The musical remake of 'Lost Horizon' has been almost uniformly panned over the years and has long been unavailable on home video. So is it really that bad? Comparisons with the 1937 Ronald Colman classic aside, this Bacharach-David musical starts as an adventure story and only moves into song and dance fantasy about 45 minutes into the film, when the mixed bag of plane crash survivors (Peter Finch, Michael York, Sally Kellerman, George Kennedy, Bobby Van) discover Shangri-La, led by Oxford graduate Chang (John Gielgud) and the High Lama (Charles Boyer).

So the cast looks strong - and in Shangri-La is boosted by wimpy Olivia Hussey and pouty Liv Ullmann. But aside from Van there's no one with experience of musicals. More of that later.

The songs are not that memorable, aside from the melody which first introduces the fantasy village up in the mountains. The staging of musical numbers, by Fred Astaire's associate Hermes Pan, aren't that fascinating. However, there is still enough here to keep you watching: but whether it is from the impulse to watch a real turkey unfolding or from a need to watch the story to the end, I'm not sure.

I wouldn't really class this as a musical; there are too few songs. And Finch in particular is wasted in this although he plays his part dead straight.

The remake of Lost Horizon is a misfire, but not completely awful. Some criticisms of this film are justified, but by no means all. Give it a go and make up your own mind.

Everything you've heard about this movie is true, except the part about its awfulness being "enjoyable." To paraphrase Ghost World, "it's so bad it's gone past good and back to being bad." The movie begins promisingly enough, after a mundane folk ballad and long credits sequence, with a scene of intense conflict as a diplomatic crew attempts to flee a war torn country. Enjoy this scene while it lasts because it is the only genuine conflict you will see in this film. The pilot crash lands in a place called Shangri La, which despite being totally cut off from the outside world is well-maintained and full of food and all the worst of hippie New Age fashion. All of the characters, except one – Michael York – seem to enjoy living in Shangri La, and no source of menace or tension appears in the plot to dissuade them. Although this is a musical, the first non-integrated number appears about 50 minutes in. And it's a lousy rehash of Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game." The musical staging appears to be that a character states a thought, and then a song begins that reaffirms the thought in the most glaringly obvious manner ("Am I in Shangri La, or is Shangri La in me?" "Different people have different points of view." You don't say). The staging of the numbers is very similar to The King and I; although it only serves to remind you that you should be watching that instead. As the characters decide either to stay in Shangri La, or to leave for no apparent reason (since the script has no villains or conflict),we are lead to a non conclusion that resolves nothing and says nothing. I suppose this was sold as some kind of Age of Aquarius, anti Vietnam, "Imagine no countries," type of deal, but it just comes off as a lame hippie high school production. I could literally have written better songs and staged better dances, and I have no rhythm or musical talent.

To review Ross Hunter's musical remake of Frank Capra's 1937 adventure "Lost Horizon", based on James Hilton's novel, means to partially review the film's chequered history. By 1973, old-fashioned movie musicals were passé and being ridiculed by critics who were seemingly in competition for the best insult, trying to top each other with 'clever' catch-phrases such as "Least Horizon". Had the film been an enormous financial success for Columbia Pictures, it would have silenced some of the naysayers--and possibly brought out a few blushing admirers from the woodwork. After a disparate group of Brits and Americans escape a war-torn Asian country in a rickety DC-3, they find themselves hijacked and heading in the opposite direction from destination Hong Kong. The reason is obvious, as stated by one of the passengers: international peacekeeper Richard Conway (Peter Finch) is aboard, and his global mission for the UN to unite heads of state is controversial stuff. Also on the plane are Conway's journalist brother (Michael York),a pill-popping photojournalist for Newsweek (Sally Kellerman),an engineer (George Kennedy) and a USO entertainer (Bobby Van). Their plane crashes in an unexplored region of the Himalayas, killing the pilot but leaving the rest unscathed (a point of derision held by critics). The survivors hold out little hope for a rescue, but indeed are found in the blizzard by an expedition party lead by Chang (John Gielgud),the factotum to the High Lama of Shangri-La, a nearby lamasery sheltered by mountains on all sides. The first of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David songs ("Share the Joy") is introduced into the narrative casually, as after-dinner entertainment, but when schoolteacher Liv Ullmann suddenly bursts into song while teaching her class, moviegoers at the time were put off. For the film to work, one must have an appreciation for this type of cinema, which eschews the conventions of ordinary drama by weaving in singing and dancing. Yes, it could certainly be viewed as treacle, although the gleaming production and beautiful music scoring are captivating, and the picture is seldom boring (only when Finch's Conway meets Charles Boyer's High Lama does Larry Kramer's screenplay get too preachy). A lashing-back to the "Lost Horizon" backlash began gathering steam about 10 years ago, and the picture now has a loyal following. ***1/2 from ****