Film Threat’s Top 50 Lost Films of All Time
by Andre Soares
At Film Threat, Phil Hall lists the "Top 50 Lost Films of All Time."
According to Hall, "among the missing movies are the world’s first feature film [The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), right], the first Technicolor feature [The Gulf Between (1917)], the first animated feature in both the silent and sound eras [El Apastol (1917) and Peludópolis (1931), respectively], the first werewolf movie [The Werewolf (1913)], the first appearance by Dracula [Drakula halála (1923)], the first kaiju film [King Kong Appears in Edo (1938)], and movies created by Charlie Chaplin [A Woman of the Sea (1926), directed by Josef von Sternberg, produced by Chaplin], Orson Welles [the 40-minute Too Much Johnson (1938)], Woody Allen [the alternate version of September (1987)], Sergei Eisenstein [the unfinished Bezhin Meadow (1937)], Ed Wood [the X-rated Take it Out in Trade (1970)], Oscar Micheaux [the interethnic drama The Betrayal (1948)] and Martin Scorsese [the original shoot-out sequence from Taxi Driver]."
The vast majority — 38 — of the films listed were American productions. Many of those were shorts; others, such as the Australian-made The Story of the Kelly Gang, survive in bits and pieces; and others yet, e.g., James Dean’s screen test for Oklahoma and an alternate shoot-out sequence from Taxi Driver, are movie sequences — not movies.
I’m not sure how Hall found out about those titles — there are many I’d never heard of — or what his criterion was for his 50 choices, but I did notice that missing from his list are Rex Ingram’s Trifling Women (1922, above) and Where the Pavement Ends (1923), two well-regarded and quite successful 1920s melodramas from one of the top Hollywood directors of the silent era; The Miracle Man (1919), which provided Lon Chaney with his first major role in a highly successful motion picture; The Noose (1927), for which Richard Barthelmess was nominated for a best actor Academy Award; Ernst Lubitsch’s The Patriot (1928), which was "considered" for several Academy Awards covering the period 1928-29 (there were no official nominations that year); and surely many other important silent productions from France, Italy, Russia, and other major film-producing countries of the 1910s and 1920s.
Of those films in Hall’s list that I’d never even dreamed existed, I must admit that the one that most aroused my curiosity was Him (1974, USA), described as an "X-rated film about a gay man’s homoerotic obsession with the New Testament" that was detailed in the 1980 book The Golden Turkey Awards.
If Him is ever found, it’d make a great double-bill with Cecil B. DeMille’s kinky The Sign of the Cross. Here’s hoping.
Golden Globes 2008 Ceremony Cancelled
Actors to Boycott Golden Globes
The Top Ten (Worst) Top Ten Critics Lists at The Reeler
The WGA Strike and the Golden Globes
33rd Metro Manila Film Festival
Critics’ Awards Vs. Academy Awards, Film Criticism Vs. Film Blather
THE IRONY OF FATE Strikes Again
Comments
Leave a Reply
Note: All comments are moderated. Different views and opinions are welcome, but abusive/bigoted/flaming comments will NOT be approved. Also, please be aware that the Alternative Film Guide has NO contact information for the talent mentioned in this blog or any information pertaining to or access to distributors'/producers' film prints.
