Current Events > Lost films... So tragic and fascinating

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Films may go missing for a number of reasons. One major contributing factor is the common use of nitrate film until the early 1950s. This type of film is highly flammable, and there have been several devastating fires, such as the Universal Pictures fire in 1924, the 1937 Fox vault fire and the 1965 MGM vault fire.[1]
Black-and-white film prints judged to be otherwise worthless were sometimes incinerated to salvage the meager scrap value of the silver image particles in their emulsions.[2] Films have disappeared when production companies went bankrupt.[2] Occasionally, a studio would remake a film and destroy the earlier version.[2] Silent films in particular were once seen as having no further commercial value and were simply junked to clear out expensive storage space.[3]

Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation claims that "half of all American films made before 1950 and over 90% of films made before 1929 are lost forever."[4] Deutsche Kinemathek estimates that 8090% of silent films are gone;[5] the film archive's own list contains over 3,500 lost films.
A study by the Library of Congress states that 75% of all silent films are now lost.[6] While others dispute whether the percentage is quite that high,[7] it is impractical to enumerate any but the more notable and those that can be sourced.
For example, roughly 200 out of over 500 Mlis' films and 350 out of over 1,000 of Alice Guy's films survive.

Can you imagine how exciting it would be to find a lost academy award winner

dolomedes posted...

the bbc used to literally tape over tv shows lmao

Yep. Many early episodes of Doctor Who are lost cause of that

It's a subject I care about a lot and it is tragic.

Like in the movie Hugo.

One of the stranger stories of this nature, though one with a happier ending than most, is The Life Story of Davis Lloyd George. IIRC, it was basically completed, George's highly conservative political opponents chastised its existence as a propaganda piece, and so George intervened to have the film suppressed, fearing the controversy of its release could hurt his career at the time. Some 80+ years later, the materials of the largely completed film were discovered, and it was editted and screened for the first time. It's said that if the film had been released, it might have changed the course of British film history, because (and I say this having seen it) it was far more sophisticated and ambitious than almost any other movie made at the time, in any country.

bump

I didn't know they made a Lost movie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuMont_Television_Network#DuMont_programming_library

Lost material of any kind is sad to read about.

I go to a lost media site sometimes. It has a pretty good list of lost or partially found movies, shows and games. There are even televised tragedies on there too like the Droz incident in WWF.

https://lostmediawiki.com/Home

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We almost lost Monty Python's Flying Circus due to this policy, until John Cleese intervened. Apparently all 'light entertainment' (comedy, quiz shows, etc) was considered not worth preserving past a year or two.

Sometimes I'll think about innovative music that just never made it out into the world and disappeared forever.

Now with the internet it's so easy to record something and at least get it out there somewhere. Not long ago thought you had to know someone who knew someone and so on, or just never had the ability/chance to record it.

There probably so much amazing music that no one will ever hear.

Reminder that Roddy McDowell nearly went to prison for collecting films.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/90689/when-roddy-mcdowall-was-busted-fbi-pirating-films

All the legal bullshittery of videogame "preservation" already happened with film.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/7/6/AAdlC_AADFCk.jpg

I will never know the outcome of this fight.

Does the bad guy hit the good guy with the board and knock him out? Does the good guy duck a swing of the board and punch out the bad guy? It bugs me not knowing.

I support preservation

masterpug53 posted...

We almost lost Monty Python's Flying Circus due to this policy, until John Cleese intervened. Apparently all 'light entertainment' (comedy, quiz shows, etc) was considered not worth preserving past a year or two.

Now that would have been a crime