pictures in, 1937. Twenty minutes already had been cut from it following follow-ing a disastrous sneak preview in Santa Barbara, Calif. Two years later, it was shortened again for standard release. And in 1941, it was again reduced from 123 to 108 minutes and given a new title, "Lost Horuon of Shangri-La." The cuts reflected wartime attitudes: at-titudes: The movie's Chinese revolutionaries revolu-tionaries were transformed into .Japanese butchers; subplots were trimmed; and the film's pacifist I heme was toned down. In 1947, a re-issue of the movie restored its original title and about 10 minutes of footage, but the cut version was the one available to the audiences of the '70s. Over the years, the film's negative also was cut and re-edited and no copies of the original full-length version ver-sion were preserved. The original nitrate negative deteriorated in 1967. The effort of the National Center lor Film and Video Preservation of the American Film Institute to restore "Horizon" began in 1973 under the supervision of technical officer Robert Gitt, who now is director of preservation at the UCLA Film, Television and Radio Archives. Ar-chives. After an exhaustive survey of archives around the world, several prints of the film were located and compared for reassembly. These versions included a 116-minute studio print from Columbia Colum-bia Pictures, a complete soundtrack and a print missing three minutes of footage from the National Film Archive Ar-chive in London, and a 16mm Canadian Cana-dian print that contained additional missing scenes. The three elements were incor; porated to create a movie that was 125 minutes long and a soundtrack l hat was 132 minutes long. Columbia Pictures also provided a "spotting list" used in the preparation prepara-tion of subtitles that included the dialogue of the complete version. A comparison of list and print showed t he National Film Archive staff it did indeed have missing footage. The American Film Institute also collected scripts of "Horizon" that were useful to restoration. .Though rumors persist about the existence of complete prints in Europe and South America or Cen-tral Cen-tral America, the missing footage approximately six- minutes probably is lost. It has: been bridged with still and freeze-;, I ramed images. ! Gitt supervised the final restora-: (ion, which includes a re-recorded ; soundtrack. '. Stephen Gong, acing director of (he National Center for Film and 1 Video Preservation, will be present at the screening of the restored "Lost Horizon" at the Egyptian Theatre on Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. ,. Din ing a break ill filming of "Lost Horizon," star Ronald Colman (left) poses with Sam Jaffe (center) as High Lama of Shangri-La and director Frank Capra, The young Jaffe soon would play another benevolent ethnic, Gunga Din. |