What is the most *valuable* movie ever made?

Factual Questions
1

No, not the most expensive in cost to produce, nor box office figures, or the like…

I am referring to an original complete filmstock negative, or finished print. Most likely, the film would be extremely rare and a powerful classic. I should define “most valuable” as in three parts (a)monetary value (b)rarity ©content.
Anyone may feel free to name films according to one, or more of the three. I am, however, leaning more towards the monetary value and rarity. The movie can be from any era, but older doesn’t necessarily mean rarer. If there is only ONE original negative or print remaining in existence, of a movie, then that’s it.

hypothetical example: The classic silent film, Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” of 1926 is critically acclaimed as one of the most outstanding science fiction films of early cinema. Unfortunately, the film studio forced Lang into cutting out a great deal of his original work. The film is still an incredible piece of work, but one can only imagine how much more stunning it would be, if the undiscovered missing footage were found in restorable or perfect condition. If such footage were to exist, it would be extremely valuable. Metropolis has been pieced together many times over the years, yet a great deal remains missing to this day.

Are there any film students/enthusiasts here who can offer insight into the most valuable film ever made? Note: I only used missing footage as an example, not a requirement. Also, this is not intended to become a debate on what is the “greatest” movie ever made, as in the critical and Oscar sense. I do realize, however, that “most valuable” and “greatest” may be intertwined, and difficult (or impossible) to classify as only one, or the other.

2

I imagine that the original Zapruder (sp?) film is pretty valuable. Not sure where one would go to purchase it.

3

I think I remember hearing one time that the largest price ever paid for a film was x$ for an original version of “The Tramp” with Charlie Chaplin.

Who knows?

Jabe

4

Well, speaking as an ArchiveGuy (film, that is), allow me to speculate…

If you’re talking about missing footage, I think one of the true Holy Grails of the film world is the 40-odd minutes cut from Orson Welles’ classic The Magnificent Ambersons.

The story, of course, is that while Welles was out of the country filming It’s All True, RKO took the 2-hour+ cut and butchered it to a scant 88 minutes. This was in partial retaliation for the not-so-hot box office performance of Citizen Kane the year before, and partially for pure economic reasons–the film got poor response in audience pre-screenings, and by creating a shorter running time, the studio felt it was cutting its losses by making it short enough to run more times per day per screen. This was all done, of course, against Welles’ will (and he only found out about it, IIRC, when it was already too late)

From there, it’s all speculation. Some have claimed the original cut is better than Kane, maybe not hard to believe considering how good the existing film is already. Some records indicate that the removed footage was subsequently destroyed (though we archives have heard that before). I think a big reason it’s considered perhaps the prize find is because the original cut would be the last film Welles would have made without studio interference. As a master whose talent went largely unfulfilled in the movies, the opportunity to see the follow-up to the “greatest film ever” (certainly an arguable status for Kane, but a half-century worth of polls have failed to knock it from that position) would be a remarkable experience.

Certainly there are countless other “lost” films and missing footage, but few have the same level of visibility, poignancy, and high drama as the Ambersons back story.

As far as other valuable films go, I would say that the original camera negative for Edwin S. Porter’s 1903 The Great Train Robbery, a seminal work in film history, would count as “priceless”, particularly since it’s still in pretty good shape in the nitrate vaults at the Library of Congress.

5

As far as rarity, the most searched-for lost film is Theda Bara’s 1918 “Cleopatra.” Anyone who found a print of that could auction it off for a small fortune.

6

Actual footage of Al Gore inventing the Internet.

7

There is, and can only ever be, ONE original camera negative period. The actual reel of celluloid which was in the camera during filming. Everything is struck originally from it.

As for the Zapruder film, Abraham Zapruder sold the camera negative to Life Magazine for $100,000. A few years ago Time/Life sold it back to the Zapruder family for $1.

8

At least until the government declared custody of it, and paid the Zapruders $16 million in compensation last year.

The film is about 28 seconds long; IIRC the movie camera Zapruder used shot at 16 frames/sec instead of 24…

[doing some math on the calculator]

Each FRAME of the Zapruder film is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $35,700, depending on the exact length of the clip. I believe we have a strong candidate for most valuable movie (if you consider it a “movie” under the definition of the OP).

9

Personally, Eve, as a horror film fan I’d be happier with a rediscovery of Tod Browning’s lost 1927 film London After Midnight. For those unfamiliar with it, this is the vampire movie Browning made four years before he made Dracula with Lon Chaney Sr playing the vampire. It’s believed all prints are lost and only stills from the movie have survived.

10

I read recently of a discovered animated short film called “Grandma Steps Out”. The film was discovered to be Walt Disney’s first work as an animator, originally titled “Little Red Riding Hood” (the film is probably a bootleg). The cartoon had been considered lost forever; the film is theoretically priceless.

11

There are also two chaplin films, one thought to be lost forever and probably is, the other also thought to be lost forever but a few people like my Dad (who is a Chaplin scholar) have copies. The first of the two is, like others mentioned, theoretically priceless. I believe it was the first film Chaplin ever made, before he had the Little Tramp character. Only production stills survive. I can’t remember what the other film was. I just remember my Dad telling me that most people think it’s lost.

12

Probably not in the league you guys are talking, but I’ve read several times from supposedly reliable sources that Elvis used to film his ‘orgies’ (such as they were) and that Parker now has the 8mms. Ought to be worth something.

13

A pond on one of the major studio sets in Hollywood was recently drained and recovered from it was decades’ worth of cut scenes from many well-known films, including some Chaplin films.

Film degradation is becoming a major problem these days. The expense of recovering some less-than-notable films may prove to be problematic in the preservation of early works.