“Forgotten Hollywood”- Lost Early Hitchcock Stamp…

Posted on August 4, 2011 by raideoman1 | No Comments

Manny P. here… Hitchock young

   The New Zealand Film Archive and the National Film Preservation Foundation has announced the discovery of the earliest surviving work by Alfred Hitchcock in relation to early cinema. The White Shadow is a 1924 silent movie in the melodrama genre starring Betty Compson. Only three of six reels are known to exist. The motion picture was produced as a British feature and distributed by Lewis J. Selznick Enterprises, the father of David O. Selznick. The younger Selznick  brought the iconic director to America to develop the 1940 Oscar-winning Rebecca.

   Hitchcock began his film career in 1920 as a title-card designer in the London branch of what eventually became Paramount Pictures. He worked on the project as an assistant director, art director, editor, and writer. Hitchcock debuted as a director just two years later. His contributions to this early work showcase his knack for cinematography, making it an important contribution in the development of modern cinema.                                                             Hitchcock in 1920 (L. Bouzereau)

WhiteShadow-280-shp   A screening of the restored print is scheduled on September 22nd at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences headquarters in Beverly Hills. A grant from the Andrew J. Mellon Foundation has led to a number of extraordinary finds including a lost 1927 feature-length film directed by John Ford, discovered last year. Almost sixty titles were identified in a subsequent search that led to finding the nitrate reels of The White Shadow in December, 2010.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 4th, 2011 at 1:12 am and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


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