While escaping war-torn China, a group of Europeans crash in the Himalayas, where they are rescued and taken to the mysterious Valley of the Blue Moon, Shangri-La.
Director: Charles Jarrott
Stars: Peter Finch, Liv Ullmann, Sally Kellerman, George Kennedy, Michael York, Olivia Hussey, Bobby Van, James Shigeta, Charles Boyer, John Gielgud.
Bea Busch ... assistant: Mr. Pan
Hermes Pan ... musical numbers staged by
Frank Radcliffe ... assistant: Mr. Pan
11 songs in the Soundtracks, all Written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. I recognized the style of music as BB without seeing that credit, but none of these songs became a hit. Based on his film soundtrack credits on IMDb, this is BB's first full musical, but far from his first film credit, which was in '56, and was a steady stream since then.
I'm a big fan of the '37 Frank Capra film (rated 8+), and the story is mostly replicated here. There are differences, and accommodations to inject musical numbers. However, some of the magic is definitely lost with the changes, and other than a couple of good dance sequences, the songs don't really work here. They slow things down, and since only Bobby Van is a musical performer, we get amateurs executing them. In the Soundtracks, we see dubbers for OH, LU, and PF. Only SK, BV and JS did their own singing.
(Wow, no chapter menu whatsoever.) The 1st so-so dance is in ch5, but OH is does not believe the words being sung, so she may be acting reserved intentionally; that's bad design. The really good dance is in ch8, with lots of native men leaping by a pool. Then we get BV doing his style of dance (again reminding me of Ray Bolger, but not so extreme, and mostly in the face) in ch12.
Watching the vintage featurettes, it sounds like they spent a fortune on location shoots and building the lamasery in Malibu. IMDb lists $12M estimated budget, and $3M gross. And IMDb users don't like this: rating 5.3 with 1.8k votes. The was producer Ross Hunter's last film of 44.
I would have liked to learn more about the very long shots of people trekking through snow.
I like this better than I remembered it, but maybe that's influenced by the recent dreck I watched. But I don't know if I would have fallen in love with the story if this were the only version.
Columbia & more, dir. Jarrott; 6+
