London After Midnight

[Trevor]

I wish someone would prove me wrong that almost all the silent South African films from 1910 to 1930 still exist somewhere.

At last count, only 12 still exist in one format or another.

[M.10rda]

The ratio of preserved silents to lost silents generally is staggering. I realize filmmaking was only 2-3 decades  old but producers and distributors were crazy careless with that stuff. I mean, same w/ archival video through the 60s and 70s (lost DOCTOR WHOs et al). Totally wild that people figured no one would ever care to watch those things ever again.

While looking for LAM info I also learned that PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC was "lost" until 1981. (I was 4yo, so for my purposes it had never been lost, obv.) That's crazy - POJOA is almost certainly the greatest film of the silent era - or at least the greatest one we can watch today. Who knows if there's one that's just as good or better but is locked in a custodial closet in another Norwegian mental hospital?