77-475: Polly Ann (also known as The Little Reformer and Pernickety Polly Ann ) is a lost 1917 American silent comedy-drama film produced and distributed by the Triangle Film Corporation . It was directed by Charles Miller and stars Bessie Love . In rural New Hampshire, Orphan Polly Ann (Love) leaves the poor farm to work at the village tavern, run by Jud Simpkins (Lockney). When
154-614: A New Hampshire barn and donated to Keene State College . Beyond the Rocks (1922), with Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino , was considered a lost film for several decades. Swanson lamented the loss of this and other films in her 1980 memoirs but optimistically concluded: "I do not believe these films are gone forever." In 2000, a print was found in the Netherlands and restored by the Nederlands Filmmuseum and
231-425: A fader ; an amplifier ; and a loudspeaker system. The projectors operated just as motorized silent projectors did, but at a fixed speed of 24 frames per second and mechanically interlocked with the attached turntables. When each projector was threaded, the projectionist would align a start mark on the film with the film gate , then cue up the corresponding soundtrack disc on the turntable, being careful to place
308-449: A shellac compound rendered lightly abrasive by its major constituent, finely pulverized rock. Such records were played with a very inexpensive, imprecisely mass-produced steel needle with a point that quickly wore to fit the contour of the groove, but then went on to wear out in the course of playing one disc side, after which it was meant to be discarded and replaced. Unlike ordinary records, Vitaphone discs were recorded inside out, so that
385-595: A black-and-white print until 1987, when a film archivist found an unmarked (mute) 35 mm reel in a Hollywood film laboratory with the negative trims of the unused scenes. Several films that would otherwise be entirely lost partially survive as stock footage used for later films. For example, the Universal Pictures short Boo! (1932) contains the only remaining footage of the Universal feature film The Cat Creeps (1930). However, UCLA still has
462-627: A copy of a lost film is rediscovered. A film that has not been recovered in its entirety is called a partially lost film . For example, the 1922 film Sherlock Holmes was considered lost but eventually rediscovered with some of the original footage missing. Many film studios hired a still photographer to take pictures during production for potential publicity use. Some are produced in quantity for display use by theaters, others in smaller numbers for distribution to newspapers and magazines, and have subsequently preserved imagery from otherwise lost films. In some cases, such as London After Midnight ,
539-555: A copy of the soundtrack. The James Cagney film Winner Take All (1932) used scenes from the early talkie Queen of the Night Clubs (1929), starring Texas Guinan ; that footage is all that remains of the earlier film. Actress-turned-gossip columnist Hedda Hopper made her screen debut in the Fox film The Battle of Hearts (1916). Twenty-six years later, in 1942, Hopper produced her short series "Hedda Hopper's Hollywood #2". In
616-408: A film on nitrate base is said to have been "preserved", this almost always means simply that it has been copied onto safety film or, more recently, digitized , but both methods result in some loss of quality. Some pre-1931 sound films produced by Warner Bros. and First National have been lost because they used a sound-on-disc system with a separate soundtrack on special phonograph records. In
693-636: A grudging admission that its technology had become obsolete, Warner Bros. purported to be doing the entire movie industry a favor. Despite the fact that Warner Bros. still used Vitaphone as a brand name, the soundtrack-disc era was largely over by 1931. Many theater owners, who had invested heavily in Vitaphone equipment only a short time before, were financially unable or unwilling to replace their sound-on-disc-only equipment. Their continuing need for discs compelled most Hollywood studios to prepare sets of soundtrack discs for their new films, made by dubbing from
770-514: A large number of his silent works to a vault fire in the early 1940s. In March 2019, the National Film Archive of India reported that 31,000 of its film reels had been lost or destroyed. An improved 35 mm safety film was introduced in 1949. Since safety film is much more stable than nitrate film, comparatively few films were lost after about 1950. However, color fading of certain color stocks and vinegar syndrome threaten
847-407: A notable donor. The Vitaphone Project has been able to help restore films featuring stars such as Rose Marie and Al Jolson . They also worked with Warner Brothers to restore 1929's Why Be Good? , the final silent film made by Colleen Moore . Funding raised by The Vitaphone Project was used to restore 1928's The Beau Brummels , starring vaudeville duo Al Shaw and Sam Lee, which was added to
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#1732782591249924-606: A number of reasons. Early films were not thought to have value beyond their theatrical run, so many were discarded afterward. Nitrate film used in early pictures was highly flammable and susceptible to degradation. The Library of Congress began acquiring copies of American films in 1909, but not all were kept. Due to improvements in film technology and recordkeeping, few films produced in the 1950s or beyond have been lost. Rarely, but occasionally, films classified as lost are found in an uncataloged or miscataloged archive or private collection, becoming "rediscovered films". During most of
1001-472: A recording on one side only, each reel of film having its own disc. As the sound-on-disc method was slowly relegated to second-class status, cost-cutting changes were instituted, first by making use of both sides of each disc for non-consecutive reels of film, then by reducing the discs to 14 or 12 inches (36 or 30 cm) in diameter. The use of RCA Victor's new "Vitrolac", a lightweight, flexible and less abrasive vinyl-based compound, made it possible to downsize
1078-541: A reunion between them. The uncle then gives his blessing for Polly Ann and Howard to marry. Although the plot was considered unoriginal by its reviewers, the film did well at the box office. This article about a silent comedy-drama film is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Lost film A lost film is a feature or short film in which the original negative or copies are not known to exist in any studio archive, private collection, or public archive. Films can be wholly or partially lost for
1155-457: A separate building to completely isolate them from sound stage floor vibrations and other undesirable influences. The audio signal was sent from an on-stage monitoring and control booth to the recording room over a heavy shielded cable. Synchronization was maintained by driving all the cameras and recorders with synchronous electric motors powered from a common source. When music and sound effects were being recorded to accompany existing film footage,
1232-505: A sticky mass or a powder akin to gunpowder . This process can be very unpredictable; some nitrate film from the 1890s is still in good condition, while some much later nitrate film was scrapped as unsalvageable when it was barely 20 years old. Much depends on the environment in which the film is stored. Ideal conditions of low temperature, low humidity and adequate ventilation can preserve nitrate film for centuries, but in practice, storage conditions have usually fallen far below this level. When
1309-464: A toy for showing brief excerpts from Hollywood films at home. Many other early motion pictures are lost because the nitrate film employed for nearly all 35 mm negatives and prints created before 1952 is highly flammable unless carefully conditioned and handled. When in very badly deteriorated condition and improperly stored (such as in a sun-baked shed), nitrate film can spontaneously combust . Fires have destroyed entire archives of films, such as
1386-491: A traveling theater troupe comes to town, actor Hubert de Courcey (Foss) convinces Polly Ann to become an actress and leave with them. Village schoolteacher Howard Straightlane (Lee) intervenes, and takes Polly Ann under his wing. When a sick relative in Boston sends for Polly Ann, she goes to care for the relative, and nurses him back to health. When she learns that this relative and Howard are uncle and nephew, Polly Ann facilitates
1463-510: A turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film is projected. Its frequency response is 4300 Hz. Many early talkies , such as The Jazz Singer (1927), used the Vitaphone system. The name "Vitaphone" derived from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for "living" and "sound". The "Vitaphone" trademark was later associated with cartoons and other short subjects that have optical soundtracks and do not use discs. In
1540-561: Is the case of Theda Bara , one of the most famous actresses of the early silent era. Bara appeared in 40 films, but only six are now known to exist. Clara Bow was equally celebrated in her heyday, but 20 of her 57 films are completely lost, and another five are incomplete. Once-popular stage actresses who transitioned to silent films, such as Pauline Frederick and Elsie Ferguson , have little left of their film performances. Fewer than ten movies exist from Frederick's work from 1915 to 1928, and Ferguson has two surviving films, one from 1919 and
1617-414: The 1937 storage-vault fire that destroyed all the original negatives of pre-1935 films made by Fox Pictures and the 1965 MGM vault fire that destroyed hundreds of silent films and early talkies, including London After Midnight , now considered among the greatest of all lost films. Eastman Kodak introduced a nonflammable 35 mm film stock in 1909; however, the plasticizers employed to increase
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#17327825912491694-498: The Library of Congress estimates that 75% of all silent films are lost forever. The largest cause of silent-film loss is intentional destruction. Before the eras of home cinema , television and home video , films were considered to have little future value when their theatrical runs ended. Similarly, silent films were perceived as worthless after the end of the silent era. Film preservationist Robert A. Harris has said, "Most of
1771-604: The National Film Registry in 2016. Warner Bros. was careful to preserve the Vitaphone and Vitagraph brand names, just as it had preserved the First National brand name for its second-echelon feature films. Vitaphone had made its reputation largely for its short subjects, so the Warner live-action shorts and animated cartoons were copyrighted by The Vitaphone Corporation until 1959 and marketed under
1848-420: The 11-minute playing time needed to match the maximum running time of a then-standard 1000 foot (300 meter) reel of film projected at 24 fps , yet the increased diameter preserved the average effective groove velocity, and therefore the sound quality, of a smaller, shorter-playing record rotating at the then-standard speed of about 78 rpm. Like ordinary pre- vinyl records, Vitaphone discs were made of
1925-580: The 1910s and 1920s were added to the film collection at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1930s and were preserved under the auspices of curator Iris Barry . Mary Pickford 's filmography is nearly complete. Her early years were spent with Griffith, and she gained control of her own productions in the late 1910s and early 1920s. She had originally intended to destroy these films but later relented. She also recovered as many of her Zukor-controlled early Famous Players films as were salvageable. Likewise, almost all of
2002-454: The 1950s, when 16 mm sound-on-film reduction prints of early talkies were produced for television syndication , such films without complete soundtrack discs were at risk of permanent loss. Many sound-on-disc films have survived only by way of these 16 mm prints. As a consequence of this widespread lack of care, the work of many early filmmakers and performers exists in the present day only in fragmentary form. A high-profile example
2079-520: The 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy of every American film to be deposited at the Library of Congress at the time of copyright registration , but the Librarian of Congress was not required to retain those copies: "Under the provisions of the act of March 4, 1909, authority is granted for the return to the claimant of copyright of such copyright deposits as are not required by
2156-527: The Haghefilm Conservation. It turned up among about two thousand rusty film canisters donated by Haarlem's eccentric Dutch collector, Joop van Liempd. It was given its first modern screening in 2005 and has since been aired on Turner Classic Movies . In the early 2000s, the German film Metropolis —which had been distributed in many different edits over the years—was restored to as close to
2233-474: The Library." A report by Library of Congress film historian and archivist David Pierce estimates that: Of the American sound films made from 1927 to 1950, an estimated half have been lost. The phrase "lost film" can also be used for instances where footage of deleted scenes , unedited, and alternative versions of feature films are known to have been created but can no longer be accounted for. Sometimes,
2310-579: The Vitaphone brand name. Vitagraph had ceased operations in 1925. In 1932, producer Leon Schlesinger made a very-low-budget series of six John Wayne western features. These were so very cheap that Warner Bros. elected not to put its own name on them, or even the First National name. They were released under the Vitagraph name, which Warner still owned. Warner Bros. stopped making live-action short subjects in 1956, and The Vitaphone Corporation
2387-635: The Vitaphone/Vitagraph titles had become interchangeable between the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series titles. Vitaphone was among the first 25 inductees into the TECnology Hall of Fame at its establishment in 2004, an honor given to "products and innovations that have had an enduring impact on the development of audio technology." The award notes that Vitaphone, though short-lived, helped in popularizing theater sound and
Polly Ann - Misplaced Pages Continue
2464-595: The Warner Theater in New York City, broke box-office records, established Warner Bros. as a major player in Hollywood, and is traditionally credited with single-handedly launching the talkie revolution. At first, the production of Vitaphone shorts and the recording of orchestral scores were strictly a New York phenomenon, taking advantage of the bountiful supply of stage and concert hall talent there, but
2541-651: The Warners soon migrated some of this activity to their more spacious facilities on the West Coast. Dance band leader Henry Halstead is given credit for starring in the first Vitaphone short subject filmed in Hollywood instead of New York. Carnival Night in Paris (1927) featured the Henry Halstead Orchestra and a cast of hundreds of costumed dancers in a Carnival atmosphere. From the perspective of
2618-452: The cast and crew on the sound stage, there was little difference between filming with Vitaphone and a sound-on-film system. In the early years of sound, the noisy cameras and their operators were enclosed in soundproofed booths with small windows made of thick glass. Cables suspended the microphones in fixed positions just above camera range, and sometimes they were hidden behind objects in the scene. The recording machines were usually located in
2695-482: The deal died after Paramount lost money in the wake of Rudolph Valentino 's death. Harry eventually agreed to accept Sam's demands. Sam then pushed ahead with a new Vitaphone feature starring Al Jolson , the Broadway dynamo who had already scored a big hit with early Vitaphone audiences in A Plantation Act , a musical short released on October 7, 1926. On October 6, 1927, The Jazz Singer premiered at
2772-456: The demise of their studios. However, unlike Suratt and Bara, because Bushman and Desmond continued working into the sound era and even on television, their later performances survive. Films were sometimes destroyed deliberately. In 1921, actor Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was charged with the murder of actress Virginia Rappe . Following a series of trials, he was ultimately acquitted, but not before his name had become so toxic that studios engaged in
2849-399: The discs while actually improving their sound quality. There were exceptions to the 16-inch (41 cm) standard size of 1920s Vitaphone discs. In the case of very short films, such as trailers and some of the earliest musical shorts, the recording, still cut at 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 rpm and working outward from a minimum diameter of about 7 + 1 ⁄ 2 inches (19 cm),
2926-599: The double feature Grindhouse (2007), both segments— Planet Terror (directed by Robert Rodriguez ) and Death Proof (directed by Quentin Tarantino )—have references to missing reels, used as plot devices . " Cigarette Burns ", an episode of the horror anthology series Masters of Horror directed by John Carpenter, deals with the search for a fictional lost film, "La Fin Absolue Du Monde" ("The Absolute End of The World"). Vitaphone Vitaphone
3003-473: The early 1920s, Western Electric was developing both sound-on-film and sound-on-disc systems, aided by the purchase of Lee De Forest 's Audion amplifier tube in 1913, consequent advances in public address systems, and the first practical condenser microphone , which Western Electric engineer E.C. Wente had created in 1916 and greatly improved in 1922. De Forest debuted his own Phonofilm sound-on-film system in New York City on April 15, 1923, but due to
3080-617: The early films did not survive because of wholesale junking by the studios. There was no thought of ever saving these films. They simply needed vault space and the materials were expensive to house." The studios could earn money by recycling film for its silver content. Many Technicolor two-color negatives from the 1920s and 1930s were discarded when studios simply refused to reclaim their films, still being held by Technicolor in its vaults. Some used prints were sold to scrap dealers and ultimately edited into short segments for use with small, hand-cranked 35 mm movie projectors, which were sold as
3157-528: The early films of Pola Negri which were later lost. Several films have been made with lost film fragments incorporated into the work. Decasia (2002) used nothing but decaying film footage as an abstract tone poem of light and darkness, much like the more historical Lyrical Nitrate (Peter Delpeut, 1991) which contained only footage from canisters found stored in an Amsterdam cinema. In 1993, Delpeut released The Forbidden Quest , combining early film footage and archival photographs with new material to tell
Polly Ann - Misplaced Pages Continue
3234-616: The early to mid-1950s that were either played in interlock on a 35 mm full-coat magnetic reel or single-strip magnetic film (such as Fox's four-track magnetic, which became the standard of magnetic stereophonic sound) are now lost. Films such as House of Wax , The Caddy , The War of the Worlds , War and Peace , The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T and From Here to Eternity that were initially available with three-track magnetic sound are now available only with monophonic optical soundtracks. The process by which magnetic particles adhere to
3311-463: The fictional story of an ill-fated Antarctic expedition. The 2016 documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time , about the history of Dawson City, Canada , and the 1978 discovery of previously lost silent films there, incorporates parts of many of those films. The mockumentary Forgotten Silver , made by Peter Jackson , purports to show recovered footage of early films. Instead, the filmmakers used newly shot film sequences to look like lost films. In
3388-448: The film was projected so that the conductor could synchronize the music with the visual cues and it was the projector, rather than a camera, that was electrically interlocked with the recording machine. Except for the unusual disc size and speed, the physical record-making process was the same one employed by contemporary record companies to make smaller discs for home use. The recording lathe cut an audio-signal-modulated spiral groove into
3465-413: The film's flexibility evaporated too quickly, rendering the film dry and brittle and causing splices to separate and perforations to tear. By 1911, the major American film studios had reverted to nitrate stock. "Safety film" was relegated to sub-35 mm formats such as 16 mm and 8 mm until improvements were made in the late 1940s. Nitrate film is also chemically unstable and over time can decay into
3542-675: The films created by Charlie Chaplin have survived, as well as extensive amounts of unused footage dating back to 1916; the exceptions are the aforementioned A Woman of the Sea and one of his early Keystone films, Her Friend the Bandit . Stars such as Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks benefited from their great popularity: because their films were repeatedly reissued throughout the silent era, surviving prints could be found even decades later. Pickford, Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Cecil B. DeMille were early champions of film preservation , although Lloyd lost
3619-431: The groove started near the synchronization arrow scribed in the blank area around the label and proceeded outward. During playback, the needle would therefore be fresh where the groove's undulations were most closely packed and needed the most accurate tracing, and suffering from wear only as the much more widely spaced and easily traced undulations toward the edge of the disc were encountered. Initially, Vitaphone discs had
3696-482: The improvement of the competing sound-on-film systems, Vitaphone's disadvantages led to its retirement early in the sound era. Warner Bros. and First National stopped recording directly to disc and switched to RCA Photophone sound-on-film recording. Warner Bros. had to publicly concede that Vitaphone was being retired, but put a positive spin on it by announcing that Warner films would now be available in both sound-on-film and sound-on-disc versions. Thus, instead of making
3773-417: The lightest playback caused some damage to the wax master, so it was customary to employ two recorders and simultaneously record two waxes, one to play and the other to be sent for processing if that "take" of the scene was approved. At the processing plant, the surface of the wax was rendered electrically conductive and electroplated to produce a metal mold or "stamper" with a ridge instead of a groove, and this
3850-426: The optical soundtracks, and supply them as required. This practice continued, although on an ever-dwindling scale, through 1937. In 1924–1925, when Western Electric established the format of the system which would eventually be named Vitaphone, they settled on a 16-inch (41 cm) diameter disc rotating at 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 rpm as a good practical compromise of disc size and speed. The slow speed permitted
3927-435: The original cut soundtrack recording on the standard 12-inch LP left, as well as several CD releases with mediocre remastering, although still lacking the complete score without dialogue. This list consists of films for which any footage survives, including trailers and clips reused in other films. Occasionally, prints of films considered lost have been rediscovered. An example is the 1910 version of Frankenstein , which
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#17327825912494004-609: The original version as possible by reinstating edited footage and using computer technology to repair damaged footage. However, at that point, approximately a quarter of the original film footage was considered lost, according to the Kino Video DVD release of the restored film. On July 1, 2008, Berlin film experts announced that a copy of the film had been discovered in the archives of the film museum Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires , Argentina, which contained almost all of
4081-580: The other from 1930, her only talkie. All of the film performances of the stage actress and Bara rival Valeska Suratt have been lost. Most of the starring performances of Katherine MacDonald are gone save for a couple of costar appearances. All of George Walsh 's Fox appearances have disappeared. Only three of the films of Fox's William Farnum , an early screen Western star, have survived. Others, such as Francis X. Bushman and William Desmond , accumulated numerous film credits, but films produced in their heyday are missing because of junking, neglect, warfare or
4158-478: The phonograph needle at a point indicated by an arrow scribed on the record's surface. When the projector was started, it rotated the linked turntable and (in theory) automatically kept the record "in sync" (correctly synchronized) with the projected image. The Vitaphone process made several improvements over previous systems: These innovations notwithstanding, the Vitaphone process lost the early format war with sound-on-film processes for many reasons: Vitaphone
4235-449: The polished surface of a thick round slab of wax-like material rotating on a turntable. The wax was much too soft to be played in the usual way, but a specially supported and guided pickup could be used to play it back immediately in order to detect any sound problems that might have gone unnoticed during the filming. If problems were found, the scene could then be re-shot while everything was still in place, minimizing additional expense. Even
4312-419: The premiere of their silent feature Don Juan , which had been retrofitted with a symphonic musical score and sound effects. There was no spoken dialog. The feature was preceded by a program of short subjects with live-recorded sound, nearly all featuring classical instrumentalists and opera stars. The only "pop music" artist was guitarist Roy Smeck and the only actual "talkie" was the short film that opened
4389-458: The preservation of films made since that time. Most mainstream films from the 1950s and later survive today, but several early pornographic films and some B movies are lost. In most cases, these obscure films are unnoticed and unknown, but some films by noted cult directors have been lost as well. Some films produced from 1926 to 1931 using the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, in which
4466-619: The program: four minutes of introductory remarks by motion picture industry spokesman Will Hays , ( Introduction of Vitaphone Sound Pictures ). Don Juan was able to draw huge sums of money at the box office, but was not able to recoup the expenses Warner Bros. put into the film's production. After its financial failure, Paramount head Adolph Zukor offered Sam Warner a deal as an executive producer for Paramount if he brought Vitaphone with him. Sam, not wanting to take any more of Harry Warner 's refusal to move forward with using sound in future Warner films, agreed to accept Zukor's offer, but
4543-456: The rediscovered 1898 film Something Good – Negro Kiss was inducted into the National Film Registry . Its portrayal of a warm, loving Black couple stands in stark contrast to the typically racist portrayals of that era. Sometimes, a film believed lost in its original state has been restored, either through the process of colorization or other restoration methods. " The Cage ," the original 1964 pilot film for Star Trek , survived only in
4620-625: The relatively poor sound quality of Phonofilm and the impressive state-of-the-art sound heard in Western Electric's private demonstrations, the Warner Brothers decided to go forward with the industrial giant and the more familiar disc technology. The business was established at Western Electric's Bell Laboratories in New York City and acquired by Warner Bros. in April 1925. Warner Bros. introduced Vitaphone on August 5, 1926, with
4697-651: The restoration labs at the University of California at Los Angeles to create new 35mm preservation prints that combine the original picture and sound elements. The Vitaphone Project also often partners with the Library of Congress and the British Film Institute . As of December 2016, The Vitaphone Project had located about 6,500 soundtrack discs in private collections and helped preserve 125 films, 12 of which were feature-length films. They have also raised $ 400,000 in donations, with Hugh Hefner being
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#17327825912494774-579: The scenes still missing from the 2002 restoration. The film now has been restored very close to its premiere version. The restoration process is featured in the documentary Metropolis Refundada . In 2010, digital copies of ten early American films were presented to the Library of Congress by the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library , the first film installment from the Russian state archives to be repatriated. In 2018,
4851-1247: The short subjects were made in New York, and Vitaphone shorts became a fixture in movie-theater programs through 1940. Many major names in show business filmed their acts for posterity, and many stars of the future made their screen debuts for Vitaphone. Performers in early Vitaphone shorts filmed at the Flatbush studios include Al Jolson , Humphrey Bogart , Jimmy Stewart , Bob Hope , Adelaide Hall , Spencer Tracy , Jack Benny , Sammy Davis Jr. , Sylvia Sidney , Pat O'Brien , Ruth Etting , Mischa Elman , Frances Langford , Betty Hutton , Burns and Allen , Giovanni Martinelli , Xavier Cugat , Bill Robinson , Lillian Roth , Joan Blondell , Judith Anderson , Ethel Merman , Abbe Lane , Eleanor Powell , Helen Morgan , The Nicholas Brothers , Milton Berle , Leo Carrillo , Harriet Nelson , Brian Donlevy , Jane Froman , Jack Haley , Phil Silvers , Roger Wolfe Kahn , Judy Canova , Nina Mae McKinney , Marjorie Main , Rose Marie , Joe Penner , Ethel Waters , June Allyson , Shemp Howard , Lanny Ross , Lionel Stander , Edgar Bergen , and Cyd Charisse . In 1991, The Vitaphone Project
4928-410: The short, Hopper, William Farnum (the film's star), her son William Hopper , and William Hopper's wife Jane Gilbert view brief portions of The Battle of Hearts . More than likely, Hopper had an entire print of the movie in 1942. However, like many early Fox films, The Battle of Hearts is now lost or missing. One of the best-known of Charlie Chaplin's works, the silent film The Gold Rush (1925),
5005-570: The soundtrack is separate from the film, are now considered lost because the soundtrack discs were lost or destroyed, while the picture elements survive. Conversely, and more commonly, some early sound films survive only as sets of soundtrack discs, with the picture elements completely missing, such as The Man from Blankley's (1930), or surviving only in fragmentary form, such as Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929) and The Rogue Song (1930), two highly popular and profitable early musicals in two-color Technicolor . Many stereophonic soundtracks from
5082-646: The surviving coverage is so extensive that an entire lost film can be reconstructed scene by scene from still photographs. Stills have been used to stand in for missing footage when making new preservation prints of partially lost films: for example, with the Gloria Swanson picture Sadie Thompson . Most lost films originate from the silent film and early talkie era, from about 1894 to 1930. Martin Scorsese 's Film Foundation estimates that more than 90% of American films produced before 1929 are lost, and
5159-413: The systematic destruction of all films in which he had a starring role. The Charlie Chaplin -produced A Woman of the Sea was destroyed by Chaplin himself as a tax write-off. In contrast, the filmography of D. W. Griffith is nearly complete, as many of his early Biograph films were deposited by the company in paper print form at the Library of Congress . Many of Griffith's feature-film works of
5236-481: The tri-acetate film base eventually caused the autocatalytic breakdown of the film (vinegar syndrome). As long as studios had a monaural optical negative that could be printed, studio executives felt no need to preserve the stereophonic versions of the soundtracks. The original isolated scoring session recordings for the soundtrack of the 1968 musical - fantasy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang were either lost or discarded when United Artists merged its archives, with only
5313-537: Was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone is the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one that was widely used and commercially successful. The soundtrack is not printed on the film, but issued separately on phonograph records . The discs, recorded at 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 rpm (a speed first used for this system) and typically 16 inches (41 cm) in diameter, are played on
5390-484: Was believed lost for decades until the existence of a print (which had been in the hands of an unwitting collector for years) was discovered in the 1970s. A print of Richard III (1912) was found in 1996 and restored by the American Film Institute . In 2013, an early Mary Pickford film, Their First Misunderstanding , notable for being the first film in which she was credited by name, was found in
5467-571: Was officially dissolved at the end of 1959. Warner then used the brand names for various purposes, to keep them active legally. In the 1950s, the Warner Bros. record label boasted "Vitaphonic" high-fidelity recording. In the 1960s, the end titles of Merrie Melodies cartoons (beginning with From Hare to Heir 1960) carried the legend "A Vitaphone Release". Looney Tunes of the same period (beginning with that same year's Hopalong Casualty ) were credited as "A Vitagraph Release". By late 1968,
5544-598: Was pressed on a 12-or-10-inch (30 or 25 cm) disc when the smaller size sufficed. Warners bought the Vitagraph studio in 1925 and used its Brooklyn, New York facility for working out practical sound-film production techniques and filming musical shorts. The previously nameless Western Electric sound-on-disc system was named Vitaphone, deriving from the Warner-owned Vitagraph name. Although Warners' sound feature films were made in Hollywood, most of
5621-463: Was re-released in 1942 to include a musical track and narration by Chaplin himself. The reissue would end up having the unintentional result of preserving the film, as the original film (though generally not considered a lost film) shows noticeable degradation of image and missing frames, damage not evident in the 1942 version. The Polish film O czym się nie mówi [ pl ] (1939) contains three short fragments of Arabella (1917), one of
5698-411: Was started by a group of five vintage record collectors and movie enthusiasts. Since the soundtrack discs and film prints of Vitaphone productions often became separated, The Vitaphone Project searches for original 16-inch soundtrack discs and mute film elements that go with surviving soundtrack discs. The Vitaphone Project borrows or purchases soundtrack discs from private collectors and often works with
5775-424: Was the market leader in the early days of talking pictures, for two key reasons. First, the new novelty was very popular with the public, with The Jazz Singer being a monster hit. It was in theater owners' best interest to compete as soon as possible. Second, a much more practical reason was the cost. Converting a silent-only theater to sound was much quicker and cheaper with the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system than it
5852-528: Was used to press hard shellac discs from molten "biscuits" of the raw material. Because of the universal desirability of an immediate playback capability, even studios using sound-on-film systems employed a wax disc "playback machine" in tandem with their film recorders, as it was impossible to play an optical recording until it had made the round trip to the film processing laboratory. A Vitaphone-equipped theater had normal projectors which had been furnished with special phonograph turntables and pickups ;
5929-485: Was with the Movietone sound-on-film system. Exhibitors with limited incomes opted for Vitaphone, particularly in smaller towns. The Vitaphone brand name became synonymous with talking pictures in general; as early as 1928, theater organists, thrown out of work when their bosses discontinued silent pictures, placed situation-wanted ads in trade papers with the melancholy phrase "Reason for leaving due to Vitaphone." After
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