Celluloid Ghosts: Top Ten Lost Films

I still want to see Orson Welles' original The Magnificent Ambersons.

Thank you for this interesting round up. So many great films lost.

Now that we have AI, we can take the stills of the lost movies, animate them into video clips and piece them together to form film clips if not a short version of the movie itself. I even bet in a few years, if you give the AI the script and the photos, it could reconstruct the film itself. AI offers LOTS of possibilities in restoring lost movies.

There was a copy of The Pit And The Pendulum in 1973, at a girl's (detention) school called Hillcrest, in Salem, Oregon. I think they had a stack of old reel films always there, so it's probably still there. We got to see it once as a treat and the whole film was there.

The lost film I want to see rediscovered is New Zealand's first feature film "A Message from Mars" which was one of many versions of a popular play made in many countries in 1909.
The special thing about the New Zealand version is that it was probably made as a direct response to the wave of airship sightings that swept north from the bottom of the South Island in 1909.

I got interested in Silent Films about 6 or 7 years ago. I went from 0 to now I have about 60.

"A normal-sized ape-monster"

The film I’m so caribous that may exist still is Strong Boy (1929) and The Great Gatsby (1926), Strong boy is considered lost with no copies believed to exist. But it is rumored that a copy is in Australia. The Great Gatsby, I mean if the 1949 version was considered lost but rediscovered in 2012, there may be a copy of the Earliest film copy somewhere in a film archive.

Amazing! I love these deep dives into film history. My top pick for a lost film I'd like to see would have to be 1919's Anne of Green Gables, with Mary Miles Minter, a popular rival of Mary Pickford's. It's of particular interest to me because it was the first adaptation of this novel, and L.M. Montgomery, the author, did not like it, and described its many flaws in her journal. Its director, William Desmond Taylor, was murdered and his murder remains unsolved. It was discovered that he had been involved with his young star, and afterwards her films sank without a trace.

Is Boo the actual origin of mst3k and Elvira?

Eight hours down to two, that's one edited film and three lost films.

I'm very much a Murnau fanboy so I'd love for The 4 Devils to be found. But, I'm Australian also and so I would love for The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) or Soldiers of the Cross (1900) to be found. Only 17 or so minutes of The Story of the Kelly Gang exist, some of that in very poor condition, of what is reputed to be the first feature-length movie. That is 60 minutes or more in length. This is a great video, so many thanks for presenting this.

Chaney's vampire makeup in "London After Midnight" looks awfully similar to some photos of Ozzy Osbourne. I wonder if this was an inspiration for Ozzy?

Lost Films have always been intriguing to me. Here is my short list of Lost Films
Two Flaming Youths (1927) W.C.Fields
The Potters (1928) W.C Fields
Hats Off (1927). Laurel & Hardy
Senorita (1927) Bebe Daniel’s
The Duelists (1928) William Powell & Raymond Griffith

Since movie companies are saturating us with rebooting crap, why haven't any of these movies ever been remade since the scripts and stills exists?

Geez, is it possible for the host to put more blush on his cheeks?

Lord of the Rings with the end missing, you say? Yes, everyone above a certain age remembers when that was exactly the case, because we only had the 70's animation to watch for decades.

Once again we hear the old claim that 80% of all pre-1930 films are lost. OK, numerically that is probably true. But I am betting that a very large number of those films were one-reel comedies which were produced by the thousands. When I see some that survived they are so terrible that no tears need to be shed for those lost!

If any of these are found god flooded the entire earth

any of the lost Louise Brooks movies, I'd love to see. and a complete verison of a Star is Born

Did Michael Powell travel back in time and accidentally prevent the meeting of his parents? Holy shit.

Great video- have you ever though of doing a video looking at lost films that were rediscovered:)?

this channel needs more subs

What about the multi-award winning audio movie remake with Art Malik in Dolby Atmos? Have you heard that? 100% reviewed fresh too!

Does someone have the 12 hour version of “Greed” somewhere?

Unfortunately losing films to censorship is what happens when you let fanatics and zealots make the rules.

you insult the, for not making a copy…there were dozens made for distribution! someone out there has a copy, its value makes it like those stolen masterpieces: too invaluable to show to others

As a film studies graduate, I find this really interesting. I will now look for Sunrise to watch soon. Thanks!

Good one but I can't believe it didn't mention Homunculus from 1916 which was 360 minutes long.

“80% of the entirety of films prior to 1930 are lost.”
So that’s why only like 3 Fleischer Studios cartoon from 1929 exist…🤔

celluloid film are so fragile, i need to find alternative element like carbon

"Why save a painting by Leonardo DaVinci when we have Picasso painting new ones?"

I have the TCM Chaney dvd set. Well worth it.

The spoilers with gary cooper from 1930

Years later when a print of London After Midnight was found...Only 1/2 of the film had survived..
The other 1/2 had disintergrated in to a black goo
when it was restored the movie restoration used stock stills to replace the missing footage
Most of the Jazz singer is a silent movie.. the only sound in the film was used forjolson's intro a song for his mother ... & the other musical sequences

Wow, someone's done their homework, eh! Neat. Nailed it! Cheers!

I know to some its probably trivial, but I would love to see the lost Warner Oland Charlie Chan films found.

Check places like Cuba for the Jack Johnson film, if not Spain itself. There must be a copy in Cuba. Johnson not only fought but actually lived there during his exile. Sounds like almost any lost film as well had a Spanish version, perhaps old theaters in Spain, The Caribbean, and Latin America.

Who would have thought that small towns at the very end runs of these movies would have caches of these films? I have in mind the buried cache found in Dawson, Canada, and the man in Iowa who found the entire stock of the local small defunct theater in a shed and for which he paid $30 in the sixties. Among the gems was a lost film by Georges Melies. And the rare Frankenstein poster found in little old Jerome, Arizona. So its not the major cities where these were found but the very opposite. Perhaps gems await in some failed American small town with an empty theater.

You could also talk about Brasilian lost films. The most searched one is called O Mistério do Dominó Preto (The Mystery of the Black Domino in english).

Your video is very interesting.
About Theda Bara's Cleopatra Old Films and Stuff has found a 41 seconds nitrate of it.

Funny, I've used the "stage play" comparison myself.

Yesterday they just rediscovered footage of the mythical Theda Bara's Cleopatra (1917).Together with Salome (1919) and The Queen of Sheeba (1921) all three epics were belived to be lost during Fox vault fire in 1937 but some clips resurfaced .

I'd like to see Hats Off (1927) found, forerunner to The Music Box (1932).
I had an idea for finding some lost films though: Since a lot of archives aren't aware of which films are considered lost (for example "The Mysterious Island" and "Why Be Good") create a worldwide database of films and encourage archives to contribute information as to which materials of each film they possess.

I actually saw mark of the vampire and I enjoyed it

You, sir, are a scholar! Thank you for this fascinating documentary about lost films. There are so many of FW Murnau and Lon Chaney that I would love to see. And for me, Conrad Veidt is in a class all on his own. I am unashamed to say that I have a huge crush on him. I would definitely pick "Der Januskopf" over "4 Devils." ☺