Lost Films
-
- Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:43 am
- Antoine Doinel
- Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:22 pm
- Location: Montreal, Quebec
- Contact:
It seems a bit selfish for the "owner" to be concerned about losing the reels, when until this time they've been collecting dust in an attic. As souvenir mentioned, I'm sure he still retains the ownership rights to the reels themselves but to deny getting a studio involved and sharing this found film with the world is shortsighted. Moreover, the owner in working with a studio could probably be compensated for providing them with the reels to work with.125100 wrote: but the owner, who didn't even know it was lost, does not want to give it up and since we are friends I don't want to just go inform the studio for them to come repossess it, actually can they even do that?
But SncDthMnky has the right idea. Getting Becker or any other historian/scholar/whatever to convey the importance of this title to the owner and allowing you the opportunity to bring it the right people might just work.
- cdnchris
- Site Admin
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:45 pm
- Location: Washington
- Contact:
- Cold Bishop
- Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 9:45 pm
- Location: Portland, OR
- Highway 61
- Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:40 pm
- Lemmy Caution
- Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:26 am
- Location: East of Shanghai
Very interesting. I'd bet a good forensics lab could read the faded document. Maybe you need CSI: Lost Films, or a lab technician who is a film geek. But probably a dealer in old books and manuscripts could recommend someone who could decipher it.
Any idea of the condition, judging form the opening titles? Or how many reels?
So is Four Devils silent or a modified silent?
Something I glanced in a quick internet search seemed to say that there were two versions, one silent and one with the last two reels talking.
Anyone know more details, or if that is accurate?
Also, on IMDb (you gotta love Imdb, where a completely lost film has 37 votes), one comment says:
Any idea of the condition, judging form the opening titles? Or how many reels?
So is Four Devils silent or a modified silent?
Something I glanced in a quick internet search seemed to say that there were two versions, one silent and one with the last two reels talking.
Anyone know more details, or if that is accurate?
Also, on IMDb (you gotta love Imdb, where a completely lost film has 37 votes), one comment says:
Does anyone know which Dvd edition of Sunrise that would be? I might have 2 or 3 different Dvd releases, but I often skip the extras.if you have the latest DVD of "Sunrise" there is an excellent documentary as an extra about this lost piece of work [Four Devils] by the genius that was Murnau. It is highly detailed with the complete storyline illustrated with still and design drawings and an excellent commentary. The only downside is that it makes you yearn for the opportunity to see this movie and we can just live in the hope that one day it will be discovered in a distant or not so distant archive or in someone's granny's attic
- SoyCuba
- Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2007 3:30 pm
- Location: Finland
It's on the MoC edition. I haven't watched the documentary myself though, since I didn't want to be spoiled in case the film would someday be found. And I really didn't believe that day would ever come.Lemmy Caution wrote:Does anyone know which Dvd edition of Sunrise that would be? I might have 2 or 3 different Dvd releases, but I often skip the extras.
- Cold Bishop
- Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 9:45 pm
- Location: Portland, OR
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
It's on the Fox Studio Classics release too.SoyCuba wrote:It's on the MoC edition. I haven't watched the documentary myself though, since I didn't want to be spoiled in case the film would someday be found. And I really didn't believe that day would ever come.Lemmy Caution wrote:Does anyone know which Dvd edition of Sunrise that would be? I might have 2 or 3 different Dvd releases, but I often skip the extras.
- Awesome Welles
- Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2007 6:02 am
- Location: London
That is amazing. Please keep this thread updated!
With regards to how the print ended up there I would say that it is quite likely that the print was never returned to the distributor after it was screened - I work for a cinema company and we've got a few unreturned prints, though nothing rare - and it's all junk from the 80s. I think this practice isn't entirely uncommon.
With regards to how the print ended up there I would say that it is quite likely that the print was never returned to the distributor after it was screened - I work for a cinema company and we've got a few unreturned prints, though nothing rare - and it's all junk from the 80s. I think this practice isn't entirely uncommon.
- malcolm1980
- Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2007 4:37 am
- Location: Manila, Philippines
- Contact:
- MichaelB
- Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
- Location: Worthing
- Contact:
The Passion of Joan of Arc ended up in a Norwegian psychiatric hospital...Cold Bishop wrote:But how on earth does 4 Devils end up in Tacoma?
It certainly isn't - we were sitting on a sizeable archive of prints at the rep cinema I used to manage. What usually happened was that the distributor would ask us not to send it back via the usual channels as they needed to cross it over directly to the next venue, and then they'd change their minds (or the booking got cancelled) and would simply forget that the print hadn't been returned. And since we didn't want to pay despatch charges, we'd just wait for the distributor to get back in touch - which they hardly ever did.FSimeoni wrote:With regards to how the print ended up there I would say that it is quite likely that the print was never returned to the distributor after it was screened - I work for a cinema company and we've got a few unreturned prints, though nothing rare - and it's all junk from the 80s. I think this practice isn't entirely uncommon.
The most annoying "acquisition" was Robert Maxwell's personal print of Shoah - 36 unscreenable reels (we'd never have got away with a clandestine screening of that one!) taking up lots of valuable shelf space! But after his death, no-one seemed interested in reclaiming it (the despatch costs would have been eye-watering, which I imagine was a factor). For all I know, it's still there.
- HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
HOLY SHIT!!!!125100 wrote:Yeah that's the one, the opening titles confirm that is what's on them. Saying that it could still be incomplete as there's no numbering on the reels to say how many should be there. It's just a wooden crate with a piece of paper on the front containing lots of typed information (too faded to comprehend) and then "4 Devels" written over it. I actually only took an interest and looked into it because I thought it was French and everything else there seemed to be American...SoyCuba wrote:Wow, this is really exciting. I hope it's Murnau's 4 Devils
After reading what you guys say I think I'll wait till I go to Seattle again then drive out to Tacoma and speak to it's owner. I'll try talk him round and if that fails I'll just take it and contact Fox.
Listen friend, this is blockbuster news and I would get on the phone and get this moving as quickly as possible. Call Janet Bergstrom at the UCLA film and television archive (she is about as authoritative an expert on the film, Murnau, is deeply involved in restoration, and she's on the west coast. You have got to take action NOW, because the film cans need to get into refigeration, catalogued, etc. Please don't doodle... just call UCLA and get this going immediately. This is major news.
- HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Everything on SUNRISE comes from Fox/UCLA, including the 4DEVILS reconstruction from stills, the scores, the commentary, etc... it's all the USA digibeta and the FOX restoration. Bergstrom was deeply involved in this.domino harvey wrote:It's on the Fox Studio Classics release too.SoyCuba wrote:It's on the MoC edition. I haven't watched the documentary myself though, since I didn't want to be spoiled in case the film would someday be found. And I really didn't believe that day would ever come.Lemmy Caution wrote:Does anyone know which Dvd edition of Sunrise that would be? I might have 2 or 3 different Dvd releases, but I often skip the extras.
PLEASE CALL JANET BERGSTROM fast. If you cannot extricate the reels from this guy, UCLA/AFI/FOX absolutely will. He will not have a chance, they will immediately resecure the elements into their proper storage, and do absolutely everything that is neccessary. If someone doesn't get on the horn here, I will. The guy wont have a snail's chance in a deep fryer to hang onto those reels. This is beyond all of us, and it doesn't belong in CC's or Kinos or MoC's hands. They are dvd labels and licensees of reels for the cineatic circuit. They are not film preservationists, and anyhow Fox wouldn't allow them to handle it in the first place. And anyhow they are not exactly in the center of the silent film world by a long shot. There are far more well-informed/equipped experts to handle the chemical processes involved in examining what may be lurking there. It should either go to the FWMS (who propbably doesn't stand a chance in court to posesss it versus Fox... so just go to UCLA, call them! NOW!!!!)
- 125100
- Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2006 10:07 pm
- Location: UK
Well like I said I dare not view it so couldn't say with any degree of certainty regarding condition or the version but there was no visible damage on the reel I looked at and everything I have viewed there so far was in great condition compared against say... the public domain version of His Girl Friday you see on the net.Lemmy Caution wrote:Any idea of the condition, judging form the opening titles? Or how many reels?
So is Four Devils silent or a modified silent?
Something I glanced in a quick internet search seemed to say that there were two versions, one silent and one with the last two reels talking.
Anyone know more details, or if that is accurate?
Regarding if it's the sound or silent version, I'm unsure, IMDB says the silent is 1928 but the faded paper I mentioned clearly has a signature and date in 1929 at the bottom so that indicates the sound version, then again the print had no sound information zig-zagging down the side which is what I'd expect unless the sound would be on a separate record/disc?
I've already contacted someone with experience in the field and he says whoever owns the rights would probably have no problem with him keeping this anyway providing they could borrow it to make copies or even just transfer it to a digital source. After lengthy email exchanges he also mentioned my favourite film in this collection Me and My Gal is not on DVD primarily due to the poor condition of existing prints so this could help that too. Anyway he's going to write and explain the situation so hopefully that will get this in the hands of Fox.
- Lemmy Caution
- Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:26 am
- Location: East of Shanghai
I noticed that Janet Bergstrom was behind (the writer & director of) this 40-minute effort, Murnau's 4 Devils: Traces of a Lost Film (2003), so Schreck is definitely pointing you in the right direction.HerrSchreck wrote:Everything on SUNRISE comes from Fox/UCLA, including the 4DEVILS reconstruction from stills, the scores, the commentary, etc... it's all the USA digibeta and the FOX restoration. Bergstrom was deeply involved in this.
PLEASE CALL JANET BERGSTROM fast.
- HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Janet also did the commentary and extras for the original Murnau TABU release from Milestone (UCLA has been the caretaker of the nitrate reels--primary and outtakes-- of TABU for decades), and also provided the excellent documentary on the sublime release of Murnau's PHANTOM in 2006. And she is a senior preservationist there are UCLA, which catalogs, restores and maintains in preservation thousands of films for the acedemy, the AFI, not to mention of course FOX. You'll almost have no choice once they find out, anyway. UCLA film and television preserves and restores tons of great material, from Dwain Esper's MANIAC to the sole remaining 2-strip Technicolor original print of MR. X. They were deeply involved in the SUNRISE resto for Fox, and studied all the extant material for 4 DEVILS and created the sublime content known as TRACES OF A LOST FILM that is so wonderful that it is regularly exhibited as a feature.
Please call her PRONTO... and congratulations dude for good eyes, and getting yourself into a bit of film history. You may have a moment in the sun like the old dude who turned the 1912 RICHARD III to the AFI, after he realized he had the oldest American feature film in his collection of 35mm reels. He's featured on the doc on the Kino disc for the film, and was all over television when turning it over.
Please call her PRONTO... and congratulations dude for good eyes, and getting yourself into a bit of film history. You may have a moment in the sun like the old dude who turned the 1912 RICHARD III to the AFI, after he realized he had the oldest American feature film in his collection of 35mm reels. He's featured on the doc on the Kino disc for the film, and was all over television when turning it over.
- NABOB OF NOWHERE
- Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 12:30 pm
- Location: Brandywine River
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
I don't think there's any friendship I wouldn't ruin to save a film for future generations. I guess this is a moral question for some but seriously, screw this guy for sitting on this film. As much as Herr and I disagree, I think he's absolutely right-on here, you need to call people in the position to help, not just email. This needs to be handled today, now, quick.
- Doctor Sunshine
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:04 pm
- Location: Brain Jail
Don't hold off too long. Someone had already posted this on Wikipedia. I've removed it but news travels fast on the internets. At the same time I want to say wait 'til you've gone through the whole collection but this is too important to sit on. Amazing news, complete film or no. EDIT: Missed page two. It's on the move already. Good stuff.
- Doctor Sunshine
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:04 pm
- Location: Brain Jail
- Danny Burk
- Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2007 10:38 am
- Location: South Bend, IN
- Contact:
It's extremely important that you don't wait on this. Waste no time... as they say, nitrate won't wait. It can decompose rapidly, the guy's house could burn down (who knows how much nitrate is stored there?) ... any number of things could happen to it. You've stumbled into a supremely important title, not just something that a few esoteric collectors would like to watch (not that the latter shouldn't also be preserved!).
If this really is a cache of late silent and early sound Fox films, it's anybody's guess what else might be hiding there... some missing John Ford silents, just to make wild speculation.
Do it NOW, please!
If this really is a cache of late silent and early sound Fox films, it's anybody's guess what else might be hiding there... some missing John Ford silents, just to make wild speculation.
Do it NOW, please!