Page 1 of Films lost forever.

Just watching vertigo the other day and noticed it had been restored for a rerelease in 1998...and had been in a very bad state of repair. got me thinking about other films like this...i.e. lawrence of arabia in 2002, gone with the wind on countless occassions. george lucas said if the exisiting star wars print hadn`t been restored in 1997, it might have been beyond repair...well, the special editions certainly are! just wondering, if the restoration experts got to any classic films too late...which have been lost for future generations of cinema goers to enjoy. i`m sure classic films have also been lost by means other than neglect as well. any thoughts?
kozza.

Only one I can think of is the old horror film "London After Midnight" a Lon Chaney film I believe...

This was a subject I used to be quite interested in. t`s a lot more depressing than most people think. (i guess only depressing though if your interested in film)

It is estimated more than half of the 21,000 shorts and full-length features made on nitrate stock before 1950 are gone. And that`s forever, no chance of ever recovering any of them. Roughly three quarters of the films from the Silent Era, 1893-1930, have also been destroyed. And every color film made on Eastmancolor stock between 1950 and 1975 is in danger of fading away.

In a similar vein, the original negatives of the following films(which I guess are considered classics) no longer exist - How Green Was My Valley, The Ox-Bow Incident, Stagecoach, Dr. Strangelove, etc, etc, etc.

Thank God for Digital Masters.

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Ok, you people! Sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we`re not back by dawn... call the president.

Me at IMDB: http://us.imdb.com/user/ur1138167/boards/profile/

Me at YMDB:
http://www.ymdb.com/user_top20_view.asp?usersid=7665

zrrifle,
do you know of any websites or books that deal with this subject.
you`re right, it certainly makes for fascinating albeit depressing reading.
kozza.
edit: forgot to ask you, which famous films were made on eastmancolor stock during the 1950-75 period you mentioned? i imagine there will be many classics amongst them.

This item was edited on Sunday, 11th May 2003, 10:34