Talk:Lost film/Archive 1

The Cube

 * The cube by jim henson is available for rent on iTunes, so I have removed it from the list.

Star Wars "tampered with"?

 * Since George Lucas was the one in charge of making the changes to the original Star Wars films for the digital VHS and DVD releases and they are his intellectual property, is it really proper to describe such changes as "tampering" regardless of how they are received in the fan community? --65.113.254.220 02:23, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps tampering is too strong a word but the idea behind it is correct. Nobody denies that George Lucas has the right to do what he is doing but there is a very strong argument that he is taking a cultural relic from the 1970s, altering it and attempting to remove the original from circulation (although I see he's decided to release the originals on DVD finally this year).--80.193.22.182 18:34, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Three and a Half?

 * How can it be 3 and a half films surviving? I was under the impression that movies had to be all or none to be counted.

Films are usually split into reels. It's often the case that some of these reels survive while others don't and often it's down to pure chance. So, if half the reels for a film are missing, should that in your view be counted as a whole film or no film? Clearly, it's neither. If half the film is lost, we can't watch the full film but what we have is still a valuable document. So, I guess we can count that film as half surviving (or half lost, depending on your viewpoint :-) --80.193.22.182 18:29, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

List of important lost films

 * Shouldn't it be chronological? Jonathan F 23:40, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Both could be useful. I vote to either keep it as it is or have both. --80.193.22.182 18:29, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Copyright
I have removed this paragraph:
 * Copyright status may often be a factor in bringing lost films forward for preservation. The incentives for an owner of a lost film to bring it forward for preservation are reduced if that film is still protected by copyright. The film owner could not readily benefit from any commercial distribution of the film, as he would have to obtain permission from the copyright holder. Under U.S. copyright law all films and other publications originally published before 1923 are now in the public domain. Prior to 1998 works published with corporate authorship, such as films, became public domain 75 years after publication. However, in 1998 the U.S. Congress passed the Copyright Term Extension Act which increased the length of this copyright to 90 years. This was pejoratively referred to as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act by detractors arguing that the extension was only benefiting large companies that controlled commercially viable publications from the 1920s. This came at the expense of effectively prohibiting the distribution of the thousands and thousands of contemporary publications that have long been out-of-print, including numerous silent films. Consequently, a Lon Chaney film released prior to 1923, such as Shadows (1922) is now in the public domain, whereas a film released in 1923 such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923 film) will not enter the public domain until 2013, assuming U.S. copyright law is not changed prior to that date. Under the current system, London After Midnight will enter the public domain in 2018.

This is argument is not well thought out legally. Assuming that a film collector had a rare copy of a film that was out of copyright and in the public domain, he still would not have an economic incentive to restore the film and make it available on the market: because the film is in the public domain, any other distributor could then copy his release and sell it too. (Adding original titles or intertitles wouldn't help, either. Public domain distributors can easily replace those with their own.) Copyright protection actually helps a film collector with a unique copy of a film. He can usually negotiate a profit-sharing deal with the copyright owner for the use of his material in an authorized release of the film, a release that would be protected financially from copyright infringement by others.

Also, the 1923 Hunchback of Notre Dame is a bad example: Universal did not renew its copyright in 1951, and it has been in the public domain since then. — Walloon 15:26, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I should also add that the classic "collector with the last print" scenario rarely, if ever, happens. Few film collectors don't want to share their films (you're just storing them if you're not sharing them) and even fewer collect nitrate films, for obvious reasons.  I've never met a film collector who DOESN'T brag about their "finds"!  — The Photoplayer  20:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

this should not have been removed. Copyright is a CLEAR and documented force in the loss of films because they can't be released without impossible entaglement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.57.23.82 (talk) 03:39, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

MST3k
I've deleted the first few KTMA episodes of MST3k off the list because they are in existence, just not in collector hands. If we applied the standard of "someone, but not all has it," this list could be VERY long. -The Photoplayer 21:20, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Peter Sellers
I heard that Peter Sellers directed a film but never released it, and it remains in a vault somewhere. — 71.219.94.229 01:03, 25 November 2006) (UTC) thats not true its not lost its in an archive and can be seen on the archives website I'm not trying to be rude its justnot lost — Preceding unsigned comment added by LostMediaFan (talk • contribs) 23:38, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

A couple of things
I have added Andy Milligan to the 'later lost films section'. Also, I noticed this bit of the 'almost lost films' section...

"Many, many important silent-era films, and films which involve important actors, directors, and creative talent, exist in single prints in museums, archives, and private collections — single prints which have not been copied, digitized, or preserved in any way. The possibility of losing these films forever is very real, unless they are preserved."

This is unreferenced, does anyone have any backup for this, and any examples of such films? 218.101.106.252 12:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)Duncan
 * That bit sounds like an attempt at guilt-tripping people into coming forward, rather than serious journalism. — MartinUK, 10:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

2001: Space Odyssey
Stanley Kubrick destroyed every scrap of the movie except for the final cut...possibly necessary to add this to the "incomplete" section. — Thefinman 01:47, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * No, because the complete version as commercially released in 1968 still survives. If he had destroyed the original negative, then that would be different. Many film directors routinely destroy unused material, sometimes for greedy reasons and sometimes for legal reasons. That doesn't make their films incomplete. Incomplete films are those that are, well, incomplete in every available form. 68.146.8.46 05:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm responding to a comment from nine years ago here, but 2001 was editing during its original run - the original, original version that audiences saw on the opening night no longer exists. 84.93.73.129 (talk) 18:10, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, I saw that original version. My recollection is that the conference on the moon was trimmed down significantly.  There may have been other changes as well, but they didn't stand out to me on subsequent viewings. BMK (talk) 23:20, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * My recollection may be wrong. Jerome Agel in The Making of Kubrick's 2001 says that 19 minutes were trimmed, and the cuts came from "Dawn of Man, Orion, Poole exercising in the centrifuge, and Poole's pod exiting from Discovery.". (p.170) BMK (talk) 23:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

My Living Doll
There should be a reference in the TV broadcasts section to My Living Doll. As I understand it, only a few episodes survive of this series, the rest apparently being trashed for legal reasons. The Wikipedia article has an unsourced claim that the complete run has been located, however, but in lieu of a source being added to that info, can anyone track down an online source on the status of the series. My info comes from a book I read about 10 years ago, so I can't add it without a source. 68.146.8.46 05:24, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The above content was changed to the following:
 * There should be a reference in the TV broadcasts section to My Living Doll. As I understand it, only a 11 episodes survive of this series. With several collectors claiming to have further segments, to this point not sourced.
 * With the 2012 dvd MPI video release there is a plea from the producers for the return of collector held film elements, the search is now in high gear for a full restoration of the show.
 * by — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.9.123.60 (talk) 19:16, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I reverted the change (third-party not allowed to change others' comments) and instead appended that IP's altered content below it. DMacks (talk) 19:50, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Chaplin film
The article states that all Charlie Chaplin's film still exist except one that he destroyed himself, but frustratingly it doesn't say what the name of the film is or why it was destroyed. Can anyone shed any light on this?
 * The film that passage is refering to is A Woman of the Sea. It is listed in "selected lost films" section of the article.--Kevin586 17:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Since this subject has received quite a bit of attention around here, I should note an incident I remember from around 1986. It was being reported in the local L.A. media for several days that a container of several Chaplain film reels had been accidently thrown away during the cleaning of a warehouse or some such place. Employees subsequently spent several days scouring the city dump to no avail, although I don't recall what the content of the films entaled. Roz666 22:52, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

List
Whomever was editing this page apparently did not read it all the way through and made a completely repetitious and un-encyclopedic entry because of it. Here is the list that they made of found films. I've whittled out what was already listed. Please write descriptions (and please source if you can), as well as alphabetize the following list before putting it in its proper place in the article:


 * Der Hound Von Baskervilles (The Hound of the Baskervilles) directed by Rudolf Meinert
 * Der Sieg des Glaubens (The Victory of Faith) directed by Leni Riefenstahl
 * A Fool and His Money:  directed by Alice Guy-Blache
 * Maid or Man:  directed by Thomas H. Ince
 * His Wedding Night:  starring Fatty Arbuckle
 * Incubus:  starring William Shatner
 * Montmarto's Divine Sea Warriors
 * Love and Duty:  starring Ruan Lingyu
 * The Prisoner of Zenda:  directed by Edwin S. Porter
 * The Exquisite Sinner:  directed by Josef Von Sternberg
 * La Tosca
 * Oh Baby!
 * Youth
 * Purity
 * A Manly Man:  directed by Thomas H. Ince
 * Defense d'afficher:  directed by George Melies
 * Why Be Good?
 * Back Stage starring Fatty Arrbuckle
 * A Gun Fightin' Gentleman:  starring John Ford
 * The Constant Nymph
 * The Wonder of Women
 * Senorita
 * In the Days of St. Patrick
 * If I Were King
 * Pied Piper Malone
 * The Boob

Thank you! -The Photoplayer 18:31, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Lost 1970 Festival Film
More than nine hours of videotape of John Lennon and Yoko Ono shot in February 1970 by Tony Cox, Ms. Ono's former husband, came to light in 1970.

Extensive film footage of Phun City (Worthing - England) a three day music festival held in July 1970 featuring the MC5, Mungo Jerry, The Pink Fairies, the Edgar Broughton Band, Kevin Ayers and others has completely disappeared. Shot by British Lion - three camera shoot - the filming is believed to have been organised and financed by Roland O'Rahilly - founding partner of Radio Caroline. (B/W images of the cameras surrounding the stage exist on the UK Rock Festivals site.) [] 58.9.37.116 (talk) 09:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Salt mine?
Event Horizon (1997) - The original version of the film which was shown to test audiences featured 30 min. of extra footage including graphic violent and orgiastic scenes and several other scenes that were later removed in post-production by order of Paramount Pictures. Most of this footage has been lost except for a few remaining scenes without sound that were found in an abandoned salt mine. They appear on the 2006 special edition of the film.

salt mine? give me a break! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.226.137 (talk) 02:17, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Always amusing when people highlight their ignorance with dismissiveness. Salt mines are often used as longterm storage for valuable stuff because the presence of salt indicates that they have been free of moisture for gazillions of years. EEng (talk) 17:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know about abandoned, but the Hutchinson Salt Mine in Kansas has long been the location for many long-term storage of important film elements because of its naturally occurring archival storage conditions.

Frankly, I think this list of "original versions" is ridiculous. Thousands of films had longer cuts in their preview versions, and just because footage is cut from a film doesn't mean that it's lost in the sense of the term that this article is talking about. -The Photoplayer 08:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Korean silent films
I think not a single production from the not trivial Korean film industry before the world war has survived. The Japanese even more developed silent films have also suffered greatly. Someone more knowledagable than me perhaps should wrote a few lines about this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.226.5.146 (talk) 01:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

you seem to be under the impression that the encyclopedia is global - have you not read the article? It is clear that only English language films and almost entirely those produced in the USA that are notable - are there films made elsewhere? You wouldn;t think so, would you? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.113.170.97 (talk) 13:35, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Being Wikipedia, I think that if there are people knowledgable on lost films of other countries, they can gladly add these to the list. I'd be quite interested in the lost films of Bollywood seeing that they make so many every year 105.224.107.53 (talk) 20:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

a christmas special
shouldn't "The Star Wars Holiday Special" be added to the list of commerically unavailable films? I mean, it was only aired once in the US and never released on vhs or dvd or anything else. Masterhatch (talk) 06:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Faraway Hill
There are no surviving copies of Faraway Hill, the first American television soap opera. --Pcnky (talk) 19:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal
It has been suggested to merge the Found film article into the Lost film. I would disagree with this suggestion, because(1) the Found film is mostly about still film and the Lost film is about motion picture film; (2) Lost film means film which does not exist anymore, Found film is about vintage film found exposed and developed years after it was exposed with some pictures rescued;(3) Found film is primarily deals with vernacular still photography while Lost film is professional motion picture short film or feature film. The differences are too many and the distance between two is too wide to consider the merger. -- Amirko (talk) 03:27, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I see that you have removed "lost film" as an alternate name in the lead of the Found film article you created, so as to better distinguish between the two. So I've removed the merge proposal from the target page, accordingly. However, I think you were a little premature, as a new editor, in removing the merge template for the article you created. Please see WP:OWN and WP:CONSENSUS. Still, I agree that there is now a clearer distinction between the concepts of Found and Lost film. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:57, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

List of lost television broadcasts
TV content moved to List of lost television broadcasts. Binksternet (talk) 20:13, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Propaganda - nonobjectivity
This section seems to serve no purpose other than to try to evoke a reaction in the reader to take action to archive all films. This shouldn't be a recruiting ground but a facts-only reference.:

Almost lost films

Many important silent-era films, and films which involve important actors, directors, and creative talent, exist in single prints in museums, archives, and private collections — single prints which have not been copied, digitized, or preserved in any way.[citation needed]

Just my two cents 76.185.213.28 (talk) 05:56, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Spelling grammer
This article has terrible grammer/spelling. The section on unknown film is extremely difficult to understand 115.130.1.39 (talk) 08:03, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Then fix it.  Lugnuts  (talk) 10:32, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

"grammar" StainlessSteelScorpion (talk) 03:36, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

wild wild kalahari
"sands of the kalahari" may have been shown theatrically in the united states during the seventies under the title,"wild, wild apes." it appears that a subdistributor got ahold of a copy of "sands" and fashioned a new ad campaign for it, a campaign designed to capitalize on the success of the "planet of the apes" series of films. the new campaign made it appear that "kalahari" was a science fiction film taking place in the future, at a time when apes had wrested control of the united states from the humans. details of this apparent ruse are presented on the "temple of schlock" website.)(````) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonbecker03 (talk • contribs) 05:11, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Not everything you can't watch at home counts as "lost"
This article goes way overboard in lumping bad, unreleased films, or films withdrawn by persons controlling it for personal reasons, with films which literally no longer exist in any form, period. Jerry Lewis' The Day the Clown Cried was so awful it was obviously a waste of money to distribute it; so what? Let It Be "has not been officially released on home video in any format since the early 1980s" -- how sad. Those are not lost films, for crying out loud. EEng (talk) 17:48, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree and removed the "Commercially unavailable films" section. Erik (talk &#124; contribs) 19:49, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I got reverted on my removal here. Will undo the revert, but just letting you know. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 16:51, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Stay with it. EEng (talk) 17:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Definition confusion and possible merger
Is the topic solely films that are confirmed to be non-existent (hard to prove, but experts surely have done diligent searching for major ones), or also ones that just haven't been found in the most likely places (or even ones that haven't been researched deeply at all)? The wording suggests the latter, which agrees with the lay-language meaning of "lost". But we have a separate (though unreferenced) Unknown film, which suggests that there is a separate term for the wider (unconfirmed status) classification. Should that be merged into here, or should the definition here be clarified to mean ones with strong evidence of no longer existing? Either way, the definition itself could use a reference to support its technical meaning within its own area of study. DMacks (talk) 07:43, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * At best I think it should be merged into this article, otherwise delete (I've never heard of the term myself).  Lugnuts  (talk) 08:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Super Bowls I and II
The first two Super Bowls were once listed here. Is there a good reason why they were removed? If not, I'm going to put them back in to this article. I know that Super Bowl I has been partially discovered, if so, it goes in to the appropriate section.StrangeApparition2011 (talk) 00:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions
A couple suggestions on improving this article—
 * It should probably be clarified that, although it is commonly circulated that 50% of pre-1950 American sound films are considered lost, film preservation (at least for major studios) seemed to become pretty much universal following the loss of Convention City in 1933. Thereafter, lost major studio films are extremely, extremely rare.  The situation, therefore, may not be as grim as often prescribed.
 * Since all but one of Buster Keaton's films have survived, wasn't he an advocate of the preservation of his work? Theskinnytypist (talk) 05:51, 27 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm too lazy to dig up a cit for it now, but I've seen commentary that the 50% pre-1950 sound film loss claim is at best misleading and at worst a calculated alarmist exaggeration. Apparently, that figure includes many short industrial films of the Ball Bearings for Victory and Your Plywood Miracle Home variety, newsreels in their original intact form (after release, most were disassembled into their component parts and archived piecemeal, like a newspaper's "morgue" of clippings), original release trailers, and other short films in the category of ephemera — regrettable losses from a cultural-historical perspective, certainly, but there are indeed very few feature films from the mid-1930s onward among the missing. If a feature was still in existence in the 1950s, when even the stalest old turkeys suddenly had new value as one more title to add to a television syndication package, it has usually survived in some form. 66.249.172.85 (talk) 10:43, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Alleged 1933 Warner Bros - First National vault fire
I have just removed a rough tagged-on claim that most of the 1928-1930 WB-FN Vitaphone talkies were lost in a 1933 vault fire. The cited source, also now removed, is a fan-written TCM blog post that itself cites no sources and includes some fairly obvious errors: confusion about Fox silent film losses in 1937 and 1961 fires, the wrong year for the MGM vault fire in which London After Midnight perished, etc. Unless written by someone who is an established expert on the subject at hand (e.g., the author of non-self-published books or articles or recognized as an authority in professional journals), blog postings are not considered a reliable source by Wikipedia — anyone can post their faulty recollections or sloppy original research or erroneous third-hand information to a blog. Some light online research turns up no source that does not derive from the same TCM blog, and yet such a 1933 vault fire would certainly explain why such an unusually large percentage of pre-1931 WB-FN features are now lost. Does anyone know of a reliable source regarding this alleged event? 66.249.172.85 (talk) 09:37, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Did some research, the only thing I found was a scientific paper saying that 1933 was the first year that "spontaneous combustion" was linked to film. Nothing about Vitaphone or fire though. Safe to say this is bogus. StainlessSteelScorpion (talk) 03:43, 21 January 2015 (UTC)


 * (same IP as initial post) My own subsequent research turned up some relevant items on a good-quality discussion board (Nitrateville, IIRC) to the effect that there was indeed a disastrous fire in a WB storage facility in 1933, but it was an East Coast facility that housed only prints; the negatives (and, presumably, another set of prints) were vaulted on the west coast. So while presumably a contributing factor in the shockingly high MIA numbers for early WB-FN sound features, not enough by itself to adequately account for the loss. 66.81.241.220 (talk) 09:55, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Berne Convention
This is no longer true: "At least one copy of every American film is required to be deposited and catalogued at the Library of Congress for copyright reasons." Works are born copyright as of the US joining the Berne Convention in 1989. Kendall-K1 (talk) 18:55, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Statement in article has now been modified to remove the error. 66.81.240.192 (talk) 15:44, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

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Merge proposal
I propose that List of lost films be merged into Lost films. The content in these articles is nearly identical with the exception being that List of lost films contains a list, and the size is not an issue. Any thoughts? Healpa12 (talk) 15:04, 29 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose. I think there's enough content here to keep it it's own article.LoneWolf1992 (user talk) 18:45, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The list already has sub-articles,i think it's long enough already.45meninmycar (user talk) 18:26, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Size is an issue. The list and sublists are significantly larger than the base article. Besides WP:Article size applies. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:37, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The list is intended to be an exhaustive list, which would be too much to include in the article. --Bensin (talk) 12:59, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above. This article has more than enough content, and merging the incredibly long and exhaustive list into this would be incredibly unnecessary and problematic. Anonymous 7481 (talk) 21:23, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Closing, given the consensus not to merge. Klbrain (talk) 11:12, 8 September 2021 (UTC)