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Missing, Believed Lost: The Great British Film Search
No one has seen Alfred Hitchcock's silent picture The Mountain Eagle in over sixty years. Twelve of the early films of one of Britain's greatest film-makers, Michael Powell, are lost.
These are just a fraction of the several hundred British features which have gone missing since their first release. Most will almost certainly never be found, but there is always a chance that a print still survives on a shelf in some dusty cupboard. Not all these lost films are masterpieces. But many valuable parts of our film heritage could still be rescued with a concerted search and a little luck.
In this book the National Film Archive has selected the one hundred British features which it would most like to find. Each of the missing films is described in detail, with full credits and with illustrative stills, where any survive. For good measure there are brief details of some key British documentaries and television programmes which the Archive would also dearly love to locate.
This book marks the first systematic attempt by the National Film Archive to initiate a public search for Britain's lost films. Can anyone turn up a print of Max Miller's in Educated Evans ? Are the films of Walter Forde or Bernard Vorhaus which we now lack really gone for ever? Does a print still survive somewhere of Murder at Monte Carlo, Errol Flynn's first film appearance in Britain? And What of the early Sherlock Homes film A Study in Scarlet (1914)? The great British film search is on.
These are just a fraction of the several hundred British features which have gone missing since their first release. Most will almost certainly never be found, but there is always a chance that a print still survives on a shelf in some dusty cupboard. Not all these lost films are masterpieces. But many valuable parts of our film heritage could still be rescued with a concerted search and a little luck.
In this book the National Film Archive has selected the one hundred British features which it would most like to find. Each of the missing films is described in detail, with full credits and with illustrative stills, where any survive. For good measure there are brief details of some key British documentaries and television programmes which the Archive would also dearly love to locate.
This book marks the first systematic attempt by the National Film Archive to initiate a public search for Britain's lost films. Can anyone turn up a print of Max Miller's in Educated Evans ? Are the films of Walter Forde or Bernard Vorhaus which we now lack really gone for ever? Does a print still survive somewhere of Murder at Monte Carlo, Errol Flynn's first film appearance in Britain? And What of the early Sherlock Homes film A Study in Scarlet (1914)? The great British film search is on.
- GenresNonfictionFilm
107 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 11, 2019
Perhaps some of these missing British films have been found since the printing of this book in 1992. Here's hoping!
Amazing or should I say shocking that films made as late as 1943 have vanished. Where is Sherlock Holmes when you most need him?
You can understand why so many silent films have vanished but there is a heck of a lot of talkies here that seem to have been discarded to the scrapheap. Main culprit appears to be Warner Brothers-First National with sixty of its British films listed as missing including ten directed by Roy William Neill. ("I say Holmes, wasn't he the blighter who directed all our films when we were staying over at Universal City?" "Yes indeed Watson, time to recheck that old Warner vault in Burbank!)
Also adding to this sombre listing are about a dozen of Michael Powell's early works which have gone walkabout. Also hard done by are directors Ralph Ince (14), Arthur Woods (11), Walter Forde (7), and of course Hitchcock with 'The Mountain Eagle' (1926).
Sadly, just so much more of the filmmaking prowess of early British cinema gone missing. At least we still have some marvellous stills from the films courtesy of this fine book.
Hopefully this review is way out of date and most of these films have been rediscovered. (a message for creolecat, go check that mysterious shed to see if you have any of these missing reels hidden away there!)
Amazing or should I say shocking that films made as late as 1943 have vanished. Where is Sherlock Holmes when you most need him?
You can understand why so many silent films have vanished but there is a heck of a lot of talkies here that seem to have been discarded to the scrapheap. Main culprit appears to be Warner Brothers-First National with sixty of its British films listed as missing including ten directed by Roy William Neill. ("I say Holmes, wasn't he the blighter who directed all our films when we were staying over at Universal City?" "Yes indeed Watson, time to recheck that old Warner vault in Burbank!)
Also adding to this sombre listing are about a dozen of Michael Powell's early works which have gone walkabout. Also hard done by are directors Ralph Ince (14), Arthur Woods (11), Walter Forde (7), and of course Hitchcock with 'The Mountain Eagle' (1926).
Sadly, just so much more of the filmmaking prowess of early British cinema gone missing. At least we still have some marvellous stills from the films courtesy of this fine book.
Hopefully this review is way out of date and most of these films have been rediscovered. (a message for creolecat, go check that mysterious shed to see if you have any of these missing reels hidden away there!)
November 25, 2014
A sad procession of films which might — or might not — have stood the changes in fashion and become classics. At any rate one hopes some or all of them turn up some time, preserved by happy chance in some far distant attic.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews