How Editing Saved
A Studio In 1937

by John Conte

In the fall of 1936 Frank Capra asked Harry Cohn,one of the three founders of Columbia, to purchase the rights to the novel "Lost Horizon." The story was about a group of Englishmen who, after a plane crash, find refuge in a hidden kingdom in the Himalayas. The purchase was easy enough but when Capra asked for $2 million to make the movie Cohn exclaimed, "Two million? For chrissake, that's half our whole year's budget!"* Harry Cohn was a "hunch player" who judged movies by the seat of his pants. The studio took the gamble and upon its completion the the 'Lost Horizon' budget exceeded $3 million.

The 132-minute movie previewed in a swank theater in Santa Barbara. The screening was a disaster as Frank Capra recounted, "When 'Lost Horizon' opened with Columbia's Torch Lady trademark, our two wives and Cohn clapped like crazy but their applause was lost in the moans from the audience. The Torch Lady still presaged mediocrity. But we were used to that-and determined, in our time, to change those opening moans to applause."

"The Santa Barbara audience sat quietly through the first ten minutes of the film. Then-it began to titter, where no titters were intended. The titters swelled into laughs, where no laughs were intended. I broke out into a cold sweat."

Gene Milford, co-editor of the film had a different recollection. "I was at the theater that night, overseeing the screening on two dual projectors [picture on one reel, sound on another], and I don't remember the audience laughing except where they were supposed to. People did walk out, but only because the movie was to long."**

Several days later Frank Capra had editor, Gene Havlick, re-edit the beginning of 'Lost Horizon', making the film about twenty minutes shorter. Another screening was scheduled with an audience at the Willington Theater in San Pedro. Harry Cohn exclaimed, "Frank, I can't hide another preview from my New York guys. They smell a rat already...Goddam you, you know what another disaster like Santa Barbara'll do to Columbia?" Capra responded, "Yes! It'll wreck Columbia, and it'll wreck you-and me." Capra later recalled, "The same 'Lost Horizon', the same turkey that laid a catastrophic egg in Santa Barbara, flapped its wings again on the screen in San Pedro-but without the first two reels."* Frank Capra considered it to be one of his greatest films.

'Lost Horizon' received seven Acad-emy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and Gene Havlick and Gene Milford won Oscars for Best Editing. It had the qualities that finally put Col-umbia on a par with the other majors.

'Lost Horizon' was cut down to 114 minutes for general release and re-released in the 1940s at 108 minutes.

In the summer of 1986 a restored version was reissued by Columbia at its original running time of 132 minutes. Presently the classic film is available on video and can also be seen in revival theaters.

*  "The Name Above the Title" by Frank Capra, MacMillan Co., 1971

**   American Cinematographer: "Lost Horizon Losses Restored" by Sam Frank, July 1987.