Lost Films

[Smilin Ed H]

Or films that have been rediscovered...

http://fridaynightboys300.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/the-hunt-for-lost-films.html

[Andrew G. Doe]

So many silent features have been lost: The Queen Of Sheba (1921) exists only as a few production stills and a recently rediscovered 17-second fragment (previously misidentified as Theda Bara in Cleopatra).

[bgas]

So many silent features have been lost: The Queen Of Sheba (1921) exists only as a few production stills and a recently rediscovered 17-second fragment (previously misidentified as Theda Bara in Cleopatra).

Maybe someone will unearth a cache of films somewhere in Europe, perhaps, even squirreled away by the nasties

[Smilin Ed H]

There's always hope. A lost John Ford silent was found last year (year before?).

[Bean Bag]

So many silent features have been lost: The Queen Of Sheba (1921) exists only as a few production stills and a recently rediscovered 17-second fragment (previously misidentified as Theda Bara in Cleopatra).

It's so frustratingly sad.  I think the Library of Congress estimate 75% of silent films are lost.

Film owned the first 3 decades of the 20th century.  It reined supreme.  It was new.  Exciting.  Huge.  Important.  Artistic.  An art-form being born.  And it's mostly gone.  

Artists were writing the language of motion pictures.  Experimenting.  Going crazy with its potential.  And 75% of it has been excised from our culture.  Imagine if this happened to rock n' roll.  Imagine if 75% of the music from rock's first (and best) era -- the 50s, 60s and 70s -- was lost.  Left only to fading memories.

Can you imagine that!!    That's exactly what happened to film.

[Bean Bag]

There's always hope. A lost John Ford silent was found last year (year before?).

Yep.  Sort of what bgas alluded to, finding a bunch of stuff in Europe. I don't know if that's what happened with the Ford, but I read that Russia has a buttload of silents.  I saw that they recently turned over a few Wallace Reids.    Most of his stuff is lost.

I have to believe there's A LOT still out there.  Silents occupied a good 20-30 years and given that they're silent, could easily be re-title-carded and sent around the world.  So if they're not in grandma's cellar, they might be in some storehouse in Siberia.