Silent Treasures from the New Zealand Film Archive

[CBHagman]

[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/movies/homevideo/silent-treasures-from-the-new-zealand-film-archive.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&src=dayp&adxnnlx=1380049237-8eiaJSw/ECBg7GqWOLZw7g[/url]

A dozen long-vanished films again see the light of day in the new DVD anthology from the National Film Preservation Foundation, “Lost and Found: American Treasures From the New Zealand Film Archive.” A few have big names attached to them — John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Mabel Normand — but every movie here has its own fascination, some for social and historical reasons, others as entertainment pure and simple.

They are a varied lot, ranging in date from 1914 to 1929, and in length from under a minute to full-scale features. What these films do have in common is that, as recently as four years ago, no one outside the small circle of film collectors who had originally acquired them knew they existed. They all belonged to the legions of missing and presumed lost movies of the silent era, a category that includes at least three-quarters of all silent features, and even higher for short films.

It always seems a bit miraculous when lost films resurface; for so many to turn up at once in the same place is a phenomenon of biblical proportions. These films, along with many more (176 in all) that are still in the cataloging and preservation pipeline, were quietly residing in the New Zealand Film Archive when Brian Meacham, an archivist for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, dropped by its Wellington headquarters during a vacation. He was confronted with a trove of nitrate prints of non-New Zealand titles that the young institution had yet to preserve (understandably, the New Zealanders were focused on their own national cinema).

Mr. Meacham soon discovered that the collection contained a large number of American movies held by no other archive, thanks to a quirk of early film distribution. Where films are normally returned to the studios that made them once their commercial life is over, it was considered too expensive to ship used prints back to the United States after they’d finished their antipodal careers (Australia is also proving to be a good hunting ground for lost American movies). Abandoned by their owners, many films fell into the hands of collectors, whose libraries were eventually deposited with the national archive.

From the National Film Preservation Foundation website itself:

[url]http://www.filmpreservation.org/dvds-and-books/treasures-new-zealand[/url]

This 3-1/4 hour DVD celebrates the largest international collaboration in decades to preserve and present American films found abroad. It draws from an extraordinary cache of nitrate prints that had been safeguarded in New Zealand and virtually unseen in decades. Through a partnership between the New Zealand Film Archive and American film archives, the NFPF arranged for 176 films to be shipped to the United States for preservation to 35mm film. Treasures New Zealand brings some of these major discoveries to DVD. None of the films have been presented before on video; in fact, none were even thought to exist just four years ago.

Treasures New Zealand not only resurrects lost works by major directors—John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, and Mabel Normand—but also samples the variety of American pictures exported abroad and saved through this project. Industrial films, news stories, cartoons, travelogues, serial episodes, previews, comedies—Treasures New Zealand samples them all. The line-up features:

John Ford’s Upstream (1927) and a preview for his lost Strong Boy (1929)

The White Shadow (1924), 3 reels from the first surviving feature credited to Alfred Hitchcock, the assistant director, art director, writer, and editor

Won in a Cupboard (1914), the first surviving film directed by and starring Mabel Normand

Lyman H. Howe’s Famous Ride on a Runaway Train (1921), reunited with its sound-effects disc for the first time in decades

Stetson’s Birth of a Hat (ca. 1920)

The Love Charm (1928), a South Seas romance filmed in two-color Technicolor by Ray Rennahan

Andy's Stump Speech (1924), directed by Norman Taurog, following funny-paper favorite Andy Gump on the campaign trail

The cartoon Happy-Go-Luckies (1923), 5 newsreel stories, and an episode from Dolly of the Dailies (1914) in which the unstoppable newspaperwoman saves the day and gets the scoop