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http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ne ... nt+News%29" target="_blank

Early Alfred Hitchcock effort discovered
A portion of 'The White Shadow,' a 1923 silent film that's considered to be his first credit, is found in a New Zealand archive.
By Susan King, Los Angeles Times
August 2, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
It's the kind of surprise the Master of Suspense would have loved.

The National Film Preservation Foundation and the New Zealand Film Archive are announcing Wednesday the discovery of the first 30 minutes of a 1923 British film, "The White Shadow," considered to be the earliest feature film in which Alfred Hitchcock has a credit.

Hitchcock, who was just 24 at the time, was the writer, assistant director, editor and production designer on the melodrama, starring Betty Compson as twin sisters — one good and one bad — and Clive Brook. "The White Shadow" will have its "re-premiere" Sept. 22 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The silent film will be added to the academy's Hitchcock collection, which also includes the legendary director's papers.

Photos: Alfred Hitchcock's career

"What we are getting is the missing link," said David Sterritt, chairman of the National Society of Film Critics and author of "The Films of Alfred Hitchcock." "He was a creative young man who had already done some writing. We know the kind of creative personality he had when he was young and we know a few years later he started directing movies himself. What we don't know is how these things were coalescing in his imagination."

"White Shadow's" director, Graham Cutts, is described by Sterritt as a "hack" who didn't take too kindly to Hitchcock to the point that his "professional jealousy toward the gifted upstart made the job all the more challenging."

"White Shadow" was discovered in a collection of unidentified American nitrate prints that had been safeguarded at the New Zealand archive since 1989. That's when Tony Osborne, the grandson of New Zealand projectionist and collector Jack Murtagh, brought the highly unstable nitrate material to the archive. Because the archive only has the funding to restore its country's vintage films, experts couldn't spend much time with the American releases (though "White Shadow" was a British film it was released in the U.S. in 1924 by Lewis J. Selznick Enterprises). Selznick's son, producer David O. Selznick, would bring Hitchcock to America 15 years later to make "Rebecca."

"We took quite a lot of care into storing them. It was kind of an investment," said Fred Stark, head of the New Zealand archive. "We would wind through these films every 18 to 24 months, which enabled us to keep them from getting stuck, and if there were problems we were able to correct them."

Last year, the National Film Preservation Foundation, the nonprofit charitable affiliate of the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress, received a grant to send an archivist down to the New Zealand archive to check out the American films in the collection. Some 75 features, shorts, newsreels and fragments were discovered last year and divided up between the academy's archive, the UCLA Film & Television Archive, the Library of Congress, the George Eastman House and the Museum of Modern Art. The biggest find in that cache was the 1927 John Ford film "Upstream," which was screened at the academy last year.

This year, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which funded the first trip, gave the NFPF more funds to check out what was left. Annette Melville, head of the NFPF, noted that "it was kind of a different activity than the previous work, which had more complete films. A lot of these films will be partial films and fragments."

Nitrate expert Leslie Lewis is NFPF's Sherlock Holmes. She was the lead sleuth last year and also went through the material this time around with the help of the staff at the New Zealand archive. "We pulled a bunch of reels from the nitrate vaults and I just started going through them," Lewis said. "'White Shadow' was initially labeled 'Twin Sisters.'"

Inspecting the footage on the light table, she knew that this was a quality production because the tinted images were striking. "I went home and started poking around, did a lot of research and narrowed down the possibilities," Lewis said. "I realized that this was more like a film that Hitchcock worked on. I went to their archives the next day and used their research to pull out some contemporary reviews and summaries and confirmed it was 'White Shadow.'"

Initially, she only had two reels of the film. "But I was inspecting another reel that was just identified as 'Unidentified American film.' I put it on the table and I recognized the actors and the sets. I took dozens of photographs of each reel and then compared them [to the other two reels] and they belonged together."

Among the 60 other titles arriving soon on our shores is a 1928 two-color Technicolor short, "The Love Charm"; an early film from female director Alice Guy; a 1920 dance demonstration; and a fragment of a 1914 Keystone Kops lost comedy, "In the Clutches of the Gang." These "lost" films will be preserved by the five archives over the next three years.

For more information, go to http://www.filmpreservation.org" target="_blank and http://www.filmarchive.org.nz" target="_blank.

Photos: 'The White Shadow'

susan.king(at)latimes.com
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

Far be it from me to tell the distinguished David Sterritt, chairman of the National Society of Film Critics and author of "The Films of Alfred Hitchcock". he's out of order, but I have to disagree strongly with his characterisation of Graham Cutts as a "Hack". By all accounts not the most pleasant man, and there are plenty of tales of how he could disparage his proteges, and there were drink problems, but these shouldn't get in the way of the fact that he could direct a film; in the early to mid '20's he was in the first rank. No hack directed The Rat or Triumph of The Rat.
His tragedy is that revisionists now tend to ascribe his other successes to a chubby young man who started by writing his title cards. Where - and from whom - do they imagine young Alfred learnt the basics of filmmaking ???

Interesting. 1923 also saw Hitchcock writing Woman to Woman which also starred Betty Compson and Clive Brook. In 1929 Compson remade the film as a talkie.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/fi ... ound-in-NZ" target="_blank

Early Hitchcock film found in NZ
LAURA WESTBROOK
A rare early film from Alfred Hitchcock that was unearthed in New Zealand has been labelled "priceless" by historians of the suspense master.

The National Film Preservation Foundation and the New Zealand Film Archive found part of Alfred Hitchcock's 1923 film The White Shadow following an international search.

It is considered to be the earliest feature film for which the celebrated director is credited.

The lost film starred Betty Compson as twin sisters - one good, and the other "without a soul". Hitchcock, who was just 24 at the time, was the writer, assistant director, editor and production designer on the melodrama.

"This is him showing how multi-talented he was at a very young age,''said Frank Stark, head of the New Zealand archive.

"There were also stories the named director - Graham Cutts - of the film wasn't the greatest. To a large degree Hitchcock filled in the gaps, even took over you might say.

"So this is a really early sign of just how broadly skilled Hitchcock was. Hitchcock was famous, in his later films for having a meticulous control of all the detail, from the acting performance right down to the sets and costumes. I think it's an early sign of just how precocious he was."

The country's film archive announced today that the film turned up among a cache of unidentified American nitrate prints held in the archive for the last 23 years.

However, only the first three reels of the six-reel feature have been found and no other copy is known to exist. The surviving reels of Hitchcock's The White Shadow will be preserved at Park Road Post Production in Wellington.

New Zealand projectionist and collector Jack Murtagh is credited for salvaging the film, as well as other silent-era movies. After he died in 1989, the nitrate prints were sent to the Film Archive by his grandson, Tony Osborne.

"From boyhood, my grandfather was an avid collector - be it films, stamps, coins or whatever. He was known, internationally, as having one of the largest collection of cigarette cards and people would travel from all over the world to view his collection. Some would view him as rather eccentric.

Yes, all the news stories seem to be either a bit sniffy about Graham Cutts or fail to mention him at all, which I think is a great shame. I'm all for celebrating Hitchcock's early work, but he wasn't the only one making films of interest, skill or ambition in Britain in the 1920s and we do our cinematic heritage a disservice if we forget that.

http://silentlondon.co.uk/2011/08/03/th ... cock-film/" target="_blank" target="_blank

Personally, I think it's just as exciting to find this piece of a BETTY COMPSON film.

Le Sigh, when I read the headline my heart leapt for a nanosecond that the discovery was The Mountain Eagle.

In any case, new discoveries are always good. Hooray!

I'd like to see some of Hitchcock's work when he was illustrating title cards.

Here's a review I did for the IMDB of Hitchcock's THE PLEASURE GARDENS, which I saw at the Museum of Modern art a few months ago. It concerns itself with the common attempt to misattribute excellence.


Looking at Hitchcock's early pictures, one struggles to see signs of his future greatness, like looking through every manger for the baby with the halo. But this, the first complete Hitchcock movie, shows no signs of his future greatness. He is clearly a journeyman director, some one who shows promise, but sent to Berlin for his final exam.

On the plus side, this movie starts off surprisingly well, with a snappy, American-paced chorines-on-the-town plot. If they had cast Marion Davies and Marie Prevost in this, it would be typical, if rather underwritten. The start moves fast, plot points pop up, and suddenly we take a turn and the story descends into melodrama.

Fairly typical of Hitchcock, you might say and you would be right, but he hasn't got any sense of what his chosen symbols are -- both leads are brunettes, which will come as a surprise to anyone who knows Hitchcock's taste for icy blondes. The symbolic items are standard and not particularly shocking -- Virginia Valli's wedding-bed deflowering is indicated by an apple with a large chunk bitten out of it -- and the actors are not really up to their jobs.

Hitchcock was never a great director of actors but a great director of scenes. By 1927 his visual flair got his bosses to invest in great actors for his pictures, starting with Ivor Novello for THE LODGER. But here, everyone is.... at best, adequate, with Miles Mander very stagy and whoever plays his native lover -- still miscredited in the IMDb as Nita Naldi -- seemingly brain-damaged.

There are a couple of interestingly composed visual glosses: the door that Mander must go through looks like a Turkish harem door and the decoration on either side differs dramatically; on one side is life, on another death. But this is UFA, with great cameramen and all the technicians who made great expressionist fare like CALIGARI and modernist masterpieces like Lang's work ready and eager to work.... and there's none of that here.

I find it hard to give this an exact rating: the great start is sunk by the foolishness of the ending, and Hitchcock at the the start of his career is not the great film maker he would be in another thirty years -- or even four. But it is Hitchcock, and therefore demands our attention, so I'll give it a good mark for that.

But if it weren't Hitchcock's first film, no one would care. It probably wouldn't even still be in existence.


Bob

Silent London wrote:Yes, all the news stories seem to be either a bit sniffy about Graham Cutts or fail to mention him at all, which I think is a great shame. I'm all for celebrating Hitchcock's early work, but he wasn't the only one making films of interest, skill or ambition in Britain in the 1920s and we do our cinematic heritage a disservice if we forget that.

http://silentlondon.co.uk/2011/08/03/th ... cock-film/" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

This looks like another debilitating case of Auteur Theory. Did Hitchcock ever sweep the studio floor in his younger days? You know, like, when he was just starting out? Because I'm sure we could make a case that his cinematic influence was being felt even then.

I'm with Donna, when I saw the headline I thought they'd discovered a print of The Mountain Eagle. So what with Nita being the masthead this month, and the possibility that The Mountain Eagle had been found, my DoN heart was a-racing, pitty pat.

Ah, i got my hopes up for The Mountain Eagle as well. But, hey, a new Betty Compson film--you could do worse.

And i notice that IMDB still has Nita miscredited for The Pleasure Garden.

By the way, has anyone seen The Passionate Adventure? (which definitely has the wrong picture posted on IMDB)

greta

greta de groat wrote:Ah, i got my hopes up for The Mountain Eagle as well. But, hey, a new Betty Compson film--you could do worse.

And i notice that IMDB still has Nita miscredited for The Pleasure Garden.

By the way, has anyone seen The Passionate Adventure? (which definitely has the wrong picture posted on IMDB)

greta

They'll have her credited for The Pleasure Garden until the sun goes nova. That she's not in it is completely irrelevant.

Gracious. That really is the wrong photo, isn't it?

I would ditch this picture (and a couple of other Hitchcocks) to see the rediscovery of something of REAL importance.

FrankFay wrote:I would ditch this picture (and a couple of other Hitchcocks) to see the rediscovery of something of REAL importance.

I agree, like the lost El Brendel film "Born to Fight"

Both THE WHITE SHADOW and THE PASSIONATE ADVENTURE were released in the United States by Lewis J. Selznick Enterprises. I hope THE PASSIONATE ADVENTURE turns up as well. There's a photograph in the David O. Selznick Collection at the Harry Ransom Center of Alfred Hitchcock sitting in Myron Selznick's lap during the production of one of these pictures.

greta de groat wrote:Ah, i got my hopes up for The Mountain Eagle as well. But, hey, a new Betty Compson film--you could do worse.

Me four.

And don't they know that the re-premiere of recently discovered silents are to occur the night BEFORE Cinecon starts?!

When it comes to assessing the importance of the film, and of its director, don't take my word for it; read Mr Urbanora on the subject. http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/2011/08/ ... um=twitter
Generally speaking, the British Silent Film end of Facebook are going apeshit over that description of Cutts.....and his demotion within this story by the world media generally.

greta de groat wrote:
By the way, has anyone seen The Passionate Adventure? (which definitely has the wrong picture posted on IMDB)

greta

I don't know, even Clive Brook was young once....

Yes, saw it a few years back at the British Silent Film Festival, Nottingham; would love to see it again. One of the films that drew Hollywood attention to Clive Brook, and atmospherically directed I thought, as the husband trades worlds in the wake of WW1.


http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/457310/

Penfold wrote: Yes, saw it a few years back at the British Silent Film Festival, Nottingham; would love to see it again. One of the films that drew Hollywood attention to Clive Brook, and atmospherically directed I thought, as the husband trades worlds in the wake of WW1.

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/457310/

Ooh, is Cutt's version (or any version, come to think of it) of Three Men in a Boat still with us?

Frederica wrote:

Penfold wrote: Yes, saw it a few years back at the British Silent Film Festival, Nottingham; would love to see it again. One of the films that drew Hollywood attention to Clive Brook, and atmospherically directed I thought, as the husband trades worlds in the wake of WW1.

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/457310/

Ooh, is Cutt's version (or any version, come to think of it) of Three Men in a Boat still with us?

It appears the 1956 version is around, and I saw a television version in the 1970's which was very good.

The Wall Street Journal have a frame enlargement up:



At the very least, it looks to be in pretty good condition, and seeing Betty Compson doing a `Lady of the Night' type job could be interesting. Apparently AMPAS is doing a showing on 22 September.

Each and every discovery of lost footage is welcome but looks like we're not the only ones to be slightly sceptical of the original reportage:

It's already more hyped than it was first time around

The White Shadow (1924), the newly discovered lost Alfred Hitchcock movie, certainly wasn't one of the high points in his early career. "The film was a total failure," writes Donald Spoto in his Hitchcock biography. "A box-office disaster," agrees rival biographer John Russell Taylor.

Nonetheless, the re-emergence of the film is bound to cause huge excitement. It was shot in Islington, north London, and was the follow-up to Woman To Woman (1923), an international hit that the same team had made the year before.

It seems that all the ingenuity and artistry went into the earlier film. The White Shadow's failure was as spectacular as the success of its predecessor.

It's an irony that The White Shadow has now turned up. The British Film Institute recently named Woman To Woman as one of its "most wanted" in its search for missing films. That movie remains lost whereas the reviled and unsuccessful second film has been unearthed.

One prediction can safely be made: The White Shadow will be treated with far more reverence today than it was in 1924.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 31383.html

Luke McKiernan heralds the finding of this lost Cutts film in his always enjoyable Bioscope blog today.

http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/2011/08/ ... iscovered/" target="_blank

Bob

Silent London have also highlighted Cutts (whilst also sharing some of our annoyance at the process of media hype I shall hereby christen `Zepping' ):

The White Shadow – when a Hitchcock film isn’t a Hitchcock film

AUGUST 3, 2011

Celebrity sells, and newspapers, news websites and trade journals alike all know that the likelihood of a story being read increases if a big name is attached to it. Woe betide you if you want to write about the silent era without mentioning Chaplin, Hitchcock or DW Griffith – preferably in the first paragraph.

So reports of the discovery of “Alfred Hitchcock’s Earliest Surviving Film” need to be taken with a pinch of salt. To recap, a few reels of The White Shadow (1923) have been discovered in a film archive in New Zealand. And this is how the BBC opens its online news story:

"Footage from Alfred Hitchcock’s first film has been uncovered in New Zealand.

The British director was 24 when he made the 1923 silent film, The White Shadow."

The piece goes on to mention the film’s stars Clive Brook (Shanghai Express) and Betty Compson (The Docks of New York) – but there is no word of the film’s director. Because yes, Hitchcock worked on The White Shadow, as assistant director, art director, editor and writer, but the film was directed by someone else – Graham Cutts. While we’re always interested in early work by Hitchcock, whatever his job title, particularly with the forthcoming 2012 silent Hitchcock extravaganza on the horizon, we should also be happy to find out more about Cutts.

In the 1920s, Graham Cutts was ticket-office gold. He was called “a sure-fire maker of box-office attractions” by Kinematograph Weekly, and his Rat trilogy, starring Ivor Novello as an absurdly attractive Parisian jewel thief, is still celebrated and enjoyed today. Cutts’s films are sophisticated, sexual and employ any number of tracking shots, dramatic lighting and off-kilter camera angles to ramp up the tension – and the cinematic pleasure. Yes he worked with Hitchcock as a young man, but also Novello, Noël Coward and Basil Dean. He even made a successful transition to sound – with a career behind the camera that ran into the 40s.

The White Shadow looks like a fascinating find, with Compson playing twin sisters, one good and one evil, and plenty of opportunity for Cutt’s dynamic style to come into play. But please don’t take the credit away from a name that has almost been forgotten and give it to someone who doesn’t deserve it.

And if you have a copy of The Mountain Eagle in your loft at home, that really is a lost Hitchcock silent – so please call the British Film Institute right away, and tell them I sent you.

http://silentlondon.co.uk/

MAN I hear this on BBC world news this afternoon on local PBS station whoaaa I can't wait to see it

Even it was disaster

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/03/lo ... w-zealand/" target="_blank

Lost Hitchcock film found in New Zealand
Researchers combing through a New Zealand film vault have found a lost work of legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock.

The film, titled "The White Shadow," was made in 1923 and released in 1924. It may be the earliest known work of Hitchcock, according to the National Film Preservation Foundation, which will help restore the movie along with the New Zealand Film Archive, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, George Eastman House, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art and UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Only three reels of the six-reel film are known to have survived, according to the New Zealand Film Archive.

Hitchcock is credited with writing the film as well as being its assistant director, editor and art director. Graham Cutts was the director.

"This is one of the most significant developments in memory for scholars, critics, and admirers of Hitchcock’s extraordinary body of work," David Sterritt, author of "The Films of Alfred Hitchcock," said in a statement. "These first three reels of 'The White Shadow' – more than half the film – offer a priceless opportunity to study his visual and narrative ideas when they were first taking shape."

Hitchcock was 24 when "The White Shadow" was made. He had broken in to the film industry three years earlier.

Sterritt said having to work under Cutts made Hitchcock's achievement in "The White Shadow" more remarkable.

"At just 24 years old, Alfred Hitchcock wrote the film’s scenario, designed the sets, edited the footage, and served as assistant director to Graham Cutts, whose professional jealousy toward the gifted upstart made the job all the more challenging," Sterritt said in the statement.

Film archivists describe "The White Shadow" as "a wild, atmospheric melodrama starring Betty Compson in a dual role as twin sisters, one angelic and the other 'without a soul.' ”

It features "mysterious disappearances, mistaken identity, steamy cabarets, romance, chance meetings, madness, and even the transmigration of souls," according to the film archive's release. "Critics faulted the improbable story but praised the acting and 'cleverness of the production.' ”

The three reels of the film were found in the collection of Jack Murtagh, a New Zealand projectionist. His grandson, Tony Osborne, gave the collection to the New Zealand Film Archive after Murtagh died in 1989.

Leslie Anne Lewis of the National Film Preservation Foundation was researching the films in the New Zealand archive when she came across two prints that looked to her like the work of a master, according to the archive.

The New Zealand archive's inventory listed the film as "Two Sisters" since it was missing its opening credits. Lewis was able to use the film's stars, distributor and storylines to link it to movie reviews from the time and make a positive identification, according to the archive.

The reels are on highly flammable nitrate. Technicians at Park Road Post Production in Wellington, New Zealand, will make black-and-white duplicate negatives as part of the restoration process.

"We feel privileged to be involved in such an important project," lab chief Brian Scadden said in a statement.

Internet Movie Database lists Hitchcock as a director of 67 titles, both movies and television. He was nominated for the best director Oscar five times with no wins, but his 1940 film "Rebecca" won for best picture. He received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement during the 1967 Oscar ceremonies.

Hitchcock directed his last film, "Family Plot," in 1976. Other notable films include "The Birds" (1963), "Psycho" (1960), "Rear Window" (1954) and "Lifeboat" (1944). He died in 1980.

Once "The White Shadow" is restored, plans will be made for public screenings and online viewing, according to the film archive.

Because only the first three reels of the film have been found, the ending will, of course, be a cliffhanger.

Tons of stuff out there. Just wait till the upcoming (before end of 2011) report authored by David Pierce and stunning database of which silent features exist and where. Takes money though..I know it is economically brutal out there but if you are financially able at this time, donate and earmark specifically toward repatriations. You will IMO not be disappointed--the awaiting treasures are simply amazing IMO....

Frederica wrote:

Penfold wrote: Yes, saw it a few years back at the British Silent Film Festival, Nottingham; would love to see it again. One of the films that drew Hollywood attention to Clive Brook, and atmospherically directed I thought, as the husband trades worlds in the wake of WW1.

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/457310/

Ooh, is Cutt's version (or any version, come to think of it) of Three Men in a Boat still with us?

It is, the BFI have a viewing copy; I don't know if it's 'Out There'....I'll make enquiries.

More images from the film.

First and most important to me WON IN A CLOSET will be shown September 22, 2011 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater at Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences headquarters in Beverly Hills. As I think you know WON IN A CLOSET was returned courtesy of the National Film Preservation Foundation and the New Zealand Film Archive among the first 75 American silent films and now 60 more! December 10, 2010 Rob Farr and a number of film historians saw it at the Library of Congress, he wrote a wonderful review which is at Looking for Mabel. I made a wish, to see it and NOW!
Joy and happiness reign throughout my world.T

THE WHITE SHADOW” will be screened September 22; according to the press release the program also will feature two recently rediscovered short films, “including one directed by and starring silent-era superstar Mabel Normand.”
http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/woninacloset.htm

And yes, THE WHITE SHADOW sounds interesting but…It isn’t Mabel Normand’s first reported directed comedy – did you notice that the AP called her a SUPERSTAR.
The news stories tell about finding the first 30 minutes of a 1923 British film, THE WHITE SHADOW as if it was an Alfred Hitchcock movie but… THE WHITE SHADOW was directed by Graham Cutts. Produced by Michael Balcon and Victor Saville. Screenplay by Michael Morton. Starring Betty Compson, Clive Brook, Henry Victor. In England in 1923, Alfred Hitchcock was 24 and this was his first credit as assistant director, production designer, editor and also he received a writing credit. A headline stating the discovery of “Alfred Hitchcock’s Earliest Surviving Film” maybe a wee bit misleading. Finding the only footage of THE WHITE SHADOW in New Zealand’s second group this time 60. A big thank you to Foundation Director Annette Melville, who said Wednesday that the reels of THE WHITE SHADOW were found among films donated to the archive by the family of New Zealand projectionist and collector Jack Murtagh.

THE WHITE SHADOW stars Clive Brook (Shanghai Express) and Betty Compson (The Docks of New York) and was directed by Graham Cutts, the “sure-fire maker of box-office attractions” according to the Kinematograph Weekly. In THE WHITE SHADOW, Betty Compson plays twin sisters, one good and one evil. Graham Cutts’ Rat trilogy, starring Ivor Novello is still celebrated and enjoyed. His films are considered sophisticated, sexual and employ any number of tracking shots, dramatic lighting and off-kilter camera angles to ramp up the tension – and a cinematic pleasure. He made the transition to sound sucessfully. In THE WHITE SHADOW he has opportunities to show his dynamic style.
Of course, this silent film will add to the understanding of Hitchcock. David Sterritt, the author of THE FILMS OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK, writes that Graham Cutts, was “a hack who didn't take too kindly to Hitchcock to the point that his professional jealousy toward the gifted upstart made the job all the more challenging." Hitchcock was a creative young man who had already done some writing…”We know the kind of creative personality he had when he was young and we know a few years later he started directing movies himself. What we don't know is how these things were coalescing in his imagination."

A lot of the new 60 American films in the collection like last years 75 are shorts and fragments and are also divided up between the academy's archive, the UCLA Film & Television Archive, the Library of Congress, the George Eastman House and the Museum of Modern Art. Among the 60 titles are a 1928 two-color Technicolor short, The Love Charm; an early film from female director Alice Guy; a 1920 dance demonstration; and a fragment of a 1914 Keystone Kops lost comedy, In the Clutches of the Gang. These lost films will be preserved by the five archives over the next three years.

FrankFay wrote:I would ditch this picture (and a couple of other Hitchcocks) to see the rediscovery of something of REAL importance.

Yes, such as HATS OFF.