List Of Partially Lost Films
ABIE'S IRISH ROSE (1928) IMDb PARTIAL SILENT
Condition: Only reels 3-6 and 9-12 are known to absolutely survive, it is possible that reel 8 may be incomplete. All of the surviving bits of the film are silent, none of the sound portions have been uncovered so far. Housed at the Library of Congress.
THE ADVENTURES OF TARZAN [Serial] (1921) IMDb SILENT
Condition: This was originally a 15 part serial, of which only 10 parts survive. Those are available for purchase on DVD.
THE AIR MAIL (1925) IMDb SILENT
Condition: Four of Eight Reels survive at the Library of Congress.
NO POSTER
ALWAYS TELL YOUR WIFE (1914) IMDb SILENT
Condition: No information available.
THE BEST BAD MAN (1925) IMDb SILENT
Condition: a print is held by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. There is no information as to it's length or condition.
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY (1929) IMDb TWO VERSIONS
Condition: A complete copy of the silent version still survives, and is housed at the George Eastman House film archive. No part of the partial talkie version is known to have survived.
THE CENTAURS (1921) IMDb SILENT
Condition: Approximately 2 1/2 minutes of this Winsor McCay animated short silent survive. The print is in excellent condition and is widely available.
CLEOPATRA (1917) IMDb SILENT
Condition: This is a lost film, a few feet of footage was donated to the George Eastman House from a private collection, but that is all that has surfaced since the last two known complete prints were destroyed in the Fox Vault Fire of 1937. It is here, because of another project called Lost Cleopatra that was put together by film historian and filmmaker Philip Dye constructed from film stills and the remaining restored footage in a montage type of film. Dye has screened this reconstructed film several times.
CORBETT AND COURTNEY BEFORE THE KINETOGRAPH (1894) IMDb SILENT
Condition: This was at the time of it's filming a feat for the Edison Co.; it was, in it's complete form, 6 reels long, with each reel running 1 minute a piece. The whole film was well more than twice the length of any Edison film to date. Only about 40 seconds of the first reel survives--it's was found in very good condition at the Library of Congress. It was given a restorative treatment and released on DVD. It is now available to view online as well.
THE DIVINE WOMAN (1928) IMDb SILENT
Condition: This is an American production under the direction of transplanted Swedish director Victor Sjöström for MGM. For the longest time in was a famous listing on the American Film Institute's list of lost films--and basically it deserves to remain there. Approximately 9 minutes of the film were discovered in the Swedish Film Institute's vault. That fragment has been restored and were screened on the 27th of February in 2011.
Dödskyssen (KISS OF DEATH) (1916) IMDb SILENT
Condition: Only 30 minutes of this Sjöström film survives.
FIRELIGHT (1964) IMDb
Condition: This is Steven Spielberg's first film. He gave the two master reels of the finished film to a producer to try to drum up business. Around a week or so later the production company went bankrupt and the producer disappeared with the film. It has never been recovered. What remains are incomplete raw footage and reels Spielberg kept back. These are viewable, but those that have seen the film say the missing reels make the film hard to properly assess. Spielberg famously remade this film as Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.
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| Still from the film with Jeanne Eagels and Frederick Warde |
Condition: Only a shortened version of the full length film survives today. It is a watchable version, and has been screened multiple times. An online version of this Thanhouser production can be found at Free Classic Movies.
Le Coucher de la Mariée (1896) IMDb SILENT
Condition: This erotic short was estimated to be about 7 or 8 minutes long, but it was poorly stored and forgotten about in the French Film Archives until it was rediscovered in 1996, exactly 100 years after it was made. Only two minutes could be salvaged, but they thankfully contain the most important scenes in the film. This is considered to be one of the first erotic films ever made (what were called back in the day "stag party films").
GREED (1924) IMDb SILENT
Condition: Excellent for the print that was actually released into theaters. Greed is probably the most famous partially lost film. This is another case of a studio forcing it's will on the filmmaker. Director Stroheim had a 42 reel version that spanned almost 8 hours; there is every indication that he intended his edited version --around 4 1/2 hours--to be released into theaters and for the full negative to be stored indefinitely. The studio--MGM--demanded that he cut it further, releasing a forced edited version that was around 2 hours long into theaters. They then reportedly burned the remaining film to extract the silver nitrate; so it seems highly unlikely that any part of the full film will ever be recovered. Only a dozen people saw the full 42 reels--with many of them claiming that it was the greatest film ever made. Stroheim, always a flamboyant sort to begin with, was understandably very upset and hurt by this forced editing--even more so by the deliberate destruction of the rest of the film. Attempts to recreate the film date back to the 1950's. In 1999, TCM, under the direction of Rich Schmidlin, undertook a reconstruction that utilized several source materials including stills. The result was an almost 4 hour long film, which was premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and was later aired on TCM--the current rights owner. Though a fine effort, it is still not the same as having the original print show up somewhere. There have long been persistent rumors that the original has been in one private collection or the other over the years--so far all have proven unfounded. The lost and destroyed parts of this film have been called the Holy Grail of all lost footage.
THE IRON CLAW (1916) [Serial] IMDb SILENT
Condition: Only the seventh episode of this 20 episode serial survives at the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
Le Coucher de la Mariée (1896) IMDb SILENT
Condition: This erotic short was estimated to be about 7 or 8 minutes long, but it was poorly stored and forgotten about in the French Film Archives until it was rediscovered in 1996, exactly 100 years after it was made. Only two minutes could be salvaged, but they thankfully contain the most important scenes in the film. This is considered to be one of the first erotic films ever made (what were called back in the day "stag party films").
LOST HORIZON (1937) IMDb MONO (Western Electric)
Condition: Most of the film as been recovered and restored, however somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 minutes of the film remains missing. The restored full running time edition has the complete soundtrack, with the 7 minutes that are missing used up by production stills--mostly from behind the scenes.
NO POSTER
THE LURE OF WOMAN (1917) IMDb SILENT
Condition: Of this 5 reel film, the first 4 reels survive in a print housed in the Library of Congress. No word on the condition of the print.
A MAN WALKING AROUND A CORNER (1887) IMDb SILENT
Condition: This surviving print of Le Prince's first four moving films ever made is actually the original that he put together in a late version of series photography--the 1888 actual one lensed filmed "remake" is thought lost. It's a very strange piece of history this! Bears looking up.
THE MASKED RIDER [Serial] (1919) IMDb SILENT
Condition: Most episodes have been recovered and remastered.
A MILLION BID (1927) IMDb SILENT
Condition: This Michael Curtiz melodrama starring Dolores Costello and Warner Oland survives in an incomplete form at the Library of Congress; the copy as Italian intertitles.
Napoléon (1927) IMDb TWO VERIONS
Condition: This is one of the most complicated films in terms of the lost and found footage and various versions, with multiple attempts to recover the film in it's full and original length. There is enough footage that is still missing to place it on this list rather than "Formerly Lost Films" (though it probably belongs there as well). For click on the following links for extra information: Wikipedia and IMDb.
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| Surviving still from the film. |
OLIVER TWIST (1912/I) IMDb SILENT
Condition: 4 of the 5 original reels survive at the Library of Congress. This represents the very first American full feature length film.
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HELEN OF TROY (1927) IMDb SILENT
Condition: The film is almost entirely lost. What is preserved lies in the British Film Institute's archives. They have a little less than 30 minutes of the film, which was originally 87 minutes long. There are no plans to do anything with the footage at this time.
SPANISH FEASTA (1920) IMDb SILENT
Condition: There are only about 8 minutes of this 67 minute Germaine Dulac film that are known to have survived. It has been lovingly cared for, and it often included in montages of example's of Dulac's work.
Partially Lost Television
"Adam Adamant Lives!" (1966-1967) IMDb Mono
Condition: Up until 1978 the BBC had a policy of wiping master tapes for reuse--as a result of this, and the lack of any proper storage vaults, only around 16 episodes (of 29 originals) are known to survive and those only survived (for the most part) because they were copied from the 16mm originals to 35mm prints. Amongst the lost episodes are all of the episodes directed by Ridley Scott. The hunt continues however, with the BBC Archive Treasure Hunt on the case.
NO POSTER
"Gruen Guild Theater" (1951-1953) IMDb Mono
Condition: Only two kinoscope recording of the DuMont produced and broadcast later part of the series survive at the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Seems that the ABC produced and broadcast earlier part of the series may be intact.
"Z Cars" (1962-1978) IMDb Mono
Condition: Of the total number of episodes, 416, only 108 survive.
