A lost 1920s movie by legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock has been found locked in a vault by researchers in New Zealand, reports CNN.
The recently uncovered film, titled The White Shadow , was shot in 1923 and is thought to be Hitchcock’s earliest surviving work.
Although only the first three of the movie’s six reels have survived, film buffs find it fitting – being that Hitchcock was famous for creating enigmatic stories full of suspense – and additionally claim that it adds to the mystery behind the uncovered flick.
“This is one of the most significant developments in memory for scholars, critics, and admirers of Hitchcock’s extraordinary body of work,” David Sterritt, author of “The Films of Alfred Hitchcock,” said in a statement. “These first three reels of ‘The White Shadow’ – more than half the film – offer a priceless opportunity to study his visual and narrative ideas when they were first taking shape.”
As for the movie, film archivists describe The White Shadow as:
“A wild, atmospheric melodrama starring Betty Compson in a dual role as twin sisters, one angelic and the other ‘without a soul.’ ” It features “mysterious disappearances, mistaken identity, steamy cabarets, romance, chance meetings, madness, and even the transmigration of souls,”
The White Shadow will be screened on September 22nd at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles and will then be added to the Academy’s Hitchcock collection.
via CNN
