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MGM has pretty much the best preservation rate among all the major studios (though UA might come close), but there are a number of titles not currently known to exist, or whose status is simply unknown (to me at least). Based on AMS postings by Jon Mirsalis and others, here's my list of lost and incomplete MGM titles and those whose status I haven't found anything on. For my purposes, "MGM" includes Metro-Goldwyn, so my listings contain titles released before "He Who Gets Slapped". I'll do this in two posts so this doesn't get overly long. And please don't hesitate to correct or make additions.

Titles without archival or studio holdings, listed by year

1924:
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Bread
Broken Barriers
Sinners in Silk
Married Flirts
Circe the Enchantress
The Bandolero
Along Came Ruth
So This is Marriage?
The Wife of the Centaur
The Snob
The Beauty Prize
The Dixie Handicap

1925:
Cheaper to Marry
The Great Divide
A Slave of Fashion
Excuse Me
Man and Maid
The Prairie Wife
Never the Twain Shall Meet
The Tower of Lies
Bright Lights
Don't
The Masked Bride
The Great Love

1926:
Dance Madness
The Auction Block
The Barrier
The Exquisite Sinner
Money Talks
The Boy Friend
The Gay Deceiver
Blarney
War Paint
Love's Blindness [BFI has fragment]
There You Are!

1927:
A Little Journey
The Demi-Bride
Frisco Sally Levy
Lovers?
The Frontiersman
The Callahans and the Murphys [LOC has fragment]
The Bugle Call
Adam and Evil
The Road to Romance
Tea for Three
London After Midnight
Buttons

1928:
Baby Mine
The Divine Woman (one reel exists)
Wickedness Preferred
Rose-Marie
The Big City (UCLA has trailer)
Circus Rookies
The Actress
A Certain Young Man (UCLA has trailer)
Telling the World
The Adventurer
Four Walls
Excess Baggage
The Baby Cyclone
Beau Broadway
Brotherly Love
Alias Jimmy Valentine
The Bushranger
The Masks of the Devil
Dream of Love
Diamond Handcuffs

1929:
Morgan's Last Raid
A Single Man
The Duke Steps Out
The Great Power
A Man's Man
Wonder of Women
Thunder (fragments)

1930:
The Rogue Song (fragments)

Incomplete MGM titles, listed by year:

1925:
Daddy's Gone a-Hunting (Národní Filmovy Archiv; 6 reels of 7)
The Denial (4 reels of 5)
Pretty Ladies (no Technicolor sequence)
His Secretary (5 reels of 7)

1926:
Mike (5 reels of 7)
Lovey Mary (6 reels of 7)
Bardelys the Magnificent (8 reels of 9)
The Road to Mandalay (abridgement)
Tin Hats (6 reels of 7)

1927:
The Enemy (8 reels of 9)

1928:
The Latest From Paris (7 reels of 8)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (7 reels of 8)
Telling the World (BFI has material)
The Cameraman (some footage missing)
While the City Sleeps (parts of R6-7 missing)

1929:
The Bellamy Trial (2 reels of 8)
All at Sea (5 reels of 6)
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (not confirmed)

1930:
Chasing Rainbows (colour sequences)
Call of the Flesh (colour sequence replaced by alternate number)
Good News (Multicolor finale)

1931:
It's a Wise Child (not confirmed)

Status unknown:
This Mad World (1930)
Caught Short (1930) [UCLA has complete soundtrack]

Formerly shown as lost or unknown:
Little Robinson Crusoe (1924) Gosfilmofond
One Night in Rome (1924) Gosfilmofond
The Silent Accuser (1924) Archives du film du CNC
The Waning Sex (1926) Archives du film du CNC; MOMA
California (1927) EYE Film Institute
Shadows of the Night (1928) Cinémathèque français
The Desert Rider (1929) GEH

I don't have much information about the alternate language features MGM made from 1930-32, though at least a few of them are still around.

-Harold

For Daddy's Gone a Hunting, i have on my website:
A copy of this film is located at the Narodni Filmovy Archiv in Prague (unconfirmed) and the Filmoteca Española in Madrid (Unconfirmed)

I got these from a book on Frank Borzaage. I have not tried writing to the Spanish archive, but i have written to the Archive in Prague and not gotten a reply.

If someone knows more about these, i'd love to know!
greta

I don't have my old programs handy, but didn't ALIAS, JIMMY VALENTINE run at Ciencon in the eary 1990s - or am I thinking of something else?

Harlett O'Dowd wrote:I don't have my old programs handy, but didn't ALIAS, JIMMY VALENTINE run at Ciencon in the eary 1990s - or am I thinking of something else?

That was the 1915 version (with Robert Warwick and Johnny Hines) directed by Maurice Tourneur which was run at Cinecon back in the 1990s.

The 1928 MGM version stars Billy Haines and Lionel Barrymore.

There's also a 1920 version from Metro with Bert Lytell.

Joe Moore

Harold Aherne wrote:Incomplete MGM titles, listed by year:

1925:
Pretty Ladies (Technicolor sequences, I think?)


-Harold

Pretty Ladies is a conventional drama that had one big splashy Ziegfeldesque production number in it, including a Norma Shearer cameo. That segment is gone, but otherwise the film is complete and stands very well as it is. I got to borrow a collector's 16mm print one time, and unless you already knew about that production number, you'd never guess one had ever been there.

THE MERRY WIDOW (1925) is not exactly complete. The ending was originally filmed in Technicolor.

radiotelefonia wrote:THE MERRY WIDOW (1925) is not exactly complete. The ending was originally filmed in Technicolor.

Quite right, although if the footage itself exists I chose not to count the film as incomplete. And there are several existing MGM titles that had colour sequences but for which I don't know specifically about the colour; e.g. "Monte Carlo", "Altars of Desire", "Winners of the Wilderness". Here are the titles I know of whose Technicolor sequences appear to survive only in B&W:

The Merry Widow (1925)
The Mysterious Island (1929)
The Broadway Melody (1929)

-Harold

I am researching Claire Windsor and noticed that "The Denial" and "Tin Hats" have footage that has survived. Are the film fragments deposited right here in Kansas in the salt mines at Hutchinson? How many feet survive. Do you know what condition they are in? Any details you can pass on would be greatly appreciated.

I have a question. Is Chaney's The Unknown complete? It plays just fine of course, but I find it hard to believe that MGM would release a non-comedy feature with one of it's biggest stars at less than 50 minutes in length.

cawkercitykid wrote:Are the film fragments deposited right here in Kansas in the salt mines at Hutchinson?

I think the MGM film was moved out of the salt mines when Turner took over. Richard May would know. I've heard that the MGM nitrates all went to the Eastman House in Rochester, NY. If it was just part of a film, it's most likely at an archive somewhere. It could be anywhere.

greta de groat wrote:For Daddy's Gone a Hunting, i have on my website:
A copy of this film is located at the Narodni Filmovy Archiv in Prague (unconfirmed) and the Filmoteca Española in Madrid (Unconfirmed)

I got these from a book on Frank Borzaage. I have not tried writing to the Spanish archive, but i have written to the Archive in Prague and not gotten a reply.

If someone knows more about these, i'd love to know!
greta

A bootleg dvd of "Daddy's Gone a Hunting" has been making the rounds. Title cards in Spanish. I think it's missing some footage but is close to complete.
Henry Nicolella

One Technicolor reel of THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND exists in the UCLA archive.

As for THE UNKNOWN- The film's original length was listed at 5517', which would clock in at 61 minutes (and roughly 20 seconds). Certainly looks as if something is missing.

IIRC, Eastman House got the MGM nitrates in the '70s. Shortly thereafter, GEH had a devastating fire which destroyed the entire collection. Fortunately, MGM had duplicates of everything, and sent GEH the copies.

My cue sheet for THE UNKNOWN lists 5470 feet. I think Michael Blake in his commentary may have mentioned some briefly missing footage (at a reel change perhaps?)

The 1978 George Eastman House fire destroyed about 1200 reels of film. This is FAR from the "entire collection". GEH still holds a large quantity of MGM original negatives, including the 3-strip Technicolor films.
It is correct that all the destroyed negatives had already been protected with safety copies as part of MGM's very complete nitrate conversion program.

MGM started using UVS in Hutchinson, KS way, way back. With the migration to Turner, then WB, nothing has changed. This applies to safety film only, of course. Underground salt mines are no place for something flammable!

As for THE UNKNOWN- The film's original length was listed at 5517', which would clock in at 61 minutes (and roughly 20 seconds). Certainly looks as if something is missing.

61 minutes if you-re running it through a slide projector. More like 53-55 minutes if you're running it at the intended speed. Yep, theres a tad bit of footage still missing, but its inconsequential, especially if you combine whats there from the various surviving sources.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

At 90' per minute (=24 fps), I get a running time of 61.3 minutes. Seems right at 24 fps to me, and I definitely prefer my silents to have a little extra "snap" compared to 100% lifelike speed...

The cue sheet's max. running time is 65 minutes, fwiw.

Harold,

Where is Josef' Von Sternberg's THE EXQUISITE SINNER (1926) on the list? Or has this film been found? I sure hope that it has. But all I have are conflicting reports. Nothing confirmed. I believe MAN & MAID does survive?

Does anyone know how much of ALL AT SEA with Dane and Arthur survives? Specifically which reels?

Jack Theakston wrote:Does anyone know how much of ALL AT SEA with Dane and Arthur survives? Specifically which reels?

ooh - a glutton for punishment!

Yeah, guess I should burn these reels, right?

Harlett O'Dowd wrote:

Jack Theakston wrote:Does anyone know how much of ALL AT SEA with Dane and Arthur survives? Specifically which reels?

ooh - a glutton for punishment!

What?

The Girl in the Show certainly exists since I have a copy of it and I believe TCM has run it. It's a neat little film for Bessie Love, MGM's most busy star of 1929.

As for Marion Davies' It's a Wise Child,, I have also read that one reel is missing but the film was shown in Washington a few years ago, according to Nick Langdon (sp?) and reported on his Marion Davies website.

and as for Rose-Marie of 1928, did this film ever get made? I've seen print ads for Marion Davies as the star and stills of Joan Crawford in costume, but did the film ever go anywhere?

Jack Theakston wrote:Yeah, guess I should burn these reels, right?

Does that mean you may have found some footage?

drednm wrote:and as for Rose-Marie of 1928, did this film ever get made? I've seen print ads for Marion Davies as the star and stills of Joan Crawford in costume, but did the film ever go anywhere?

Yes, it certainly did. Rose Marie had its general release and NY opening in February 1928; Mordaunt Hall reviewed it on 13 Feb. James Murray was her leading man; I suspect that The Crowd (which debuted about a week later) was largely in the can by the time production began on Rose Marie.

-Harold

Yes, Harold... you're right. It got made with Joan Crawford and James Murray.

I just saw the tragic James Murray in Bright Lights, a neat little musical that starred Dorothy Mackaill.

I believe ROSE MARIE was originally started with Renee Adoree and Lloyd Hamilton (!) among the cast. For reasons I'm hazy on (something to do with "problems" with Ms. Adoree) the production was eventually stopped and later resumed with the new cast.

With help from Roger S. I have managed to fill in most of the remaining gaps in my "unknown" list above. A few remain unconfirmed one way or the other. Since Turner/WB does not seem to have any of the material in the unknown list and only 2 turned up in FIAF listings, I will file all the others in the "lost" section for now; perhaps someone reading this knows whether any of these have turned up.

-Harold