"PANIC" SCENES OF "LOST HORIZON"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 95, 8 May 1937, Page 11

"PANIC" SCENES OF "LOST HORIZON"

Even. the IJnited States Maals occasionally make coneessions to Hollywood firm production. During the making of Columbia's "LostHorizon," .directed by Frank Capra and starring Eonald Colman, mail aeroplancs wero diverted around tho metropolitan airporfc of Los Angeles for three niglits, and all regular passenger servcce to hnd from the field ceased, while a company of almost 1000 players and teeh nicians used the base for one of.lhe picture 's most spectacular scenes. The sequence depicts a drama tio interlude when Conway, played by Colman, commandeers army 'planes to evacuate the panic-strieken white colony from the far-eastern city of Baskul during a military uprising. Twenty-five fhousand dollars depended in this scene, on a single shot, for hundreds of "type" extras had" been,

engaged, who, if anything went wrong, would have to be recalled for retakes, and an entire night's work with an expensive cast would be marked down as a total loss. • The sequences called fort the destrue-. tion of a large hangar by firo. There must be great confusion;* ;the 'planes would take off, and trucks, filled with shouting, shooting soldiers would follow in a mad rush. Ia the meantime, a

firebrand would be tossed into the gaso-line-soaked hangar in the background, and it would light the scene with its flames. Obviously, no intrusion from the outer world could be allowed to dnterrupt, .and so the arrangement with the air-inail serviee was made. ■ Six pieces of einergeney apparatas from the Los Angeles lire de^irtinent stood od. the side-lines throughout the three nights of camera work,.