Spectacle, excitement, romance… Stirring, fantastic… Thrilling and compassionate… A grand adventure…A drama of heart's desire come true."
Such were the plaudits of the critics at the movie opening of the U$2 million extravaganza of Lost Horizon in New York in 1937. Heralded by three years of record-breaking book sales, Lost Horizon was an instant and enduring success at the box office as well. What would make James Hilton's "brooding masterpiece" such a sensation in the Western world in the 1930s? What was it about the land of Tibet cum Shangri-La that has continued to so capture the imagination of the West?
Hilton's hero, Conway, is kidnapped on a flight from revolution-torn Baskul across bleak mountains to beyond the edges of the Frontier. On contemplating the reason for the flight, Conway muses whether it's "the will of God or the lunacy of man — it seemed to him you could take your choice…Or alternatively, the will of man and the lunacy of God…" Then Conway is transported to the lamasery at Shangri-La where the High Lama has built a sanctuary for civilization, preserving "the frail elegances of a dying age and seeking such wisdom as men will need when their passions are spent."
Conway was a veteran of World War I, as were, figuratively, Hilton and Hollywood in the 1930s. Still war-weary, they were among those whose perspective led them to fear that the world again was being pulled into war. The escapist dream of Lost Horizon filled a barely subconscious need. Tibet, among the last lands unveiled to the West, became, in Shangri-La, the projected dream home of millions. In Tibet, among the mountains of the Himalaya whose scale and grandeur exceeded even Western superlatives, here the American hoped the best of man lay protected.