It's the kind of unpredictable twist that even the celebrated film-maker might have found surprising: footage from a lost silent movie featuring work by Alfred Hitchcock has been discovered in New Zealand.
The White Shadow, from 1923, is a melodrama starring US actor Betty Compson as twin sisters – one good, one evil – and Clive Brook. It was the first film that the 24-year-old Hitchcock worked on. He was writer, assistant director, editor and production designer on the project. Three reels comprising the first 30 minutes of the movie were left at the New Zealand Film Archive in 1989 by the family of a New Zealand projectionist and film collector, but were only recently identified. No one knows where the remaining three reels are and no other copy of the film is thought to exist.
"This is him showing how multi-talented he was at a very young age," Frank Stark, head of the New Zealand archive, told stuff.co.nz. "There were also stories [that] the named director – Graham Cutts – of the film wasn't the greatest. To a large degree Hitchcock filled in the gaps, even took over you might say.
"So this is a really early sign of just how broadly skilled Hitchcock was. Hitchcock was famous, in his later films for having a meticulous control of all the detail, from the acting performance right down to the sets and costumes. I think it's an early sign of just how precocious he was."
David Sterritt, chairman of the National Society of Film Critics, told the BBC that the discovery was "one of the most significant developments in memory".
"These first three reels offer a priceless opportunity to study his visual and narrative ideas when they were first taking shape," he said.
The prints were sent to the Film Archive by New Zealander Tony Osborne in 1989 following the death of their owner and his grandfather, the projectionist and collector Jack Murtagh. They were originally included with a number of unidentified American nitrate prints and were only recently identified by nitrate expert Leslie Lewis, who works at the archive.
"From boyhood, my grandfather was an avid collector – be it films, stamps, coins or whatever," said Osborne. "He was known, internationally, as having one of the largest collection of cigarette cards and people would travel from all over the world to view his collection. Some would view him as rather eccentric. He would be quietly amused by all the attention now generated by these important film discoveries."
The reels were originally labelled "Twin Sisters", and it was only due to Lewis's diligence that they were identified as part of The White Shadow. The archivist noticed the resemblance in style to Hitchcock's early work and confirmed her suspicions by trawling through contemporary reviews of the movie.
The footage is to be preserved at Park Road Post Production in Wellington. The film will be added to the catalogue at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Hitchcock collection in Los Angeles.
The White Shadow, from 1923, is a melodrama starring US actor Betty Compson as twin sisters – one good, one evil – and Clive Brook. It was the first film that the 24-year-old Hitchcock worked on. He was writer, assistant director, editor and production designer on the project. Three reels comprising the first 30 minutes of the movie were left at the New Zealand Film Archive in 1989 by the family of a New Zealand projectionist and film collector, but were only recently identified. No one knows where the remaining three reels are and no other copy of the film is thought to exist.
"This is him showing how multi-talented he was at a very young age," Frank Stark, head of the New Zealand archive, told stuff.co.nz. "There were also stories [that] the named director – Graham Cutts – of the film wasn't the greatest. To a large degree Hitchcock filled in the gaps, even took over you might say.
"So this is a really early sign of just how broadly skilled Hitchcock was. Hitchcock was famous, in his later films for having a meticulous control of all the detail, from the acting performance right down to the sets and costumes. I think it's an early sign of just how precocious he was."
"These first three reels offer a priceless opportunity to study his visual and narrative ideas when they were first taking shape," he said.
The prints were sent to the Film Archive by New Zealander Tony Osborne in 1989 following the death of their owner and his grandfather, the projectionist and collector Jack Murtagh. They were originally included with a number of unidentified American nitrate prints and were only recently identified by nitrate expert Leslie Lewis, who works at the archive.
"From boyhood, my grandfather was an avid collector – be it films, stamps, coins or whatever," said Osborne. "He was known, internationally, as having one of the largest collection of cigarette cards and people would travel from all over the world to view his collection. Some would view him as rather eccentric. He would be quietly amused by all the attention now generated by these important film discoveries."
The reels were originally labelled "Twin Sisters", and it was only due to Lewis's diligence that they were identified as part of The White Shadow. The archivist noticed the resemblance in style to Hitchcock's early work and confirmed her suspicions by trawling through contemporary reviews of the movie.
The footage is to be preserved at Park Road Post Production in Wellington. The film will be added to the catalogue at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Hitchcock collection in Los Angeles.
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