1. Morkrum machines were an early printing-telegraph apparatus, first used in 1921, named for their trademark holder, Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Corp.

2. A "sob-sister," according to The Pocket Dictionary of American Slang , is "a woman news reporter who appeals to readers' sympathies with her accounts of pathetic happenings" (compiled by Harold Wentworth and Stuart Berg Flexner, Pocket Books, 1960).

3. This line is transcribed as "news mongrels" but it also sounds like "newsmongers." In the final draft it appears as "ruffians."

4. "Junior Leaguer" makes smart-aleck reference to the Junior League, a league of young women organized to participate in civic affairs, especially by volunteering their services. The league was founded in New York in 1901 and widespread in the United States by the 1930s.

5. Jeeves alludes to the highly efficient servant, one of the best-known characters of English writer and humorist P.G. Wodehouse, who was the title character of his 1925 novel Jeeves .

6. This joke pertains to the Smith Brothers, purveyors of popular cough drops in the United States, who were widely identified by their bearded likenesses on cough drop jars and boxes.

7. "Hey, ixnay - here's the ossbay" is Pig Latin for "Nix - here's the boss."

8. Riskin loved theater references. "Benedict" is not "Benedict Arnold," the notorious Revolutionary War traitor, but one spelling of "Benedick," the character in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing who "begins the play by swearing never to get married and spends the rest of it in the process of breaking that vow" (from Joseph T. Shipley, Dictionary of Word Origins , Littlefield, Adams & Co, 1945).

9. Fagin is the adult leader of the gang of pickpockets, mostly young boys, in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist .

10. "A Bird in a Gilded Cage," with music by Harry Von Tilzer and lyrics by Arthur J. Lamb, was one of the most popular turn-of-the-century ballads in America. Estimated sheet music sales were more than two million copies.

11. Two bits is one quarter, or twenty-five cents. "Six bits" is three quarters, apparently a lot of money for garters in those days.

12. The Four Hundred refers to the leading members of New York society. According to the Merriam-Webster Pocket Dictionary of Proper Names (compiled by Geoffrey Payton, Pocket Books, 1972), the expression came from a remark made in the 1980s by socialite Ward McAllister, who said that there were "only 400 people who really counted."

13. "Meadows" is possibly an oblique reference to a character in Bickerstaff's Love in a Village , who enters domestic service to escape an arranged marriage.

14. At least it sounds like "Laughing Waters." This is not in any draft of the script and appears to be an ad-lib. Bingy may be making an "Indian Chief" joke.

15. "Just a Gigolo" was a Viennese popular song recorded in the 1930s by various artists including Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong. David Lee Roth revived it in a medley in 1985.

16. "Dempsey" was instantly recognized by 1930s movie audiences as Jack Dempsey, reigning American heavyweight from 1919 to 1926.

17. This probable ad-lib, somewhat garbled in the film, could be either "dips a beak" or "tips a drink," which mean the same thing. The phrase was added after the final draft.

18. "Cook's Tour" is well-traveled slang for any sightseeing excursion. It refers to Thomas Cook and Son, a venerable travel agency known for organizing foreign tours. break

1. "Almonds to you!" This remark, repeated later in the script, was not in the final draft. When Sterling Holloway was cast as Oscar, apparently his part was expanded, perhaps with some improvised dialogue on the set. One guess is that the line is an idiosyncratic variation on "Nuts!"

2. "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" was a Jimmy McHugh/Dorothy Fields song popularized on a hit record by Cliff "Ukelele Ike" Edwards.

3. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are, of course, allegorical figures from the Bible, but Riskin, a sports enthusiast, is probably making reference to the Four Horsemen of football, "the name given by sportswriter Grantland Rice to the backfield of the University of Notre Dame's undefeated football team of 1924" ( The New Encyclopaedia Britannica , Chicago, 1994).

4. British statesman Benjamin Disraeli, an uncommonly literate leader of the Tories in nineteenth-century England, served as prime minister twice and was renowned for his policies of democracy at home and imperialism abroad.

5. Alexander Hamilton was a leading Federalist, first Secretary of the United States Treasury (1789-1795) under President George Washington and founder of the Bank of the United States. He was mortally wounded in a famous duel with Aaron Burr.

6. This line is garbled on the screen. It is transcribed as "horse dollar." One guess is that it is a race-track term referring to an inferior racehorse.

7. Mr. Bones, according to the Merriam-Webster Pocket Dictionary of Proper Names , is "the end man in a minstrel show who plays on the bones"—clappers—"and like Mr. Tambo"—the tambourine man—"carries on humorous dialogue with Mr. Interlocutor"—the white-faced performer who asks questions of the end man (Geoffrey Payton, Pocket Books, 1972).

8. "Mother Machree" was a sentimental Irish song introduced by Chauncey Olcott, who wrote the music, in Barry of Ballymore on Broadway. It is also American slang for any alibi or sob story eliciting sympathy.

9. The Berengaria was German-built, a Cunard Line luxury passenger ship used in trans-Atlantic crossings from 1920 to 1938. break

1. The opening scene was greatly trimmed back in the film from the version indicated by the script. Riskin made a point of using his lengthier opening sequence in the 1943 publication of the script in Twenty Best Film Plays , while appending the "revised opening sequence" as a footnote. The "revised opening sequence" reads as follows:

ANDREWS

Hunger strike, eh? How long has this been going on?

CAPTAIN

She hasn't had anything yesterday or today.

ANDREWS

Send her meals up to her regularly?

CAPTAIN

Yes, sir.

ANDREWS

Well, why don't you jam it down her throat?

CAPTAIN

Well, it's not as simple as all that, Mr. Andrews.

ANDREWS

Ah! I'll talk to her myself. Have some food brought up to her.

CAPTAIN

Yes, sir.

ELLIE

I'm not going to eat a thing until you let me off this boat.

ANDREWS

Aw, come now, Ellie. You know I'll have my way.

ELLIE

Not this time, you won't. I'm already married to him.

ANDREWS

But you're never going to live under the same roof with him. I'll see to that.

ELLIE

Can't you get it through you head that King Westley and I are married? Definitely, legally, actually married. It's over, it's finished. There's not a thing you can do about it. I'm over twenty-one and so is he.

ANDREWS

Would it interest you to know that while you've been on board, I've been making arrangements to have your marriage annulled? break

ELLIE

Annulled? I'll have something to say about that and so will King.

ANDREWS

Yes, I expect him to. Ah, the victuals. Come in. Come in.

ELLIE

I thought I told you not to bring any food in here.

ANDREWS

Now wait a minute. This isn't for you. Put it right down here.

ELLIE

Smart, aren't you? So subtle.

ANDREWS

Strategy, my dear.

ELLIE

I suppose it was strategy sending those gorillas down to drag me away from that Justice of the Peace. Your idea of strategy is to use a lead pipe.

ANDREWS

I've won a lot of arguments with a lead pipe.

ELLIE

Outside of the fact that you don't like him, you haven't got a thing against King.

ANDREWS

He's a fake, Ellie.

ELLIE

He's one of the best flyers in the country.

ANDREWS

He's no good and you know it. You married him only because I told you not to.

ELLIE

You've been telling me what not to do ever since I can remember.

ANDREWS

That's because you've always been a stubborn idiot.

ELLIE

I come from a long line of stubborn idiots.

ANDREWS

Well, don't shout. You may work up an appetite. break

ELLIE

I'll shout if I want to. I'll scream if I want to.

ANDREWS

All right, scream.

ELLIE

If you don't let me off this boat, I'll break every piece of furniture in this room.

ANDREWS

Here, here, here. Have a nice piece of juicy steak. You don't have to eat it; just smell it. It's a poem.

2. "Yegg" is somewhat outdated vernacular that originally meant any thief but came to mean, especially in the 1930s, a hobo-thief traveling by the freights.

3. A "drummer" is a traveling salesman. Shapeley the drummer is one of Riskin's most idiomatic characters. Most of his slang is familiar or easily decipherable. A "Mack truck" (as in "You coulda knocked me over with a Mack truck," country cousin to a similar line in Platinum Blonde , "You coulda knocked me over with a pin") is a trademark heavy-duty truck. An "iceberg" is an unemotional person; a "kisser" is one's mouth; a "ten-strike" is a complete knockdown of all ten pins in the game of bowling. "Cold turkey" is sudden deprivation. A "hotsy-totsy," the noun form of the exclamatory "hotsie-totsie," indicates a thoroughly satisfactory dame; a "lulu" is a remarkable type; a "filly," in this context, is a young girl.

4. Joshua, the successor to Moses, was one of the Israelites who arrived at the border of Canaan after their flight from Egypt. One of twelve sent to spy out the land, Joshua reported that it was "fruitful but inhabited" by "giants, sons of Anak." This so frightened the Israelites that they decided to return to Egypt, despite Joshua's pleading. The Lord punished the Israelites by decreeing they should wander forty years in the wilderness, and among the adults only Joshua and Caleb (one of his fellow spies) were allowed to enter the Promised Land. "Joshua led the people in its conquest, in the course of which the walls of Jericho fell flat at the sound of his trumpets in one battle and the sun stood still in another" (from Benét's Reader's Encylopedia , Third Edition, Harper & Row, 1987).

5. "According to Hoyle" is synonymous with "according to the rules of the game." Britisher Edmond Hoyle (1672-1769) wrote a famous, authoritative book on all card games and other indoor sports.

7. The Elks refers to a longtime American fraternal organization with Masonic-type rituals. The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was founded in 1868. In Meet John Doe , when Bert and Old Sourpuss suddenly feel neighborly, Old Sourpuss shakes Bert's hand like an "old lodge brother."

8. "East Lynne" refers to an 1861 novel by Mrs. Henry Wood, later dramatized as a tear-jerker by traveling troupes and thus familiar to Victorian era music-hall and small-town audiences.

9. These were the names of contemporary personages. Amelita Galli-Curci was an Italian-American coloratura soprano, "not excelled by any coloratura of her day," from 1909 to her 1930 retirement, according to The Concise Columbia Encylopedia (Avon Books, 1988). John McCormack was the reigning Irish-American tenor during the same period, popular with Chicago and Boston audiences, especially, and known for his operas, concerts, and recordings ( The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia ).

10. More slang from Shapeley the drummer: "G's," "smackers," "dough," and "bucks" are all dollars in various amounts. "Behind the eight ball" indicates a losing position, as in a game of eight-ball pool. break

11. "Gat," was well known to audiences of Warner Brothers gangster films in the 1930s as a colloquialism for any firearm, but usually a revolver or pistol.

12. The "farmer's daughter" was notorious as the object of prurient jokes by traveling salesmen and other wayfarers of the road.

13. "Gold dig" is not often seen as a verb. A "gold digger" is a girl or woman who befriends a man and becomes his lover or wife solely for the purpose of exploiting him for his money. Warner Brothers popularized the term in the musical film Golddiggers of 1933 .

14. An "autogyro" or "autogiro" is a trademarked aircraft that utilizes a rotating wing, or rotor, similar to a helicopter but with "a conventional engine propeller combination in addition to the rotor to pull the vehicle through the air like a fixed-wing aircraft" (from Encyclopedia of Science and Technology , McGraw-Hill, 1992). break

1. A "nifty" is an especially clever joke.

2. "The Mad Song" is a famous aria from Gaetano Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor (1835).

3. This punch line was an eleventh-hour addition, an improvement on the version in the final draft: "Why did Mohammed go to the mountain?"

4. A "pip," an excellent or remarkable thing, is short for the less commonly used "pippin." A pippin is a seedling apple of good quality, hence the saying, "It's a pippin!"

5. A "monkey suit," usually describing fancy or formal dress, was a disparaging allusion to the outfit worn by an organ grinder's monkey.

6. "Right on the button" means "on the point of the chin."

7. "Omar, the soused philosopher of Persia" can only refer to Omar Khayyam, the eleventh-century astronomer, mathematician, and poet best known for his "Rubaiyat."

8. "Oh, Tempora!" may refer to time, or the temples of the skull. The Moeraes are the Greek goddesses of fate. Bacchus is another name for Dionysus, Greek god of fertility.

9. "Standing the town on its cauliflower ear" means, in effect, turning the town on its head, or upside down. "Cauliflower ear" usually refers to an ear swollen from repeated blows in boxing. Riskin liked the term, which occurs also in Platinum Blonde .

10. Prairie oysters is a post-hangover drink comprised of a raw egg yolk mixed into Worcester-shire sauce, hot sauce, salt, and pepper.

11. "Flap-ears" is a Riskinism meaning "big-ears."

12. "St. Vitus dance" is an expression derived from a god of the Baltic Slavs who was adored with hysterical dances. His name, Svanto-Vid, was altered to Sanctus Vitus or Saint Vitus with the encroachment of Christianity. The third-century Christian martyr, St. Vitus, was invoked against Sydenham's chorea, a nervous disorder also known as St. Vitus's dance, which is marked by chaotic muscle movements, especially of the limbs and extremities.

13. Present-day versions of Mr. Deeds contain variant dialogue trims of the long courtroom finale, which probably reflects some minor tinkering after initial release of the film in 1936. Missing in most theatrical prints and video versions are Bob's testimony and the display of the enlarged photographs (shot 301) and Deeds's rebuttal to Madame Pomponi (shot 341). The Madame Pomponi subplot, important in "Opera Hat," figured in initial Riskin drafts, but kept shrinking in subsequent drafts of the script until finally it became a mere sidelight in the film. break

1. Up until the final draft of March 23, 1936, the film script began with a scene in which a cable is received by the Foreign Secretary, bringing the news that Conway has been found alive aboard the S.S. Manchuria. Then there ensued a long sequence aboard the steamer with Gainsford and his friends (who reappear in the last sequence in the film) and an amnesiac Conway. There is a shipboard concert after which Conway sits down at the piano and plays a musical piece which he says was composed by Chopin, although there is no record of such a piece. Against all logic he insists it was taught to him by one of Chopin's pupils. He becomes agitated and begins to murmur the name "Shangri-La," as memory comes flooding back. As he starts to tell Gainsford about the night at Baskul when it all began, the story unfolds in flashback. This frame-flashback appears to have been filmed, fell victim to severe cuts after the early audience previews, and is not represented in the "restored" Lost Horizon .

2. A "blighter" is a mild British expletive for someone held in low esteem.

3. The only explanation for the meaning of "Freshie" occurs in the frame-flashback of the script, the prelude that was cut from the final film, when Conway reminds Gainsford that his brother George is affectionately nicknamed "The Freshman." You will notice that this term of endearment, offered a couple of times in the establishing scenes, disappears thereafter from the script.

4. In other words, Lovett possesses a bone from the region between the lowest rib and pelvis of a large extinct ground sloth of the family Megatheriidae.

5. This sounds like "You can't expect a man to steer around in the dark" but is represented in the continuity transcript as "sail around in the dark."

6. A "Douglas plane" was an aircraft made by Douglas Aircraft of Santa Monica, California. The twin-engined plane shown in Lost Horizon is probably a DC-4, the four-engined version of the DC-3, which was otherwise referred to, especially by Britishers, as "the Dakota."

7. "Living on velvet" was common vernacular. "Velvet" means a net profit or money in excess of what is expected; it signifies, in this context, living on unexpected or borrowed time.

8. The phrase "Chinaman's chance," meaning extremely poor odds, seems an inappropriate choice of words here. It derives from the California gold rush of 1849, when Chinese worked inferior or abandoned prospector sites in hopes of mining gold; continued use of the phrase reflects anti-Chinese prejudice in modern society.

Riskin the humanist was sometimes insensitive to racial differences. In the Lost Horizon script, the Chinese in crowd scenes are sometimes referred to as "coolies," which distinctly denigrates them as unskilled laborers. In Meet John Doe , Willoughby makes an ill-considered remark, in the scene where he informs Ann Mitchell that he has dreamed about her getting married. She passes his dream off "lightly," according to the script, saying the groom was probably "a tall, handsome Ubangi," that is, a Central African native. "No, not that bad," Willoughby replies.

9. This scene between Gloria and Chang was the first of several major expository scenes cut by Capra from the final film and later reconstructed for the "restored" Lost Horizon . Although deleted from theatrical prints in 1937, Chang's reference to Gloria in the next sequence ("She's remaining in her room. She isn't feeling well.") nonetheless preserved the continuity without obvious gaps.

10. This scene between Barnard and Gloria, deemed expendable by Capra, was missing in the final film and reconstructed for the "restored" Lost Horizon . The character of Gloria probably suffered the most loss of screen time when the cuts were made.

11. This is a glancing reference to the evil Mr. Hyde, the opposite side of the good Dr. Jekyll, from Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 classic novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde .

12. A "slew-foot" is awkward or clumsy—a stumblebum.

13. This long scene between Conway and the High Lama was condensed and abbreviated in the final film, then restored to its original length in the 1977 re-release of Lost Horizon . break

14. This scene between Lovett and Barnard, from their excursion into the Valley extending into the recitation of the Three Bears, was dropped from the final film and reconstructed for the "restored" Lost Horizon .

15. The original Utopia, it is worth remembering, was a Pacific island called "Nowhere," imagined by Sir Thomas More to be an idyllic place, governed according to the ideals of English humanism. It provided a stark contrast with the socially diseased state of sixteenth-century Britain.

16. The last line of dialogue from the transcript prepared for New York State censors indicates that the final shot in the first released version of the Lost Horizon was of Sondra, waiting for Conway, on the mountain top:

SONDRA

It's he. It's Mr. Conway! Go! Tell Chang! Bob! Bob!

This was cut after opening engagements and is missing from today's video versions, including the "restored" version of Lost Horizon . break

1. "Lavender and old lace" is a Riskinism for "old hat" or old-fashioned.

2. "A stick" is a printer's composing stick; a stickful is the amount of type a stick might hold.

3. The Ladies' Auxiliary and the Junior Auxiliary were well-known terms for organizations of civic-minded ladies, often from the upper classes. Riskin deprecatingly refers to the similarly inclined Junior Leaguers in Platinum Blonde .

4. A "wing" is the arm a baseball pitcher throws with, especially in 1920s and 1930s parlance.

5. The "bush leagues" are the minor leagues of professional baseball.

6. A "doohickey" is any unidentified gadget or trinket.

7. The "Community Chest" is a voluntary charitable federation, succeeding World War I "War Chest" organizations, based primarily in U.S. cities and spearheaded by civil leadership of financiers, industrialists, and merchants.

8. Joe Doakes was another synonym for John Doe. Both had British derivations. John Doe was used for legal purposes as the name of any anonymous plaintiff, versus defendant Richard Roe, in any court case.

9. A "jitterbug" was a fan of jitterbug, jazz, or swing music.

10. This long dialogue sequence between Willoughby and Ann Mitchell, about her father and his dream, which extends into the airport lunchroom sequence, is missing in video prints of Meet John Doe . It may have been edited out after initial engagements.

11. A "fifth column" in 1941, when Meet John Doe was released, was a term with sinister implications for the audience. This is as close as Riskin came to identifying D. B. Norton as a Hitlerite demagogue in league with corrupt labor leaders, politicians, and media magnates—all of whom are represented at Norton's mansion meeting before the mass rally of John Does. "What the American people need is an iron hand!" exclaims Norton on that occasion.

The origins of the phrase were politically charged. "The term was first used in the Spanish Civil War, 1939, when a general of Franco's announced that he had four columns marching on Madrid and a fifth column (spies, propagandists, saboteurs) already within its walls" (from Joseph T. Shipley, The Dictionary of Word Origins , Littlefield, Adams and Co., 1967).

12. "Potter's Field" is "a name given (after Matt. xxvii.7) to a piece of ground used as a burial place for the poor and for strangers" (from Oxford English Dictionary , Clarendon Press, 1989).