On the Road to Shambala

As is well-known, James Hilton's Lost Horizon (1933) is the origin of Shangri-La, the fictional utopia nestled high in the remote mountains of Tibet. Apparently, President Franklin D. Roosevelt admired the novel—and perhaps the 1937 Hollywood film adaptation as well. In 1942, given increased German submarine activity along the Atlantic coast, the Secret Service, concerned about the President’s safety, requested FDR discontinue his frequent cruises aboard his yacht, the USS Potomac, along the eastern waterways. Seeking a retreat that would not interfere with the President’s medical conditions of asthma and polio, FDR's physician recommended a summer camp for federal employees as well as Boy Scout groups called Camp Hi-Catoctin, located in Maryland’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Upon seeing his mountain retreat in 1942, President Roosevelt named it Shangri-La. In 1953, several years after President Roosevelt’s death, the retreat was renamed Camp David by President Dwight Eisenhower, after his father and grandson, the name it retains to this day.

That the utopian promise represented by Shangri-La (Shambala) captured President Roosevelt’s imagination is certain. Pure speculation, but I wonder whether the film adaptation of Lost Horizon (1937), directed by Frank Capra, was perhaps more influential on Roosevelt in its conception of Shangri-La than the novel. Capra’s adaptation makes several (important) changes to the novel, one of them being to intensify Conway’s internal conflict about whether to stay in Shangri-La. In Hilton's novel, Mallinson is his protégé, vice-consul to Robert Conway’s role as consul in the British diplomatic service, but in the film adaptation he is replaced by George, Conway’s brother. In the film adaptation, there are two women who live in Shangri-La, Maria and Sondra. Maria’s role is similar to that of Lo-Tsen’s in the novel, but Sondra is introduced in order to develop a love interest for Conway. Robert Conway’s love for Sondra makes his decision to leave even more difficult: he is torn between his protective and filial affection for his younger brother and his romantic yearning for Sondra, along with his conviction that he has found his utopia and place in the world. Hence, the stakes for Conway are far higher in the adaptation than in the novel.

Perhaps the most important change in Capra’s film adaptation, though, is the addition of the character of Gloria, who replaces the kind but largely ineffectual missionary, Miss Brinklow. As the terminally ill, cynical consumptive, Gloria recovers her health, an indication of the restorative quality of the (magical) “air” in Shangri-La (mountain cures were a common belief). The magical quality of Shangri-La is represented by the High Lama, who dies at the age of 249. He was originally a Christian missionary monk who became converted to the east, although Shangri-La, with its motto of “moderation,” is ecumenical rather than dogmatic in its approach to spiritual tenets. I believe it was these features of Shangri-La, its restorative, healing powers, and its ecumenicalism, that appealed to the polio-stricken Roosevelt. I am sure this is not a startling new insight. Rather, what it does suggest is the power of Frank Capra’s film adaptation in influencing our (mis)conceptions about James Hilton’s Shangri-La. Certainly we can see it in popular music, such as “Shambala” (1973), in which the healing powers of Shangri-La are invoked: "Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain / With the rain in Shambala / Wash away my sorrow, wash away my shame / With the rain in Shambala."

Here are some other songs inspired by Shangri-La/Shambala (not to mention the 60s pop group, The Shangri-Las):

Shangri-La – Matty Malneck and Robert Maxwell (1946) (covered by numerous artists)

Shangri-La – The Kinks (1969) (from the album Arthur)

Shambala – Daniel Moore (covered by B. W. Stevenson and The Three Dog Night, 1973)

Shangri-La – Electric Light Orchestra (from the album, A New World Record, 1976)

Our Shangri-La – Mark Knopfler (from the album, Shangri-La, 2004)

 

I must not neglect Johnny Mathis’ album, The Wonderful World of Make Believe (pictured, 1964), a collection of songs largely about imaginary, utopian places (Shangri-La, Camelot), the longing for a place in the world (I’m Always Chasing Rainbows, When You Wish Upon a Star), and the hope for everlasting love (Beyond the Sea, Beyond the Blue Horizon) – all fulfilled by a utopian Shangri-La.