The 1973 Lost Horrizon has an honored place on Michael Medved's Fifty Worst films of all time. I don't think it's quite that bad, but given the budget for this film on purely financial terms it has to be in the record setting elite.
I think the biggest problem was making this a musical remake. The songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David are some of the worst ever put in a film score. Worse than that they seem totally just grafted into the film and add nothing to the flow of the plot.
Probably in a straight dramatic version Peter Finch would have been a marvelous substitution for the incomparable Ronald Colman for whom the Frank Capra 1937 version gave a him a role he was born to play. But I think that when doing a musical it might be a good idea to have both leads actually be singers. Both he and Liv Ullman were dubbed. James Shigeta who did do the film version of Flower Drum Song, Sally Kellerman and Bobby Van who actually was a musical performer did their own work.
Lost Horrizon also is a story set during the time when the British actually had an empire. The lead character James Conway is a Cecil Rhodes type character, but with the best of his character and as the British liked to see themselves in their imperial days. Big mistake to have updated the story to the present. They did not update the character of Conway.
Lost Horrizon is a passably entertaining film, but hardly worth the time and the money spent on it.
I think the biggest problem was making this a musical remake. The songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David are some of the worst ever put in a film score. Worse than that they seem totally just grafted into the film and add nothing to the flow of the plot.
Probably in a straight dramatic version Peter Finch would have been a marvelous substitution for the incomparable Ronald Colman for whom the Frank Capra 1937 version gave a him a role he was born to play. But I think that when doing a musical it might be a good idea to have both leads actually be singers. Both he and Liv Ullman were dubbed. James Shigeta who did do the film version of Flower Drum Song, Sally Kellerman and Bobby Van who actually was a musical performer did their own work.
Lost Horrizon also is a story set during the time when the British actually had an empire. The lead character James Conway is a Cecil Rhodes type character, but with the best of his character and as the British liked to see themselves in their imperial days. Big mistake to have updated the story to the present. They did not update the character of Conway.
Lost Horrizon is a passably entertaining film, but hardly worth the time and the money spent on it.