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Alost film is afeature orshort film in which the original negative or copies are not known to exist in any studio archive, private collection, or public archive.[1] Films can be wholly or partially lost for a number of reasons. Early films were not thought to have value beyond their theatrical run, so many were discarded afterward. Nitrate film used in early pictures was highly flammable and susceptible to degradation. TheLibrary of Congress began acquiring copies of American films in 1909, but not all were kept. Due to improvements in film technology and recordkeeping, few films produced in the 1950s or beyond have been lost.
Rarely, but occasionally, films classified as lost are found in an uncataloged or miscataloged archive or private collection, becoming "rediscovered films".
During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy of every American film to be deposited at the Library of Congress at the time ofcopyright registration, but theLibrarian of Congress was not required to retain those copies: "Under the provisions of the act of March 4, 1909, authority is granted for the return to the claimant of copyright of such copyright deposits as are not required by the Library."[2]
A report by Library of Congress film historian and archivist David Pierce estimates that:
Of the Americansound films made from 1927 to 1950, an estimated half have been lost.[4]
The phrase "lost film" can also be used for instances where footage ofdeleted scenes, unedited, and alternative versions of feature films are known to have been created but can no longer be accounted for. Sometimes, a copy of a lost film is rediscovered. A film that has not been recovered in its entirety is called apartially lost film. For example, the 1922 filmSherlock Holmes was considered lost but eventually rediscovered with some of the original footage missing.
Many film studios hired astill photographer to take pictures during production for potential publicity use.[5] Some are produced in quantity for display use by theaters, others in smaller numbers for distribution to newspapers and magazines, and have subsequently preserved imagery from otherwise lost films.
In some cases, such asLondon After Midnight, the surviving coverage is so extensive that an entire lost film can be reconstructed scene by scene from still photographs. Stills have been used to stand in for missing footage when making new preservation prints of partially lost films: for example, with theGloria Swanson pictureSadie Thompson.
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Most lost films originate from thesilent film andearly talkie era, from about 1894 to 1930.[7]Martin Scorsese'sFilm Foundation estimates that more than 90% of American films produced before 1929 are lost,[8] and theLibrary of Congress estimates that 75% of all silent films are lost forever.[9]
The largest cause of silent-film loss is intentional destruction. Before the eras ofhome cinema,television andhome video, films were considered to have little future value when their theatrical runs ended. Similarly, silent films were perceived as worthless after the end of the silent era. Film preservationistRobert A. Harris has said, "Most of the early films did not survive because of wholesale junking by the studios. There was no thought of ever saving these films. They simply needed vault space and the materials were expensive to house."[10] The studios could earn money by recycling film for its silver content. ManyTechnicolor two-color negatives from the 1920s and 1930s were discarded when studios simply refused to reclaim their films, still being held by Technicolor in its vaults. Some used prints were sold to scrap dealers and ultimately edited into short segments for use with small, hand-cranked 35 mm movie projectors, which were sold as a toy for showing brief excerpts from Hollywood films at home.
Many other early motion pictures are lost because thenitrate film employed for nearly all35 mmnegatives andprints created before 1952 is highly flammable unless carefully conditioned and handled. When in very badly deteriorated condition and improperly stored (such as in a sun-baked shed), nitrate film canspontaneously combust. Fires have destroyed entire archives of films, such as the1937 storage-vault fire that destroyed all the original negatives of pre-1935 films made byFox Pictures[11] and the1965 MGM vault fire that destroyed hundreds of silent films and early talkies, includingLondon After Midnight, now considered among the greatest of all lost films.Eastman Kodak introduced a nonflammable 35 mm film stock in 1909; however, theplasticizers employed to increase the film's flexibility evaporated too quickly, rendering the film dry and brittle and causing splices to separate and perforations to tear. By 1911, the major American film studios had reverted to nitrate stock.[12] "Safety film" was relegated to sub-35 mm formats such as16 mm and8 mm until improvements were made in the late 1940s.
Nitrate film is also chemically unstable and over time can decay into a sticky mass or a powder akin togunpowder. This process can be very unpredictable; some nitrate film from the 1890s is still in good condition, while some much later nitrate film was scrapped as unsalvageable when it was barely 20 years old. Much depends on the environment in which the film is stored. Ideal conditions of low temperature, low humidity and adequate ventilation can preserve nitrate film for centuries, but in practice, storage conditions have usually fallen far below this level. When a film on nitrate base is said to have been "preserved", this almost always means simply that it has been copied ontosafety film or, more recently,digitized, but both methods result in some loss of quality.[13]
Some pre-1931 sound films produced byWarner Bros. andFirst National have been lost because they used asound-on-disc system with a separate soundtrack on special phonograph records. In the 1950s, when 16 mmsound-on-filmreduction prints of early talkies were produced fortelevision syndication, such films without complete soundtrack discs were at risk of permanent loss. Many sound-on-disc films have survived only by way of these 16 mm prints.
As a consequence of this widespread lack of care, the work of many early filmmakers and performers exists in the present day only in fragmentary form. A high-profile example is the case ofTheda Bara, one of the most famous actresses of the early silent era. Bara appeared in 40 films, but only six are now known to exist.Clara Bow was equally celebrated in her heyday, but 20 of her 57 films are completely lost, and another five are incomplete.[14] Once-popular stage actresses who transitioned to silent films, such asPauline Frederick andElsie Ferguson, have little left of their film performances. Fewer than ten movies exist from Frederick's work from 1915 to 1928, and Ferguson has two surviving films, one from 1919 and the other from 1930, her only talkie. All of the film performances of the stage actress and Bara rivalValeska Suratt have been lost. Most of the starring performances ofKatherine MacDonald are gone save for a couple of costar appearances. All ofGeorge Walsh's Fox appearances have disappeared. Only three of the films of Fox'sWilliam Farnum, an early screen Western star, have survived. Others, such asFrancis X. Bushman andWilliam Desmond, accumulated numerous film credits, but films produced in their heyday are missing because of junking, neglect, warfare or the demise of their studios. However, unlike Suratt and Bara, because Bushman and Desmond continued working into the sound era and even on television, their later performances survive.
Films were sometimes destroyed deliberately. In 1921, actorRoscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was charged with the murder of actressVirginia Rappe. Following a series of trials, he was ultimately acquitted, but not before his name had become so toxic that studios engaged in the systematic destruction of all films in which he had a starring role.[15] TheCharlie Chaplin-producedA Woman of the Sea was destroyed by Chaplin himself as a tax write-off.[16]
In contrast, the filmography ofD. W. Griffith is nearly complete, as many of his earlyBiograph films were deposited by the company inpaper print form at theLibrary of Congress. Many of Griffith's feature-film works of the 1910s and 1920s were added to the film collection at theMuseum of Modern Art in the 1930s and were preserved under the auspices of curatorIris Barry.Mary Pickford's filmography is nearly complete. Her early years were spent with Griffith, and she gained control of her own productions in the late 1910s and early 1920s. She had originally intended to destroy these films but later relented. She also recovered as many of her Zukor-controlled earlyFamous Players films as were salvageable. Likewise, almost all of the films created by Charlie Chaplin have survived, as well as extensive amounts of unused footage dating back to 1916; the exceptions are the aforementionedA Woman of the Sea and one of his early Keystone films,Her Friend the Bandit. Stars such as Chaplin andDouglas Fairbanks benefited from their great popularity: because their films were repeatedly reissued throughout the silent era, surviving prints could be found even decades later. Pickford, Chaplin,Harold Lloyd andCecil B. DeMille were early champions offilm preservation, although Lloyd lost a large number of his silent works to a vault fire in the early 1940s.
In March 2019, theNational Film Archive of India reported that 31,000 of its film reels had been lost or destroyed.[17]
An improved 35 mmsafety film was introduced in 1949. Since safety film is much more stable than nitrate film, comparatively few films were lost after about 1950. However, color fading of certain color stocks andvinegar syndrome threaten the preservation of films made since that time.
Most mainstream films from the 1950s and later survive today, but several earlypornographic films and someB movies are lost. In most cases, these obscure films are unnoticed and unknown, but some films by notedcult directors have been lost as well.
Some films produced from 1926 to 1931 using theVitaphonesound-on-disc system, in which the soundtrack is separate from the film, are now considered lost because the soundtrack discs were lost or destroyed, while the picture elements survive. Conversely, and more commonly, some early sound films survive only as sets of soundtrack discs, with the picture elements completely missing, such asThe Man from Blankley's (1930), or surviving only in fragmentary form, such asGold Diggers of Broadway (1929) andThe Rogue Song (1930), two highly popular and profitable early musicals in two-colorTechnicolor.
Manystereophonic soundtracks from the early to mid-1950s that were either played in interlock on a 35 mm full-coat magnetic reel or single-strip magnetic film (such as Fox's four-track magnetic, which became the standard of magnetic stereophonic sound) are now lost. Films such asHouse of Wax,The Caddy,The War of the Worlds,War and Peace,The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T andFrom Here to Eternity that were initially available with three-track magnetic sound are now available only with monophonic optical soundtracks. The process by which magnetic particles adhere to the tri-acetate film base eventually caused theautocatalytic breakdown of the film (vinegar syndrome). As long as studios had a monaural optical negative that could be printed, studio executives felt no need to preserve the stereophonic versions of the soundtracks.
The original isolated scoring session recordings for the soundtrack of the 1968musical-fantasyChitty Chitty Bang Bang were either lost or discarded whenUnited Artists merged its archives, with only the original cut soundtrack recording on the standard 12-inchLP left, as well as several CD releases with mediocre remastering, although still lacking the complete score without dialogue.
This list consists of films for which any footage survives, including trailers and clips reused in other films.
Occasionally, prints of films considered lost have been rediscovered. An example is the 1910 version ofFrankenstein, which was believed lost for decades until the existence of a print (which had been in the hands of an unwitting collector for years) was discovered in the 1970s. A print ofRichard III (1912) was found in 1996 and restored by theAmerican Film Institute. In 2013, an earlyMary Pickford film,Their First Misunderstanding, notable for being the first film in which she was credited by name, was found in aNew Hampshire barn and donated toKeene State College.[19]
Beyond the Rocks (1922), withGloria Swanson andRudolph Valentino, was considered a lost film for several decades. Swanson lamented the loss of this and other films in her 1980 memoirs but optimistically concluded: "I do not believe these films are gone forever." In 2000, a print was found in the Netherlands and restored by theNederlands Filmmuseum and the Haghefilm Conservation. It turned up among about two thousand rusty film canisters donated by Haarlem's eccentric Dutch collector, Joop van Liempd. It was given its first modern screening in 2005 and has since been aired onTurner Classic Movies.
In the early 2000s, the German filmMetropolis—which had been distributed in many different edits over the years—was restored to as close to the original version as possible by reinstating edited footage and using computer technology to repair damaged footage. However, at that point, approximately a quarter of the original film footage was considered lost, according to theKino VideoDVD release of the restored film. On July 1, 2008,Berlin film experts announced that a copy of the film had been discovered in the archives of the film museum Museo del Cine inBuenos Aires, Argentina, which contained almost all of the scenes still missing from the 2002 restoration.[20][21] The film now has been restored very close to its premiere version. The restoration process is featured in the documentaryMetropolis Refundada.
In 2010, digital copies of ten early American films were presented to theLibrary of Congress by theBoris Yeltsin Presidential Library, the first film installment from the Russian state archives to be repatriated.[22]
In 2018, the rediscovered 1898 filmSomething Good – Negro Kiss was inducted into theNational Film Registry. Its portrayal of a warm, loving Black couple stands in stark contrast to the typically racist portrayals of that era.[23]
Sometimes, a film believed lost in its original state has been restored, either through the process ofcolorization or other restoration methods. "The Cage," the original 1964pilot film forStar Trek, survived only in a black-and-white print until 1987, when a film archivist found an unmarked (mute) 35 mm reel in a Hollywood film laboratory with the negative trims of the unused scenes.[24]
Several films that would otherwise be entirely lost partially survive asstock footage used for later films.
For example, theUniversal PicturesshortBoo! (1932) contains the only remaining footage of the Universal feature filmThe Cat Creeps (1930). However, UCLA still has a copy of the soundtrack. TheJames Cagney filmWinner Take All (1932) used scenes from the early talkieQueen of the Night Clubs (1929), starringTexas Guinan; that footage is all that remains of the earlier film.
Actress-turned-gossip columnistHedda Hopper made her screen debut in the Fox filmThe Battle of Hearts (1916). Twenty-six years later, in 1942, Hopper produced her short series "Hedda Hopper's Hollywood #2". In the short, Hopper,William Farnum (the film's star), her sonWilliam Hopper, and William Hopper's wife Jane Gilbert view brief portions ofThe Battle of Hearts. More than likely, Hopper had an entire print of the movie in 1942. However, like many early Fox films,The Battle of Hearts is now lost or missing.
One of the best-known of Charlie Chaplin's works, the silent filmThe Gold Rush (1925), was re-released in 1942 to include a musical track and narration by Chaplin himself. The reissue would end up having theunintentional result of preserving the film, as the original film (though generally not considered a lost film) shows noticeable degradation of image and missing frames, damage not evident in the 1942 version.
The Polish filmO czym się nie mówi [pl] (1939) contains three short fragments ofArabella (1917), one of the early films ofPola Negri which were later lost.
Several films have been made with lost film fragments incorporated into the work.Decasia (2002) used nothing but decaying film footage as an abstract tone poem of light and darkness, much like the more historicalLyrical Nitrate (Peter Delpeut, 1991) which contained only footage from canisters found stored in an Amsterdam cinema. In 1993, Delpeut releasedThe Forbidden Quest, combining early film footage and archival photographs with new material to tell the fictional story of an ill-fated Antarctic expedition.
The 2016 documentaryDawson City: Frozen Time, about the history ofDawson City, Canada, and the 1978 discovery of previously lost silent films there, incorporates parts of many of those films.
ThemockumentaryForgotten Silver, made byPeter Jackson, purports to show recovered footage of early films. Instead, the filmmakers used newly shot film sequences to look like lost films.
In the double featureGrindhouse (2007), both segments—Planet Terror (directed byRobert Rodriguez) andDeath Proof (directed byQuentin Tarantino)—have references to missing reels, used asplot devices.
"Cigarette Burns", an episode of the horror anthology seriesMasters of Horror directed by John Carpenter, deals with the search for a fictional lost film, "La Fin Absolue Du Monde" ("The Absolute End of The World").
It is often claimed that 75 percent of all American silent films are gone and 50 percent of all films made prior to 1950 are lost; such figures, as archivists admit in private, were thought up on the spur of the moment, without statistical information to back them up.
