Lost Films Found (1 Viewer)

[Capt D McMars]

Yes, the "Mysterious Island" Technicolor copy was found around 2014 and has since been completely restored.

completly restored by who? Thanks for any additional info!!

 

[Capt D McMars]

some sample frames from the 2 strip color format, like in the Black Pirate with Fairbanks.. https://filmcolors.org/galleries/the-mysterious-island-1929/
it seems that WBA owns the rights , as it was released in the older B&W version...no color sequences. So my question is, since WBA owns the rights to this title does anyone think that they will release the newly restored color version within our liftimes?

The Mysterious Island (1929) | Trailers From Hell

MGM's gigantic silent sci-fi extravaganza took three years to make, by which time the talkies arrived and everything went to pieces. Lionel Barrymore emotes (EMOTES!) in his early sound footage, and terrific effects take us to the bottom of the ocean where monsters and a race of Donald Duck...

trailersfromhell.com

 

[Capt D McMars]

Although the feature Mysterious Island was promoted as "All Technicolor", in actuality, only 7234 of its original 8569 feet were filmed in color; most of the underwater sequences were filmed in B&W and tinted green, in the usual fashion of the 1920s, and some shots of explosions were enlivened by using the Kelley Color/Handschiegl spot-coloring process. I'd love to see this in color, as intended!!!

 

[Paul Penna]

Mr. Krupp: ... According to your logic, the bi-pack is a single strip of film, so only two strips of film run through a three-strip Technicolor camera, which means three-strip Technicolor should actually be called two-strip Technicolor.

No, you're the one saying the bi-pack is a single strip of film. In fact, it's two separate strips of film sandwiched together running through the camera. Total, three strips of film.

 

[Capt D McMars]

AMEN! I've been beefing about this practice on various boards for a while.

The old phrase "Celluloid never waits"is too true, and inaction on the part of the studios leads to only heartach!! Some are fighting a good fight and trying to do "search and resuce" but the odds are agianst them, time...combined with many studios not taking stock of what titles they actually have in thier archives and in what condition are they, contributes to the issue?

 

[Will Krupp]

When a term gets repeated long enough and often enough, by enough people, it becomes the De facto term, so whether we agree on this detail or not, I think the term two-strip is here to stay. If nothing else, it helps most people (who don't care about these technical details) to distinguish the early Technicolor films from the glorious three-strip films.

People who don't care about technical details aren't likely to be referring to them as anything. If people want to use terms without knowing their meaning, then they should be taught what a term actually means. What they do with it after that is not my business but we should at least be striving to get it right HERE, in this forum.

Mr. Krupp: I respect your knowledge of Technicolor and your opinions, but just for fun, I'm going to get super nit-picky and point out what seems to me to be an inconsistency in your position on two-strip Technicolor. As I understand it, you claim that it should be the number of strips of film in the camera that determines the name of the process. And, you claim that if two thin strips of film are cemented together then they should be classified as a single strip of film, even if the two strips contain different color records. If both of those assumptions are correct, then there is no such thing as three-strip Technicolor, because the three-strip camera uses a single bi-pack for the red and blue records and a separate strip of film for the green record. According to your logic, the bi-pack is a single strip of film, so only two strips of film run through a three-strip Technicolor camera, which means three-strip Technicolor should actually be called two-strip Technicolor. The fact is, Kalmus (the ultimate authority on this question) is long dead, and none of this has mattered for a hundred years, so nobody but a few scholars gives a damn. But, you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

Paul Penna beat me to it, but bi-pack was two separate strips of film sandwiched together (emulsion to emulsion and separated by a red filter between them) as they passed through the aperture gate. The illustration is here so you can count them. As you can see at the bottom of the photo, the "red" and "blue" black & white negatives have just exited the gate (where they passed in bi-pack) and are, in fact, separate negatives. You may be confusing bi-pack with "duplitized stock," which contained emulsion on both sides of a single film strip and was used for making release prints in certain two-color printing processes. This duplitzed stock was not, to my knowledge, used in any process for RECORDING color in camera.

NONE of this is my "opinion." I'm trying to teach you the correct term to use and why. I'm explaining the history behind the words "three-strip Technicolor" (again, for the cheap seats, it's based SOLELY on the number of negatives running through the CAMERA to record color.) Projection prints, cemented or otherwise, don't fit in to it anywhere. If you choose to ignore it and continue to use the wrong term then there's nothing I can do about it and you should feel free. At least I tried.

What I'm having trouble understanding is why you seem so determined to dig your heels in to somehow make the wrong term correct. Saying it's okay because no one alive really cares anymore is, I'm sorry to say, an intellectually lazy response.

 

[Paul Penna]

... bi-pack was two separate strips of film sandwiched together (emulsion to emulsion and separated by a red filter between them) as they passed through the aperture gate. The illustration is here so you can count them.

Actually, there wasn't a separate filter; the front (blue-sensitive) film acted as the filter via a red-orange dye coating on its emulsion.

 

[Will Krupp]

Actually, there wasn't a separate filter; the front (blue-sensitive) film acted as the filter via a red-orange dye coating on its emulsion.

I was counting that dye layer as the "filter" but I get your point (words matter! lol) and stand corrected!

 

[Joel Arndt]

What I'm having trouble understanding is why you seem so determined to dig your heels in to somehow make the wrong term correct. Saying it's okay because no one alive really cares anymore is, I'm sorry to say, an intellectually lazy response.

Touche! Brilliant.

 

[Egore]

Sir: I was only expressing my opinion, which I tried to do in a respectful way, without getting personal. If I dug in my heals, then it was because I thought I was right. I could say the same thing about you, because you were equally tenacious. Your diligence has paid off and you've convinced me that you are correct, at least technically. Congratulations, you won the argument. Henceforth, I will refer to early Technicolor films as two-color and not two-strip Technicolor. I thought it made for a good discussion, until you sprang that insult on me at the end. I can pride myself in the fact that I didn't stoop to name calling. I resent you saying that my response was intellectually lazy just because I had different opinions. Whether I was right or wrong, you don't know me, or anything about me, and to imply that I'm intellectually lazy on the basis of this one discussion is absurd. You may be well educated about Technicolor, but apparently you never learned how to be gracious and, in my opinion, good manners are far more important than this discussion was.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Come on guys, stop the personal references towards each other that denigrates the other person. We're better than that!

 

[Capt D McMars]

Come on guys, stop the personal references towards each other that denigrates the other person. We're better than that!

be willing to learn and share some information. Attacks are pointless. We're all imperfect, and sometimes we read into the comments more than was intended...

 

[Will Krupp]

I thought it made for a good discussion, until you sprang that insult on me at the end. I can pride myself in the fact that I didn't stoop to name calling. I resent you saying that my response was intellectually lazy just because I had different opinions. Whether I was right or wrong, you don't know me, or anything about me, and to imply that I'm intellectually lazy on the basis of this one discussion is absurd. You may be well educated about Technicolor, but apparently you never learned how to be gracious and, in my opinion, good manners are far more important than this discussion was.

I don't want hard feelings and have no wish to leave you with the impression that I was calling YOU "intellectually lazy." I don't know you and I would never say that. I said your specific RESPONSE (that it didn't matter because no one alive cares) was an intellectually lazy one.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

I bet the blood in that Mysterious Island clip was Handschiegl red and that would’ve been very striking against the green tinted footage.

 

[Capt D McMars]

I bet the blood in that Mysterious Island clip was Handschiegl red and that would’ve been very striking against the green tinted footage.

I wish you had access to the materials and really do it right!! The joy and satisfaction of being able to restore this film to it's full colored glory, when we know that copies exsist, would be the project of the decade!! It's just getting access to the Cezch film elements seems to be the biggest hurdles?

 

[Robert Harris]

Mr. Krupp: I respect your knowledge of Technicolor and your opinions, but just for fun, I'm going to get super nit-picky and point out what seems to me to be an inconsistency in your position on two-strip Technicolor. As I understand it, you claim that it should be the number of strips of film in the camera that determines the name of the process. And, you claim that if two thin strips of film are cemented together then they should be classified as a single strip of film, even if the two strips contain different color records. If both of those assumptions are correct, then there is no such thing as three-strip Technicolor, because the three-strip camera uses a single bi-pack for the red and blue records and a separate strip of film for the green record. According to your logic, the bi-pack is a single strip of film, so only two strips of film run through a three-strip Technicolor camera, which means three-strip Technicolor should actually be called two-strip Technicolor. The fact is, Kalmus (the ultimate authority on this question) is long dead, and none of this has mattered for a hundred years, so nobody but a few scholars gives a damn. But, you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

Three strip Tech had three negatives in varying positions within the camera.

 

[cinemiracle]

So called LOST FILMS may not be 'lost'-just stored away and unseen for decades. Two years ago I saw myself in an almost 50 year old news footage that I never knew was being filmed at the time. That footage had now become included in a documentary film series about cinema..A huge surprise for me and I now have the series on dvd. It has also been shown on tv several times since the series was made .Who would have thought that old news segments would be taken out of the archives and included in a documentary? Certainly not me.

 

[Brent Reid]

There's an increasing tendency for folk here and elsewhere to use the widely accepted term "lost film" (no longer extant; not known to exist) when they really mean "unavailable" or, better still, "not easily accessible to members of the public." The only reason I can think of is that consciously or subconsciously, "lost film" sounds more sexy or clickbaity than the correct terms.

It may not seem like a big deal but we film fans/buffs are theoretically more knowledgeable than most, so what hope for everyone else? See also continuing misuse and erosion of "restoration", "director's cut", etc. The separate discussion above about mangling of accepted terminology is another example.

Though the OP of this thread uses "lost" correctly, most replies do not. Here are some more:

• Can anyone help to find a lost television broadcast...
• Researching "lost" films & TV question?
• Help Me Find 3 lost/rare episodes...
• A DVD set of failed/'lost' pilots...
• Olivia de Havilland's lost later films
• Holy Grail of "lost" films

 

[Bert Greene]

Speaking to some features I believe which were once considered lost, there are those scattered Fox silents that were found years ago to be in the Czech film archive. I've always been wanting to see some of the dozen or so Tom Mix westerns they apparently house there. Titles like...

THE FIGHTING STREAK (1922) Tom Mix, Patsy Ruth Miller
ROMANCE LAND (1923) Tom Mix, Barbara Bedford
LAST OF THE DUANES (1924) Tom Mix, Marian Nixon
THE TROUBLE SHOOTER (1924) Tom Mix, Kathleen Key
THE LUCKY HORSESHOE (1925) Tom Mix, Billie Dove
NO MAN'S GOLD (1926) Tom Mix, Eva Novak
TONY RUNS WILD (1926) Tom Mix, Jacqueline Logan
THE CIRCUS ACE (1927) Tom Mix, Natalie Joyce

A few more besides these, but these were the only Mix titles I have listed in some of my scrawled notes. I'm sure they all have foreign titles and would need English translations. According to the late Bob Birchard, the prints of the Mix westerns are in pretty dire shape, though. Might even constitute an unsalvageable mess, the way things sound. The Czech archive also includes one of the four Fox silent Rex Bell westerns, "Wild West Romance" (1928), but it might not fare any better, for all I know. Ditto "The Cyclone Rider" (1924) with Reed Howes. Have no idea how many of these Fox titles from over there have been screened, either. Although, I think I recall hearing that the print of "The Joy Girl" (1927) with Olive Borden, got shown at some film festival a few years back. Maybe one or two others? I thought "Singed" (1927), a Blanche Sweet title might have popped up. But perhaps not. Haven't followed things closely enough.

 

[Chris55]

Just finished watching that magnificent 1925 version of “Ben-Hur”, on Bluray, and must say that it is the best of the two classic versions. Still the spectacular chariot race, but a far more beautiful and moving story, which seems much more sophisticated (surprisingly considering it’s a silent version) and, of course, unrestrained pre-coder and interesting version, and with all the multitude of (Czech found) Technicolor sequences. Ramon Novarro makes a much more pleasing and dashing Ben-Hur . Great Carl Davis score, too. It really is a masterpiece of it’s time and a must-watch.