Mad Men @ the Movies: "Lost Horizon"
Lynn Lee, back again with Mad Men at the Movies.
With just two episodes left, “Mad Men” still has too much business to wrap up to spend much time on or at the movies. But it’s surely no accident that the title of this week’s episode was “Lost Horizon” – a reference that’s popped up before on this show, but never with such direct resonance.
Lost Horizon, a bestselling novel written by James Hilton (who also penned Goodbye, Mr. Chips) between the two world wars, was made into a successful 1937 movie starring Ronald Colman and is most famous for introducing Shangri-La, fabled utopia of blissful ease and tranquility. But while Shangri-La may be a haven, it’s also a prison—and, even within the narrative of Lost Horizon, possibly an illusion. The entire plot is driven by a plan to deceive and kidnap a small group of random strangers and bring them by force to Shangri-La, where they each react very differently to what it offers them.
The parallels are obvious as our Sterling Cooper survivors gingerly transition to their new roles at McCann Erickson. More...