- Some of the music in the restored version is dubbed into different sections than the ones in the 118 minute cut version. For example, the moment in which Robert Conway ('Ronald Colman') discovers that the High Lama is really Father Perrault i accompanied by soft music in the cut version, while in the restored version this moment is played with no music.
- The original ending shown in theaters had Sondra waiting at the cave entrance for Conway, waving to him as he comes down the mountain, and sending one of the villagers to notify Chang that Conway has returned. After just a few days in theaters, the ending was replaced with the one of Conway coming down the mountain and seeing the entrance to the cave leading to Shangri-La, but no one is there waiting for him.
- When Frank Capra's Lost Horizon was first shown in March, 1937 it had a running time of 132 minutes. Over the years nearly 25 minutes of the film were removed, and various shortened versions were reissued. By 1967 the original nitrate camera negative had deteriorated, and no copies of the full length film were known to survive. The restoration of Lost Horizon began in 1973 when The American Film Institute conducted an exhaustive survey of archives around the world to identify all surviving versions of the film. As a result of the AFI's efforts, a complete 132 minute soundtrack was located, and all but seven minutes of the picture. The technical quality of the newly found material ranged from excellent to poor. For the current restoration, Sony Pictures Entertainment has completed an all digital restoration, starting from film elements restored in collaboration with UCLA Film and Television Archive in 1999, utilizing additional elements and incorporating one minute of newly located footage. Because the picture is still six minutes shorter than the soundtrack, the missing scenes have been filled in with freeze frame images from the film and with a selection of of surviving production still photographs.
- Re-edited for subsequent theatrical and television re-issues at 118 minutes. The version now available on cable and home video is the restored version pieced together in the 1980s, but since some of the missing footage in this edition remains missing, some scenes only feature still footage with its original soundtrack.
- Frank Capra's original preview cut of "Lost Horizon" ran over 3 hours, and was structured differently with a "framing story" with Ronald Colman on a ship, recalling the Shangri-La story in flashback. A few segments cut from this original preview version (such as a longer version of the High Lama's funeral) still exist (some without sound) and have been included in the bonus material on the DVD.
- For years a severely edited 95-minute version (from a 1952 reissue, and shown under the title "Lost Horizon of Shangri-La") was broadcast on television. Most current broadcast prints are now the 132-minute reconstructed version.
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