Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Nederlands Filmmuseum rediscovers lost Valentino feature

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-17-2004, 05:05 PM:

Mindful of Brad's guideline that 'unless it is a big 70mm event movie, it is probably best in The Afterlife', I'm posting this here anyway; because, short of 70mm, this is surely the next best type of event movie. A major Hollywood feature thought lost (i.e. none of the world's recognised archives held any elements) has surfaced in The Netherlands.

quote:
'Lost' Valentino film discovered

A 1922 Rudolph Valentino silent movie classic has been found after being considered lost for almost 75 years.

The Dutch national film archive discovered the copy of melodrama Beyond the Rocks in a private collection left to the Filmmuseum. The movie, also starring Gloria Swanson, is in good condition apart from about two damaged minutes.

Historian Jan van den Brink said:"We are feeling rather excited because it is a wonderful rediscovery." Beyond the Rocks is the only film in which Valentino and Swanson starred together, added Mr van den Brink.

The museum was given the collection of more than 2,000 film canisters in 2000 after the death of a collector in the town of Haarlem. Archivists had taken such a long time to find the Valentino movie because the deceased collector had organised the films in an unusual way.

Beyond the Rocks is an 81-minute romantic melodrama about a woman pushed into a marriage with an older man but who then falls for Valentino's nobleman character on her honeymoon. "It is a complete feature film in six acts with a beautiful story in which Valentino plays a rather decent character," said Mr van den Brink.

The Filmmuseum will restore the film, repairing scratches and other minor damage. It has also asked Dutch composers to write a new score to be performed live when it shows the silent movie at its festival in Amsterdam next year.

Mr Van den Brink said the Filmmuseum expected interest in the film from archives around the world as well as the film's producers, Paramount, and planned to produce a copy for international distribution.

Rudolph Valentino was born in 1895 to a middle-class Italian family. He moved to New York in 1913 and became a huge star in the early 1920s for his steamy romantic performances. He died in 1926 following complications from a perforated ulcer.

Gloria Swanson, best known for her portrayal of Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder's 1950 Sunset Boulevard, was one of the most popular and influential female stars of the 1920s.

Link to story.
Link to IMDB page on Beyond the Rocks.

Rediscovering a complete 1922 feature is amazing enough, but with no significant damage, missing footage or decomposition issues must count as a find of a similar order to the rediscovery of The Life Story of David Lloyd George in 1996. I honestly don't think there can be very many nitrate-era complete features left to be found anymore, sadly.

It's also wonderful to see the Filmmuseum getting some international media attention over this - us archivists slave in our vaults and over our benches most of the time without anyone knowing or caring that we exist. I'm looking forward to seeing the restoration.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 04-17-2004, 06:26 PM:

I'd love to see that film. I wonder if they have the damaged footage?

If the deceased collector catalogued his stuff the way I imagine he did, it was allover the house. I know these feelings... [thumbsup]

Posted by Dan Lyons (Member # 1454) on 04-18-2004, 12:10 AM:

OMG!!! That story made me .... well.. [evil]

That is the most exciting news! Gloria always wished to see that film again, as noted in her autobiography. Oh i love her so much.. too bad most of her films are lost. [puke]

btw, that article has soo much bias in it. Gloria was the star of that picture; Lasky had to ask HER permission to allow Valentino to co-star with her. (swanson,pg 171)
Perhaps this thread's title should be changed accordingly, or at least changed to the title of the film.

danny

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-18-2004, 06:46 AM:

I can't find a rename topic option anywhere on the page (just close, move, delete or top), so a moderator will have to oblige if (s)he feels so inclined!

IMHO the BBC journalist is clearly no film expert and got the story mainly on the basis of the interview with Jan van den Brink. I don't think you can really expect a Dutch archivist to be up on that controversy: though granted, if either had done a little research they'd have come up with the material you cited. Hopefully a lot of that research will get done alongside the restoration process.

quote:
I wonder if they have the damaged footage?

From the story I'd imagine that they have. Both the NFM and the Danish Film Museum seem to be digital restoration fans: at AMIA last year they showed a 1950s advert for Philips home audio in which the Diamant system had been used to correct the colour fading. On the basis of a 'before and after' demonstration, it looked amazing. If significant amounts of emulsion have come off at the edges of the Beyond the Rocks elements, not even the most sophisticated computer will be able to put that back, but let's hope that the damage is minor and restorable.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-18-2004, 04:03 PM:

That is good news. The last major lost film discovery I can remember hearing about was a bunch of Laurel And Hardey and other lost comedies dug up in an Alaska landfill. Many were frozen fomr being burried in the tundra and were in almost perfect condition.

The thing about the Valentino discovery is the Uncle Jack Valenti will more than likely prosecute the collectors entire family just so he can get some new award and take credit for re-discovering the lost film himself!

Mark

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 04-19-2004, 03:31 AM:

There was the David Lloyd George film that was discovered a few years ago, that was the last one I can think of. What was even more remarkable about that one is that it had been suppressed at the time it was made, and was never released, so a run of release prints would never have been made. Why it was suppressed, I don't know.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-19-2004, 03:49 AM:

The nearest we're likely to come to an answer to that question can be found in an essay by Sarah Street in this book.

Not only were release prints never made, the film wasn't even edited. John Reed at the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales had to reconstruct it from the uncut camera rolls and the cutting continuity.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-21-2004, 09:21 AM:

Here is a link to a 29-minute Dutch TV documentary about the discovery. Most of it is in Dutch, though the Filmmuseum's project director speaks in English. There are also some clips from the film itself, which suggest that parts of it are in very good shape but others not so. From the surface dirt and base tramlines which are reproduced in some of the sections, I would guess that they've got as far as making a fine grain from the nitrate original, but have not yet done any image enhancement. Some sections looked like they were into stage 2 decomposition (emulsion has parted company with the base), but hopefully that hasn't affected the majority of the footage.

It makes a change to see Gloria Swanson in her prime, rather than as the psychotic old bag in Sunset Boulevard!

Posted by Dan Lyons (Member # 1454) on 04-21-2004, 02:03 PM:

quote:
It makes a change to see Gloria Swanson in her prime, rather than as the psychotic old bag in Sunset Boulevard!

Leo, those are fighting words! [Mad]

danny

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 04-21-2004, 02:54 PM:

I suppose the loser will be floating in the pool [Big Grin]

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-22-2004, 01:47 AM:

I must confess that the only Swanson feature I've seen in its entirety is Queen Kelly, and she isn't exactly a paragon of level-headed virtue in that, either! I presume that her having divorced Erich von Stroheim in Boulevard is a reference to the bust up between them in the aftermath of Kelly.