Lost films shed light on Hollywood history

Clara Bow (left) and Ethel Shannon in 1923's 'Maytime.'

75 films found in vault, classics including early John Ford film, Clara Bowe starrer,  Mabel Norman 

Only 20% of the films produced in America before 1929 survive in complete form. Yet Americans went to films once a week and often daily between 1910 and 1929. Movies were big and until Radio took off, the primary form of entertainment and information for most Americans. True there were plenty of readers, but they put down their books and magazines to enjoy the moving pictures.

Women as well as man, were superstars; by percentage of population they were far more popular than todays largest megastar!

"Upstream" by John Ford, 1929, was thought lost. Now most of the film has been thanks to a projectionist attic and basement. For the first time in nearly 80 years will be screened in New York this fall.

Researched discovered "a time capsule of American Film" of the 19 teens and twenties.

“The New Zealand Film Archive and the National Film Preservation Foundation have struck a partnership to preserve the films over the next three years in collaboration with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, George Eastman House, Library of Congress, Museum of Modern Art and UCLA Film and Television Archive. Sony Pictures and 20th Century Fox are also helping with the restoration of titles from their libraries. Just a few of the titles are described below, with additional at the "Variety" link below.

Won in a Closet,' directed by and starring Mabel Normand.

"Won in a Closet" (Keystone Film Company, 1914), the first surviving movie directed by and starring Mabel Normand. 

Lois Weber, who had two early films in the vault,  was up there with DW Griffith and Cecil B Demille. She made films on birth control, poverty, drug abuse, women's issues, war and the relationships between men and women.

"The Woman Hater" (Power Picture Plays, 1910), a one-reel comedy starring serial queen Pearl White, the most popular female star in America for most of decade.

"The Girl Stage Driver" (Éclair-Universal, 1914), an early Western filmed in Tucson, Arizona. American-made Westerns were in demand by movie audiences around the globe and helped establish the United States as the major film-exporting nation by the late 1910s.

"Lyman Howe's Ride on a Runaway Train" (Lyman H. Howe Films, 1921), a thrill-packed short entertainment that was accompanied by sound discs which survive at the Library of Congress. It may have beee the first "sound" motion picture.

"The Active Life of Dolly of the Dailies," Episode 5, "The Chinese Fan" (Edison Manufacturing Co., 1914). In this episode of the famous serial (previously entirely lost in the United States), ace woman reporter Dolly Desmond, played by Mary Fuller, rescues the editor's daughter from kidnappers and gets the scoop. In the early 1910s, on-going serial narratives starring intrepid heroines lured female moviegoers back to the theater week after week