Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

First of all, I love musicals. When this originally was released back in the 70s, my family was excited. We had the album with all of the wonderful Bacharach/David music and knew all of the songs before seeing the film. Then we saw it. Peter Finch's song, "If I Could Go Back" was cut, I guess for time. And so were two others. This was a pivotal point in the film. Otherwise, it seems like his character decides to leave Shangri-La and go back to civilization in about 2 seconds. Almost a "Umm, bye. See you." feel. Is still like the film and love the score.

I don't Think i have ever heard as despicable a sound as what in this film passes as "Music". When i Think about all stations this c-p had to pass through Before it was recorded, without anyone reacting on it, I am reminded of what I sincerely hate about the USA. This noise is the perfect mirror to American society. Pity, since the story which is thoroughly destroyed by the noise, isn't a bad one and if you fast forward every time somebody starts to fart then the Movie is almost watchable. I hate to imagine what would be made of the story if it was filmed today in these times that are so much more fascistic than anytime that Went Before.

...and somehow persuaded Bacharach and David to write songs for it, this is what would result. Of course, Ed Wood would never have the kind of budget to make this, nor his pick of prestige stars. Funny thing, when I saw this as a little kid I was actually impressed. I think the gorgeous footage shot in the Cascade range of the Pacific Northwest was a part of why, and the obvious care put into the building of sets. The production values are through the roof here. However, looking back on it, this deserves all of the brickbats it's gotten. John Gielgud in yellow-face. Sally Kellerman and Liv Ullman and Peter Finch trying to sing. Everyone trying to dance except for Bobby Van, who obviously is a hoofer. And Bobby Van lays on the corniness, almost making his dancing as cringe-inducing as the non-dancers trying to dance.This is most definitely a creature of its time as well. The cheesy New Age philosophy of the lyrics is cringe-worthy. And of course, the misunderstanding of Tibetan Buddhism that goes all the way back to James Hilton's original novel. Yes, it's directed like a '40s or '50s golden age musical, and movie musicals from the period like Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Wiz had more of a gritty texture from shooting on location instead of on a back lot with something other than big, lumbering 65mm cameras. And the costumes...dear goddess the costumes look like they came from Sears' Exotic Groovy India and China collection of 1971. Yes, it IS that bad. Producer Ross Hunter wound up never doing theatrical pictures again after Lost Horizon. He spent the rest of his career doing TV movies, exiled from the big screen. Making a flop-o-roony like this, which cost $12 Million in early '70s dollars to make and only took in $3 Million in early '70s dollars at the box office, was definitely enough to make no studio want to take a chance on future projects of his. It ranks with the legendary failures of Hollywood studio pictures...Heaven's Gate would come later, and would actually wind up being vindicated after the fact. I see a few people actually sticking up for this steaming pile. Each to their own taste, I suppose. But really...

I wont belabour the plot: if you don't know it by now, then you've been living under a rock for these past 80 years.But what truly amazed me on watching this is how much it lifts — in terms of adaptation, photography, entire chunks of dialogue — right out of the Colman version. It's as though someone sent Larry Kramer (the sorta screenwriter) the script used in the 30s and told him to rewrite... but not too much. So a couple of characters are revisited — the paleontologist becomes a stand up comedian, the investor becomes an engineer — but everything else is taken, almost shot for shot and line for line, from the earlier film. In some cases — such as the cave at the end where (SPOILER) the young girl's actual age is revealed — it's like they even went so far as to use the same set.And the sad thing is that the earlier one was no masterful adaption itself: talky, almost proselytizing at times, it rearranges things in HIlton's novel to suit some unseen agenda — and Ross Hunter blithely continues down whatever path that might have been, making many of the same mistakes, but on a larger, grander scale: for example, the lamasery in Colman's version looks like it's right out of the NY World's Fair of 1939, while the one in Hunter's film, while a simple re-build of the castle from CAMELOT, looks larger, grander, and much more incongruous for a Himalayan valley. The musical numbers... sigh. They range from the moderately acceptable to the egregiously awful. The "Fertility Dance" in the middle of "Living Together" is one of those "You really have to see it to believe it" moments, while Bobby Van's "Question Me an Answer", despite its American-centric approach, almost makes the cut as reasonably fun and enjoyable. To be honest, he looks like the only one there having a good time. The rest appear, at times, downright embarrassed to be taking part. But if anything else, the musical numbers, inserted with all the finesse of a sledgehammer, underscore how much this thing owes to not the book but the previous film. Cut them out and watch it with the Colman side by side, and you will be amazed at how audacious the theft is. I'm giving it a three only for Van and Boyer, whose scenes as the High Lama are at least watchable.Someday, someone will do a film of this book that actually rises to the lovely brilliance of the original source material. This one, sadly, is not it.