There are many, many motion pictures put out by the major studios of the 1920s and earlier that are lost today. One example (which I would have loved to have seen) is the movie Hollywood, one of the first movies where nearly anybody who was anybody in the movie biz made a cameo appearance.
Sadly, however, this movie is lost today. Hollywood was made in 1923. I’m certain that there are later movies that are just as equally lost as Hollywood. My question is: what is the latest movie made by a major studio (define that as you will) that is currently lost today? Are there any movies from the 1980s and 1990s that are lost, or does one have to go further back than that? And if so, what is the latest lost movie?
I’d heard that The Wicker Man was almost lost. It’s lucky that it got rekleased at all, apparently, and doubly lucky that it survived in so close to the director’s vision.
The newest movie that I know of that’s “Lost”, as in you couldn’t find full prints of it, is Irwin Allen’s The Animal World. The animated dinosaur sections exist (they’re in the awful movie Trog), but the rest of the film, the live-action segments, are apparently scattered.
The lost movie I most want to see is London After Midnight, Lon Chaney’s vampire film.
I’n convinced that much more of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis exists than the recent restoration includes. The was apparently a 2 hour + showing of a privately-held copy in Los Angeles back in the 1980s. That’s a lot longer than the existing restored version.
I doubt this counts as a “major studio” movie, but evidently it did have a theatrical release: the 1985 movie Blood Circus. It was apparently a really horrid movie about wrestlers from outer space, or something. It was produced by the shady character who also produced the Santo Gold infomercials, which are plenty weird in their own right. The movie’s very limited theatrical run even included a giveaway “Scream Bag”.
Producer Santo Rigatuso was arrested for mail fraud, and his attorney used Blood Circus at trial to prove Rigatuso’s mental incompetence. Despite such compelling evidence, he was convicted. The film is now either lost or destroyed; all that survives are the clips that were shown during the Santo Gold infomercials.
By “lost” are you referring to films that are no longer in existence (destroyed, deteriorated film, or misplaced), or films that are not commercially available? Or both?
I don’t think there are many films after the 50’s that are “lost”, as in, no prints exist. And the ones that are either porno’s or B-Movies. The latest one I can find is Gordon Lewis’Black Love (1972).
Well they did do a 45 min. reconstruction of the film, using still photograhs, which won a Rondo Award, so I guess it’s not completely “lost”.
Oh, it’s still lost – that’s not the same thing. There is a book out of the shooting script, illustrated with the photos, but I haven’t heard of this film. Where can you see/rent it?
I’ve been to that site before – but it’s not by any means a complete list, or even tries to be. It’s an idiosyncratic list of flicks the guy who runs the site is looking for.
Some interesting stuff I’d been wobdering about – I’ve always wanted to see The Naked Ape, and Femmes Fatales disappeared after I saw it once. But I haven’t heard of most of the filmsd on his list, and I’m not particularly interested in most of them.
And it ain’t got London After Midnight.
By all contemporary accounts, London After Midnight was a rather lackluster film with the only thing going for it being Chaney’s makeup. Were it not lost today, it wouldn’t likely be remembered at all. It was remade, more or less shot-for-shot (Tod Browning directed both), 8 years later under the new title Mark of the Vampire with Bela Lugosi, and of course there’s the recent photo reconstruction that’s already been mentioned, it’s available on DVD in the Lon Chaney box set.
Don’t get me wrong, if a print were to surface, I’d be there in line to see it, but as far as my lost film tears go, I’ll save those for Greed. I’d also like to see the rest of the Lucille Love: Girl of Mystery serial. Fragments of several episodes exist, but nothing approaching the whole thing. It’s really, really stupid and cheesy, but you get the feeling that it realizes that and runs with it.
Running time isn’t a useful measure for silent films as the frame rate is variable. The most recent restoration of Metropolis transfered the prints at 24fps and was 124 minutes long. It’s the most complete version known to exist, but is still missing about 30 minutes (using that same frame rate). There is a 210 minute version, but it’s actually less complete–it just runs much slower and reuses a few shots.
Canada’s first sound feature, a western called The Crimson Paradise, wasn’t made till 1933. It was shot mostly in British Columbia and had a gala premiere in Vancouver. It was later lost due to what the CBC called “poor preservation,” probably meaning some archive had it but just let it rot. :mad:
I’d like to see the newsreel version of NBC’s first TV broadcast in 1936. RKO Pathé News filmed it as it was being broadcast live, with a movie camera right beside the TV camera. RKO handed over the reel to their parent RCA, who wanted it for a screening for bigwigs who hadn’t been able to make the live show. It was subsequently “lost,” but seeing as the show was so top secret that even the press weren’t invited, it was probably burned.
Having seen The Wicker Man all I can say is that “luck” is in the eye of the beholder.
As I’ve noted before, most of the TV shows of the 1950s, and many from the 1960s are lost – film destroyed and tapes erased. For anyone who thinks Father Knows Best or Leave It to Beaver serve as sociological recordings of the past, think about The Goldbergs and the 15-minute newscasts of that era.
Roger Corman’s version of the Fantastic Four from 1994 isn’t exactly lost, but it was never officially released. It only exists as crappy bootlegs.
There’s also the strange story of Exorcist: the Beginning (2004). There was a prequel shot for The Exorcist. This was originally filmed by Paul Schraeder and the studio hated hated hated it. hey hated it so much that they canned around 90% of the movie and hired Renny Harlin to remake it. The original film was eventually released this year as Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist due to write in campaign from fans, so there are now battling prequels
I hate to pit my faulty memory against someone who clearly knows what they’re talking about, but when I saw it recently it was preceded by a brief talk in which they explained that a four hour version was circulating awhile back (which may just be an exaggeration of the 210-minute version you’re discussing - I don’t know) that was essentially just every scrap of film from it they could find - I was left with the impression, at least, that it was considered to be much further from the director’s vision, as it was sliced and diced (and may even have had footage that was not put in the director’s own release of the film, though again, my memory fails me.) It’s safe to say, though, that it wasn’t a good version of the film.
The OP asked about movies. But a lot of important television broadcasts are lost. Among those which no longer exist:
The first commercial American television broadcast in 1939 with Franklin Roosevelt opening the World’s Fair
Harry Truman giving the first Presidential address from the White House
The first Super Bowl in 1967
The first NFL championship game in 1951
Don Larsen’s perfect World Series game
Johnny Carson’s first Tonight Show (along with most of Steve Allen’s shows)
Early BBC concerts by The Beatles
Over half of the original Honeymooners episodes Hound of Heaven, a 1953 TV movie featuring James Dean
Several years worth of early Dr Who episodes
The entire run of Ernie Kovac’s first series, Time to Get Ready
Pretty much every episode of game shows and soap operas from the 40s and 50s and many from the 60s
Actually, they were still erasing daytime programming as late as 1978.
As far as films go: Of the various films made using the 2-color Technicolor process in the 1920’s and early 1930’s, a large number either don’t exist altogether, or only exist in 1) fragments or 2) black-and-white copies.
I don’t think there were any newreel cameras on the beach at D-Day. You might be misremembering Robert Cappa, a Life photographer who took 106 shots on the beach only to have all but eleven of them lost when an over-anxious technician cranked the heat on the dryer up too high. Those were still photos, though, not moving.
Relevant to the topic of this thread, the Film Threat had two editions of the Top 10 Lost Films. The website also has a weekly feature called “The Bootleg Files” which reviews movies and TV shows which are considered “lost” or have simply fallen through the cracks so that they’re not readily available on tape or DVD.
BTW, isn’t this topic better suited for Cafe Society?
