The storm will be such as the world has not seen before. There will be no safety by arms, no help from authority, no answer in science. It will rage till every flower of culture is trampled, and all human things are leveled in a vast chaos."
In a world worn by economic depression and disturbed by the far-off rumblings of war, these words, written by James Hilton in "Lost Horizon" in 1936, turned out to be rather prophetic then and ring even truer now.
"A similar crash came once before, and then there were the Dark Ages lasting five hundred years. The parallel is not quite exact - they were full of flickering lanterns, and even if the light had gone out of Europe altogether, there were other rays, literally from China to Peru, at which it could have been rekindled. But the Dark Ages that are to come will cover the whole world in a single pall; there will be neither escape nor sanctuary, save such as are too secret to be found or too humble to be noticed. And Shangri-La may hope to be both of these."
May we all find our Shangri-La!
P.S. Lux Radio Theater adapted first Broadway stage works, and then (especially) films to hour-long live radio presentations. It became the most popular dramatic anthology series on radio, running more than twenty years. The program always began with an announcer saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, Lux presents Hollywood!" Click here for more.
