ross hunter musical remake of the 1937 fantasy and base on james hilton endure bestseller and be write off by critic and audience almost immediately in 1973 and sound off a backlash against musical in general that give the genre a bad reputation in hollywood for year . group of disparate british and american individual end up on an emergency flight out of a war torn asian country and but their plane be hijack and crash in a snowy mountain terrain while a rescue party arrives and lead the group to an isolate community call shangri la and where the sun be always shin and most of the resident be youthful and blissfully content . some of the performance by the classy cast aren not so classy ( the effervescent mood of the piece and the lilting burt bacharach hal david tune and as well a the lightweight direction all conspire to make the performer look just a bit silly ) . peter finch be the international peace keeper who become involve in a somewhat constipated romance with resident liv ullmann while sally kellerman be a malcontent who spit out line like and i get tire of take picture of people with their head blow off and so that people with their head still on and usually under hairdryers could get one last kick before turn to the late recipe while john gieguld a chang and an asian who learn to speak english while attend oxford and be humorously self amuse ( but why no song for chang . ) . hal david dopey lyric be sometimes jaw drop ( on the good ship lollipop or how do christopher columbus or sail across the sea . ) and the pace get bogged down with all that chatter about the outside world and how nothing be more pitiful today . however and the production be lush and the general handling strangely affect . the two dimensional character be so overly serious they actually become endearing and and the movie silliness be infectious . it end up be a lot of fun . from .