Lost film

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A lost film is a film which, for any of several reasons, is no longer in existence.

Sometimes a copy of a "lost film" is rediscovered; these have been referred to as "Lazarus" films. A film that has not been recovered in its entirety is called a "partially lost film."

Contents 1 Reasons for film loss 2 Later lost films 3 Almost lost films 4 Lost Film Soundtracks 5 Commercially unavailable films 6 Lost television broadcasts 7 List of selected lost films 8 List of incomplete or partially lost films 9 List of found films 10 See also 11 References 12 External links

[edit] Reasons for film loss

Most lost films are from the silent film and early talkie era, from the 1890s to 1930. Some estimates suggest that most of the films from this era are lost. Particularly striking is the case of Theda Bara: Of the 40 films she made, only three and a half survive. Similarly, of the 57 movies made by Clara Bow, 20 are completely lost and five more are incomplete ^[1]. Many early talkies were lost because they used a sound-on-disk process which utilized separate soundtracks on special phonograph records. These records were often lost or misplaced, thereby making a mute print virtually worthless and consequently they were often thrown away. This all changed by 1931, when most of the industry converted to a sound-on-film process.

Many early motion pictures are lost because the nitrate film used in that era was extremely unstable and flammable. Fires have destroyed entire archives of films. For example, a storage vault fire in 1937 destroyed the original negatives of pre-1935 movies from Fox Pictures. In addition, film can deteriorate rapidly if not preserved in temperature and humidity controlled storage.

Before the eras of home video and television, films were viewed as having little value after their theatrical run ended. Thus, many films were deliberately destroyed, either by the studios as a space-saving maneuver, or in some cases by the cast and crew themselves. Many films were recycled for their silver content or ignited to create explosion special effects in other films.

In order to preserve films with a nitrate base, they can be copied to safety film or digitized, although the former is preferred over the latter in the archival community because of its proven longevity and approximation of original format.

[edit] Later lost films

35mm safety film was introduced in 1949; it was much more stable than early nitrate film and as a result, there are comparatively few lost films from after about 1950. However, color fading of certain color stocks and vinegar syndrome threaten the preservation of films made since about 1950.

Most mainstream movies from the 1950s and beyond survive today, but several early pornographic films and some B-Movies are lost. In most cases these obscure films go unnoticed and unmissed, but some films by noted cult directors have been lost as well:

• Cult favorite Herschell Gordon Lewis' 1972 film Black Love has disappeared, as have two of his 1969 films, Ecstasies of Women and Linda and Abilene. The latter of these is notorious for being filmed at the Spahn Ranch shortly before the arrival of the Manson Family.

• Ed Wood, Jr.'s The Undergraduate (1972) has been lost and his 1970 film Take It Out In Trade exists only in fragments without sound. Wood's 1971 film Necromania was believed lost for years until an edited version resurfaced at a yard sale in 1992, followed by a complete unedited print in 2001 ^[2].

• Most of Andy Milligan's early films are considered lost.

• Many classroom educational, training, and religious short films of the 1940s through 1970s are also lost as they were thought of as "disposable" or upgradable.

Some aspects of recent films may be lost, too. The 3-D films Top Banana and Southwest Passage both exist only in their flat form.

[edit] Almost lost films

Many, many important silent-era films, and films which involve important actors, directors, and creative talent, exist in single prints in museums, archives, and private collections — single prints which have not been copied, digitized, or preserved in any way. The possibility of losing these films forever is very real, unless they are preserved.

Tod Browning's London After Midnight still existed in 1967 — as a single print in a MGM warehouse that was destroyed by fire in that year. London has since come to be regarded as one of the most important lost films.

[edit] Lost Film Soundtracks

Some soundtracks which were played in interlock, but separate from the film element are now considered lost because they were damaged or destroyed, while the picture element was not. Some surviving Vitaphone films exist in picture only, while the soundtracks, which were played from a disc, are lost. (Conversely, some Vitaphone films survive only in the disc, with the film missing.)

Many stereophonic soundtracks from the early-to-mid 1950s that were either played in interlock on a 35mm fullcoat magnetic reel or single-strip magnetic film (such as Fox's four-track magnetic, which became the standard of mag stereophonic sound) are now lost. Films such as The Caddy, The War of the Worlds, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, and From Here to Eternity that were originally available with 3-track, magnetic sound are now available only with a monophonic optical soundtrack. The chemistry behind adhesing magnetic particles to the tri-acetate film base eventually caused the autocatalytic breakdown of the film, vinegar syndrome, and as long as studios had a mononatural optical negative that could be printed, many felt no need to preserve the stereophonic versions of the soundtracks.

[edit] Commercially unavailable films

The term "lost films" has also been applied, inaccurately, to films that do survive in their entirety, but have never been made available to the public on VHS or DVD. In some cases, the films have never been aired on television either. Many of these "lost" films do circulate on bootleg copies of varying quality. The John Wayne film The High and the Mighty from 1954 was one famous example, until it was finally issued on DVD in 2005. Another well known example is Disney's Song of the South, which is not available in North America, supposedly due to concerns over its racial content. Such concerns do not stop Disney from selling the film in Europe and Asia.

[edit] Lost television broadcasts

See also: wiping.

• Many early television series episodes were lost because they were aired live and no recording ever was made, or because the highly expensive early video tape was erased and re-used by the network. Most episodes of important, popular shows like Captain Video, The Quatermass Experiment, and Your Show of Shows are presumed lost.
• This practice of re-using video tape continued well into the 1970s: many episodes of the pioneering Australian prime time soap opera Number 96 are lost.
• Over 100 early episodes of the cult BBC sci-fi show Doctor Who do not exist in the BBC's archives, though they have an ongoing appeal for help from viewers who may have recorded the shows during their original airings^[3].
• Many other BBC shows are missing from the archives, including the BBC studio footage from the Apollo 11 moon landings. Many series are missing in their entirety, while others only survive in fragments, such as A for Andromeda a science fiction series that was Julie Christie's first major role. Also missing are episodes of The Avengers, Doctor Who, Dad's Army, Hancock's Half Hour, Doomwatch, Out of the Unknown, Dixon of Dock Green, Z Cars, and many others.
• Almost all of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jack Paar and the first ten years hosted by Johnny Carson were taped over by the network and no longer exist; this is why Carson's The Tonight Show picture looked muddy during broadcast in the late 60s: the videotape was being used repeatedly. A single episode from Carson's first year turned up in a closet a few years ago.
• With home VCRs being uncommon until the mid-1980s, it is unlikely that lost television episodes exist in the collections of individuals, though this occasionally happens. One well-known example is a clip of John Lennon visiting the announcers booth during a 1974 Monday Night Football broadcast. ABC lost the footage of this event, but a private collector's copy of the event appears in the Beatles Anthology.
• Also lost is the broadcast of Super Bowl I, even though NBC and CBS both originally broadcast the game.
• Many soap operas such as Search for Tomorrow and The Edge of Night have lost episodes. Due to archiving policies, episodes of All My Children produced between 1970 and 1975 exist only as black-and-white kinescopes although all episodes were originally produced in color.
• NASA has admitted losing the original footage of the first manned moon landing in 1969. It is unknown if the original footage still exists today. What exists today is a considerably lower-quality film of the television broadcasts from the time. ^[4]
• The original black & white pilot episode season one of the British series Upstairs Downstairs does not exist in any form with the possible exception of a few stills. It was reportedly wiped and the script of the first episode was reshot in color when the show was being prepared to be broadcast in the United States on PBS's Masterpiece Theater. All of the other five black & white episodes from season one survive and are on video & dvd.

[edit] List of selected lost films

• Age for Love (1931), starring Billie Dove
• The Air Circus (1928), directed by Howard Hawks
• Anna Karenina (1915)
• Anne of Green Gables (1919), directed by William Desmond Taylor and starring Mary Miles Minter
• The Aryan (1916), directed by Thomas H. Ince and starring William S. Hart and Bessie Love
• Babe Comes Home (1927), starring Anna Q Nilsson
• The Battle of Gettysburg (1913), directed by Thomas H. Ince
• Batman Dracula (1964), directed by Andy Warhol
• Battle of the Sexes (1914), directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish
• A Study in Scarlet (1914), the first feature-length adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes story
• Bound in Morocco (1918), starring Douglas Fairbanks
• Bride of the Regiment (1930), a Technicolor film starring Vivienne Segal
• Camille (1917), starring Theda Bara
• The Case of Lena Smith (1929), directed by Josef von Sternberg (a few minutes exist)
• The Cat's Pajamas (1926), directed by William Wellman
• The Cavalier (1929), a Technicolor film starring Richard Talmadge
• Clarence (1922), starring Wallace Reid and with Adolphe Menjou in the cast
• Charlie Chan Carries On (1931)
• The City Gone Wild (1927), starring Louise Brooks
• Convention City (1933), a pre-Code Warner Brothers drama starring Joan Blondell and Guy Kibbee
• A Country Hero (1917), starring Roscoe Arbuckle (aka Fatty Arbuckle) and Buster Keaton
• The Daring Years (1923), starring Mildred Harris, Charles Emmett Mack and Clara Bow
• The Devil's Passkey (1920), directed by Erich von Stroheim
• The Dragnet (1928), directed by Josef von Sternberg and with a cast including William Powell
• Dry Martini (1928), starring Mary Astor
• El Apostol (1917), Argentine production; believed to be the world's first animated feature film
• The Escape (1914), directed by D.W. Griffith
• Evening Clothes (1927), starring Adolphe Menjou and Louise Brooks
• Fanny Foley Herself (1931), a Technicolor film starring Edna May Oliver
• The Fighting Heart (1925), directed by John Ford and starring Billie Dove
• Flaming Youth (1923), starring Colleen Moore and Milton Sills
• Four Devils (1928), directed by F.W. Murnau
• The Freeze Out (1921), directed by John Ford (credited as Jack Ford)
• General Crack (1930), starring John Barrymore
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1928), the first version of the Anita Loos story
• The Great Gatsby (1926)
• The Great Love (1918), directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish
• The Greatest Thing in Life (1918), directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish
• The Gulf Between (1917), starring Grace Darmond and Niles Welch; this was the first Technicolor film, a few frames of which survive
• Hats Off (1927), Laurel & Hardy comedy
• Hollywood (1923), which contained cameos of many silent film stars playing themselves
• Her Friend the Bandit (1914), directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand
• Hit the Deck (1930), starring Jack Oakie and Polly Walker
• Hold Everything (1930), a Technicolor film starring Winnie Lightner and Joe E. Brown
• The Homesteader (1919), directed by Oscar Micheaux, starring Evelyn Preer
• The Honor of the Family (1912), starring Lon Chaney, Sr.
• Honor of the Family (1931), starring Warren Williams and Bebe Daniels
• Hoodman Blind (1923), directed by John Ford
• Humor Risk (1926), starring the Marx Brothers
• Is Everybody Happy? (1929), starring Ted Lewis; complete soundtrack survives plus one reel of picture
• Just Another Blonde (1926), starring Louise Brooks
• The Kaiser, Beast of Berlin (1918), early World War I propaganda film with Rupert Julian and Lon Chaney, Sr..
• King Kong Appears in Edo (1938), Japan's first kaiju (giant monster) film (for more details, see King Kong)
• Kismet (1930), starring Loretta Young and Otis Skinner
• The Knickerbocker Buckaroo (1919), starring Douglas Fairbanks
• Ladies of the Mob (1928), directed by William Wellman and starring Clara Bow
• Leathernecking (1930), starring Irene Dunne
• Legion of the Condemned (1928), directed by William Wellman and starring Fay Wray and Gary Cooper
• Life's Whirlpool (1917), directed by Lionel Barrymore and starring Ethel Barrymore; based on Frank Norris' novel McTeague
• London After Midnight (1927), starring Lon Chaney, Sr. and Marceline Day; reconstructed in 2002 using stills and original script
• The Lotus Eater (1921), starring John Barrymore and Colleen Moore
• Lummox (1930), starring Ben Lyon
• Madame Sans-Gene (1925), starring Gloria Swanson
• The Man from Blankleys (1930), starring John Barrymore and Loretta Young
• Manhattan Cocktail (1928), directed by Dorothy Arzner
• Marked Men (1919), directed by John Ford (credited as Jack Ford)
• The Monkey's Paw (1933), adaptation of the W. W. Jacobs horror story co-directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, director of King Kong
• The Mountain Eagle (1926), directed by Alfred Hitchcock
• Number 13 (1922), an uncompleted film directed by Alfred Hitchcock
• One Glorious Day (1922), starring Will Rogers
• Peludópolis (1931), Argentine production; the world's first animated feature film with sound, using the primitive sound-on-disc system
• Poor Jake's Demise (1913), cast includes Lon Chaney, Sr. and Louise Fazenda
• The Potters (1927), starring W.C. Fields
• The Prince of Avenue A (1920), directed by John Ford
• Queen of the Nightclubs (1929), starring Texas Guinan
• Rolled Stockings (1927), starring Louise Brooks
• Romeo and Juliet (1916), starring Theda Bara
• A Sainted Devil (1924), starring Rudolph Valentino and Nita Naldi
• Salomé (1918), starring Theda Bara
• Savage Woman (1918), starring Clara Kimball Young and Milton Sills
• The Scarlet Letter (1917)
• Sehnsucht (1920), directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Conrad Veidt
• So Big (1924), starring Colleen Moore
• A Social Celebrity (1926), starring Adolphe Menjou and Louise Brooks
• Song of the Flame (1930), a Technicolor film starring Bernice Claire, Alexander Gray and Noah Beery
• Song of the West (1930), a Technicolor film starring John Boles, Vivienne Segal and Joe E. Brown
• The Street of Sin (1926), starring Emil Jannings and Fay Wray
• Strong Boy (1929), directed by John Ford
• Sunseed (1973) directed by Frederick Cohn
• Taxi! Taxi! (1927), starring Edward Everett Horton
• That Royle Girl (1925), directed by D.W. Griffith and starring W.C. Fields
• Wanderer of the Wasteland (1924), a Technicolor feature starring Billie Dove
• The Werewolf (1913), the first werewolf film
• What A Widow! (1930), starring Gloria Swanson
• The World's Applause (1923), starring Bebe Daniels

[edit] List of incomplete or partially lost films

• The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906). Only nine minutes of this 70 minute feature survive; it is often considered to be the world’s first full-length motion picture.
• Caligula (film) This much-maligned film was originally 210 minutes long. The content of the deleted footage is discussed here, along with production stills. [1]
• Cleopatra (1917), starring Theda Bara. Approximately 40 seconds exist at George Eastman House.
• The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918 or 1919). Only 11 minutes of the original 90 minute film by Willis O'Brien remain, though it was later restored to 19 minutes.
• Devil Dog Dawson, 38 seconds of footage from this 1921 Jack Hoxie Western, found in a mislabeled tin, were the subject of an investigation in a 2006 episode of the PBS series History Detectives. [2]
• The Secret Man (1917) directed by John Ford
• The Scarlet Drop (1918) directed by John Ford
• The Miracle Man (1919), cast includes Lon Chaney, Sr.. Two clips exist as part of compilation films.
• Greed (1924) directed by Erich von Stroheim. Initially running ten hours, the film was cut by Von Stroheim to four hours, and then trimmed by the studio to 140 minutes of surviving footage.
• The Divine Woman (1927) starring Greta Garbo, only one reel survives (approximately 9 minutes)
• The Magic Flame (1927), starring Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky. The first five reels out of nine are preserved at the George Eastman House.
• Metropolis (1927) Fritz Lang. The German premiere cut no longer survives. When the film was sent to the US, it was truncated greatly by Paramount. Subsequently, UFA re-cut the film after the financial success of Paramount's version. Both of these latter versions, as well as international versions and incomplete elements survive. Existing prints are cobbled together from these various sources.
• Beau Sabreur (1928), cast included Gary Cooper. A trailer exists with footage from the film.
• The Patriot (1928), directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Emil Jannings and Lewis Stone. A few fragments and a trailer survive (at UCLA).
• The Terror (1928) starring Edward Everett Horton. Soundtrack exists.
• Gold Diggers Of Broadway (1929) Winnie Lightner, Nick Lucas. Two reels and some fragments survive.
• Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 (1929), with an All-Star cast — partial soundtrack survives
• Honky Tonk (1929) starring Sophie Tucker — complete soundtrack survives
• Married In Hollywood (1929), starring J. Harold Murray. The final reel survives (in color) at UCLA.
• My Man (1928) starring Fanny Brice — almost complete set of soundtrack discs plus soundtrack trailer survive
• On With the Show (1929) First All-Technicolor All-Talking Feature. Survives only in black and white. (a very brief clip of color footage was recently found in a toy projector)
• Paris (1929), starring Irene Bordoni and Jack Buchanan — soundtrack discs survive
• No, No Nanette (1930), starring Bernice Claire and Alexander Gray - soundtrack discs survive
• The Rogue Song (1930), a Technicolor film directed by Lionel Barrymore and starring Lawrence Tibbett. Soundtrack, 2 reels and several clips survive.
• Thunder (1929), directed by William Nigh, and starring Lon Chaney, Sr. (his last silent film). Several clips exist.
• Lost Horizon (1937) directed by Frank Capra. Capra's initial 210 minute version was cut down to 131 minutes after a preview went awfully. In his autobiography, Capra claims to have personally destroyed the first two reels. In many currently used versions, still photos and individuals frames are used to replace missing footage that accompanies the soundtrack.
• The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) Directed by Orson Welles. Fifty minutes was cut by RKO Pictures from Welles' version after an unsuccessful preview.
• Sanshiro Sugata (1943) Akira Kurosawa's first film is missing 17 minutes of its running time.
• Top Banana (1954) with Phil Silvers. Originally shot and edited in 3-D, the film was released flat. The film only exists in 16mm, and does not exist in 3-D at all.
• Southwest Passage (1954) with Joanne Dru and John Ireland. Initially released in 3-D, this feature only survives in its flat form.
• A Star Is Born (1954) starring Judy Garland and James Mason. Originally premiered at 181 minutes, Warner Bros. cut the film down by about 27 minutes for general release. The 1983 restoration included soundtrack from this cut and a few establishing shots, with stills filling in the rest.
• The Wicker Man (1973) starring Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward. All original elements to the film (camera negative, etc) are thought to be lost after being destroyed in the late 1970s.

[edit] List of found films

The following films were once thought to be lost but have now been recovered.

• Beyond the Rocks (1922) starring Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino.
• Bucking Broadway (1917) by John Ford, found in 2002 in a French archive.
• The Cook, a 1918 film staring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Buster Keaton, which was found in Norway.
• Daughter of the Night^[5] (1921) starring Bela Lugosi.
• Duck Soup (1927) starring Laurel & Hardy. Was thought lost until a copy surfaced in the 1980s.
• Frankenstein (1910) starring Charles Ogle. A print was bought by a film collector in the 1950s, who was not aware of its rarity until decades later.
• The Ghoul (1933) starring Boris Karloff and Ernest Thesiger. A damaged, incomplete print was found in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, and was thought to be the only surviving copy until a nearly pristine one was found in the archives of the British Film Institute.
• Karadjordje (1911) the first Serbian feature film directed by Ilija Stanojevic-Cica, thought lost for a long time, since 1927. Material from this movie was found in Austrian Film Archives in 2003.
• Incubus (1965) starring William Shatner.
• In Nacht Und Eis (1912), the first Titanic movie, was presumed lost around 1914 but found in a private film library in Germany in 1998.
• Mare Nostrum (1926) starring Antonio Moreno and Alice Terry, directed by Rex Ingram.
• Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors (1945) Japan's first feature-length animated film. For a long time presumed to have been confiscated and burnt by the American occupation, but a negative copy was found in Shochiku's depot in 1984.
• The Most Dangerous Game (1932), a horror filmed on the same set as King Kong, starring Fay Wray.
• Napoléon (1927) directed by Abel Gance. Never totally lost, but existing prints were once only half as long as the current restoration.
• A Page of Madness (1926), directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa. Found in the director's garden shed in the 1970s.
• The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. Although inferior prints existed, a nearly pristine print was found in the janitor's closet of a Norwegian mental asylum.

[edit] See also

• Lost work
• Lost artworks
• Social guidance film
• Ephemeral film
• Wiping
• Forgotten Silver

[edit] References

1. ^ Clara Bow.net
2. ^ New Yorker:In the Vault
3. ^ List of missing Doctor Who episodes at the BBC
4. ^ The Saga Of the Lost Space Tapes
5. ^ Sinister Cinema

[edit] External links

• List of lost silent films at www.silentera.com
• List of lost sound films (highlighted in red) at www.vitaphone.org
• List of lost films of the 1970s at The Weird World of 70s Cinema
• Blog describing many missing UK Television programmes
• The Museum of Television and Radio: "Lost" programs