There were some errors in the original database that have been corrected (including
The Beloved Rogue).
I used the AFI Catalog as the basis for the silent feature film survival study, and as
The Honeymoon (1928) was not released in the United States, the AFI did not include it. Also, as the study describes, part-talkies were included if a silent version was also produced. If an all-talkie version of the film was released, then it was outside the definition of a silent feature film used for the study.
All that survives on
Brotherly Love (1928), among many other late silents, are the discs at UCLA. Silentera.com made this error frequently, and that information was picked up by IMDB. With this titles and many other late silents, if no moving image material survives, the film is lost.
Throughout this work, conducted with the support of the Library of Congress and additional research by Steve Leggett, we have been fastidious about only including films as surviving when their existence is verifiable. I followed up on many of these stories, and it was frustrating to verify screenings as late as the 1960s of films that are now completely untraceable.
David Pierce
author,
"The Survival of American Silent Feature Films: 1912–1929"
sepiatone wrote:I think the database is an invaluable resource to finding out what happened to that long lost or still extant feature. Steve's right on the money that the database is a monumental work in progress.
There have been some great corrections to changing surviving films from their lost or No Holdings status ie:
*The Beloved Rogue(1927)
*The Tongues of Men (1916)
*Outcast (1928 Corinne Griffith)....( the sought after 1922 Elsie Ferguson version based on the 1915 play she originally starred in is still lost but was said in a William Powell biography to maybe survive in Italian archive;he had an early role in the film.)
But there are still some listed as lost when there's evidence they survive:
*Ponjola(1923 Anna Q. Nilsson; in private collection as stated in the McFarland book on Olive Borden who had a small role.)
*Two-Gun of the Tumblewee(1927); the film is on DVD
*Brotherly Love (1928); Karl Dane, George K. Arthur comedy -- according to IMDb, a print is held at UCLA
Some are not in there at all:
*The Honeymoon(1928) (part two of Stroheim's The Wedding March)
*Hearts in Exile(1929) Dolore Costello romance, it had sound but was also screened in silent versions
But, yes the list/database is a helpful tool and in a sense a lot of fun at times tracking down some of the classic silents and their performers.
