Found Horizon

Ever since Frank Capra made the 1937 film “Lost Horizon,� earnest wanderers have sought Shangri-La, the sun-splashed mountain valley where natives lead gloriously untroubled lives at least a couple of centuries long.

In Ojai, they gaze out from an overlook off Highway 150, where a camera crew shot the verdant valley for a full five seconds of the classic film. A plaque marks the spot.

But hardly a pilgrim has paid tribute to the real home of Shangri-La--the site of the movie village where the women were strong, the men were good-looking and the children never wanted gum.

It’s in a spot far to the east. The natives call it Thousand Oaks.

“I never knew anything about this,� said Mayor Michael Markey recently when told of his city’s Shangri-La status. “This is the kind of thing our new economic development director might be able to use to draw new businesses. I’m going to make some inquiries.�

While the Ojai Valley is a fleeting backdrop in “Lost Horizon,� the huts and tents of metropolitan Shangri-La were erected at Sherwood Forest, an outdoor movie set on the edge of what became the city of Thousand Oaks.

The Ojai footage is a mere glimpse in the movie, but the scenes of happy villagers cavorting in the Conejo go on for at least five minutes.

That hasn’t been unknown to film buffs, but the history of Shangri-La is taking on new life in the research of Kendall Miller, a Modesto wholesale-grocery buyer who is one of the world’s foremost “Lost Horizon� scholars.

For three years, Miller has interviewed the movie’s few surviving cast and crew members. He has scoured diaries and camera logs. He has chronicled everything remotely Shangri-La--what stars tested for which roles, what scenes were shot on which stages.

“No one had done this history,� he said. “I knew a lot of people were dying.�

Even the co-owner of the Foxfield Riding School--the site of what had been Sherwood Forest and Capra’s Shangri-La--didn’t realize she was sitting on a little piece of paradise.

“Well, for heaven’s sake,� said JoAnn Postel.

Sherwood Forest was just one of the area’s many active shooting sites.

It was set up for Errol Flynn’s “Robin Hood� movies of the 1930s and went on to a rich life as a location for films from “Tarzan� to “Tobacco Road.�

When the riding school started, its owners had to clear decades’ worth of bits and pieces from movie sets.

“We attached a big magnet behind a tractor and you could hear the nails come up--ping, ping, ping,� Postel said.

She said no seekers have shown up at her doorstep for remnants of Shangri-La.

“So many movies have been shot around here,� she said. “Maybe people are blase.�

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In Ojai, a few tourists a month stroll into the Chamber of Commerce seeking the place where Capra’s cameras so briefly captured what was known in the film as the “Valley of the Blue Moon.�

“They’re mainly older people, and ‘Lost Horizon’ means something special to them,� said chamber director Margaret Westrom.

Ojai tourist brochures have touted Shangri-La. A few residents have named their homes Shangri-La. From time to time, David Mason, a florist who serves as the city’s unofficial historian, gets calls from people seeking the rambling home of Shangri-La’s lamas.

“I don’t quite understand it,� said Mason, who added with a hint of pride that he’s never seen “Lost Horizon.� “It’s just a few seconds. A lot of other movies have been filmed around here but you don’t hear a thing about them.�

For many, however, “Lost Horizon� was more than just another movie.

It was not for nothing that Shangri-La lent its name to a chain of Asian hotels, a doo-wop group of the 1960s, a U.S. Navy aircraft and hair salons beyond number.

It was an adventure tale about five Westerners fleeing turmoil in China.

However, their plane was hijacked and they were mysteriously taken to the remote valley of Shangri-La--an unknown place from which no traveler returns.

On a deeper level, the film appealed to a world bracing for war. It was a tale of people finding happiness--of a dashing British diplomat who chooses a life of contemplation, of a fugitive swindler who chooses to do good.

“It’s a film that literally changed lives,� said Miller, who credits it with motivating him to go to college. “People saw the possibility of holding on to an inner core of beliefs and not falling prey to outward concerns. It’s like you have to go up the mountain to look out and see what you really have.�

The point was: Shangri-La is where you find it--a geography of bliss reflected in the film’s diverse locations.

Miller said its powerful blizzard scenes were shot at the Los Angeles Ice and Cold Storage Warehouse, a cavernous building that was used to store fish. A horseback scene was filmed near Palm Springs at Tahquitz Falls, where producers had to lift a horse to the top of the cataract with a winch.

Scenes were shot on a dry lake bed outside Victorville and on a meadow near Beverly Hills. Filipino extras were brought in to play natives. The lamasery overlooking the village of Shangri-La sat on a lot at Columbia Studios.

Today, it’s a shopping mall in Burbank.

“That’s very depressing,� Miller said.