• From Andy Warhol’s fan film of a comic book hero to a real life hero chasing down
trucks to save films we look at 15 Incredible Lost Films we Eventually Recovered.
15 – Batman Dracula, • What?
Batman fought Dracula?
Or is Dracula?
This sounds all very very confusing but what do you expect from Andy Warhol.
• Shot as part of an art exhibition the film predated the 60’s Batman television
series making it the first known film to feature a campy as hell caped crusader.
The film was thought lost until scenes were shown in the documentary “Jack Smith and
the destruction of Atlantis”, showing Smith as The Batman himself.
• Meaning it was probably sitting in his garage the while time.
But hey if I made an unauthorised Batman fan film I’d probably bury it too…
Please don’t go looking for it.
14 – Too Much Johnson, • Oh 1930’s silent cinema, will your vaguely
sexual puns ever stop?
Well they will if we lose all the film prints.
• Too Much Johnson was the work of then 23 year old Orson Welles who was just a few
years away from making Citizen Kane.
So how could such a prolific director’s work get lost for 80 years?
Well the film was actually meant to be screened in between parts of stage show as an early
multi-media experience.
• Buuuut it technical difficulties lead the film portion being shelved and the stage
production being nonsensical without the film half.
Too much Johnson was found in Italy in 2013…along with the film print.
Eyy I can make puns to 1930’s, take that you silent bastards.
13 – Wake in Fright, • An awesomely dark film about the horrors
of living in the Australian outback that managed to vanish like a foreign backpacker?
• Until 2009 the only known print was deemed too damaged to be used to restore the film
so the original editor decided to go on an epic quest to find the film negative which
he did…only after a decade of searching.
• Restoring and re editing the film, it was re-released to cinema’s in 2009 where
it won critical acclaim.
Which is fortunate considering the negative was found in a can marked “For Destruction”
it’s clear that somebody didn’t like it.
12 – Wings, • Surely the first film to win an academy
award for best picture would have been locked up in a vault from day 1 right?
No?
For fucks sakes guys you had one job.
• How such a massive hit of a film was left to rot away to nothing is a mystery but I’d
say it’s probably because well…people back then didn’t really care.
Except for one person Paris who had archived the film in their vault and once found a new
print was quickly duplicated.
• At least someone had the sense to think “hey maybe this will be important to keep”
rather than “Oh man, film burns so good and i’m all outta firewood”.
11 – Double Confession, • Okay so a film where the first Doctor
has Peter Lorre as a psycho henchman somehow disappeared from the face of the Earth.
• The British film about a man hunting for his wife’s murderer was fairly standard
fair for 1950 leading to it failing through the cracks.
Hell if a best picture winner can go missing then an average crime thriller has no chance.
Last being seen on TV in 1962 until it hit the BFI’s 75 most wanted films.
• I guess that triggered someone to find it in their attic.
Poor William Hartnell, the BBC wipe half his Doctor Who episodes and now his movies disappear,
must be the Meddling Monk at work…And about 5 people are gonna get that joke.
10 – Deranged, • Yet another horror film about inspired
by the life of Ed Gein except unlike Texas Chainsaw Massacre this film tried to be more
realistic.
• Being the most accurate to reality when it was made didn’t stop people from misplacing
the film for 20 years.
Leaving no one who didn’t know how to pick up a book clueless on Ed Gein’s corpse furniture.
• The film showed up eventually in Florida for the film to be released on VHS.
Then again maybe the film went missing because nobody wanted to be the guy holding on to
a film that had the subtitle “Confessions of a Necrophile”.
9 – Richard Burton’s Hamlet, • Well I’ll give these guys credit, it’s
pretty easy to lose a film when the director contractually orders all prints to be destroyed
after screening.
• The filmed version of the stage production was screened for only two days before being
pulled and thrown into the trash as per instructions.
But pesky Richard Burton thought “Fuck that shit” and hid a print in his garage.
• And that’s where the film was found years later when the actor died.
8 – Dracula – The Spanish Version, • Filmed side by side with the Bela Legosi
version, this film actually turned out better than the version we all know…and then was
promptly thrown in the dump.
• Using the same sets as the English version and shooting nights while the English version
would shoot in the day.
The film carries a darker atmosphere and more artistic freedom than its counterpart leading
horror aficionados to name it the better film of the two.
• But the studio didn’t give a fuck about that though and shelved the film in a dark
basement film until someone found the print in 70’s.
Talk about being brought back from the dead right?
7 – Bun Rye’s Story, • A major award winning South Korean movie
that was seeming lost for around 30 years, hmm the North Koreans were probably involved
somehow.
• Bun Rye’s Story deals with rape, impotence and madness with the titular Bun Rye being
caught in a love triangle that ends with murder and Bun Rye going insane.
It’s a feel good film.
• The film hasn’t been shown much outside of its native Korea since it’s rediscovery
in 2009, hell at the moment it doesn’t even have an IMDB score.
Even when it’s found the film is still lost.
6 – The Flying Doctor, • A film that has more interesting story
about how it was saved than its actual content?
Well it could only be The Flying Doctor.
• This 1930’s Australian film about Outback doctors who fly out to remote properties was
fairly unnoticed on release and sat in a film studio vault for so long that the studio had
gone bust and the building demolished.
The contents of the vault were thrown into a truck to be taken to the dump but a local
office worker saw the truck filled with film cans drive past and ran out of work to give
chase, flagging them down and saved the day for all.
• And I’m assuming he was fired for running out of work to chase down a random truck.
The only thing that could make this story better if it was more interesting film that
was found in the back of that truck.
5 – Zepped, • Who doesn’t love Charlie Chaplin and
his slapstick?
The people who took a blowtorch to this WW1 propaganda film for one.
• The 7 minute short that used outtakes from other Chaplin movies featured a German
Zeppelin attack on London with early uses of stop motion animation.
It’s believed the film was only shown in Egypt before disappearing for close to a century.
• In 2009 Morace Park purchase a random film can on eBay for $5 that contained the
only known copy in existence.
Now that’s a bargain, too bad when he tried to sell for $160,000 no one wanted to buy
it.
4 – Incubus, • A crazy black and white horror film shot
in a language almost no one speaks starring the one and only William Shatner?
How could anyone lose that?
• The art house horror using Esperanto for its dialogue was presumed to have been lost
in a fire by the company that was in charge of storing it.
Which the producer only found out about when he tried to get a copy for a VHS release.
But again thanks to France a copy turned up in there archives in 1996.
• Come on you are telling me that for 30 years only the French thought a film that
ends with Shatner staring down a goat would be important?
I’m disgusted in you all.
3 – Shadows, • John Cassavetes lost independent film
classic had two versions that existed with the first essentially disappearing from history.
• Cassavetes was on record saying he lost track of what had happened to the first version,
possibly donating it to a film school but the truth was much more interesting.
Turns out the film was left on a New York subway train, taken to a lost and found department,
purchased by the owner of a second hand shop, sat in the shop until it closed down and then
stored in his Florida attic.
• Eventually the shop owner’s daughter found the film and gave it to film professor
Ray Carney who had been searching for the film since the 80s.
Phew and after all that you still can’t see it because the Cassavetes estate are in
a legal battle for who owns the film.
Great…
2 – Metropolis, • One of the most influential Sci-Fi films
of all time has been missing for most of the time it’s been inspiring people.
• Fritz Lang’s classic was hated by almost everyone at the time of release including
H.G Welles which gives reason as the why the film was swiftly filed under “Films no one
gives a shit about”.
Leading to the movie being recut and large sequences being tossed out.
Meaning that while the film wasn’t totally lost, it was only a shell from when it premiered.
• It wasn’t until a lost print from Argentina along with copies from New Zealand allowed
for around 98% film to be restored.
Too bad H.G Welles ghost now hates you all.
1 – The Passion of Joan of Arc, • Considered one of the greatest films ever
made since its release in 1928 it’s hard to believe the bad luck that fell on the film.
• Premiering in Paris, the film was heavily censored by the French government and the
Archbishop of Paris which pissed off the director to no end.
But hey it’s alright we still have the original cu- oh wait no the lab just burned it.
With no original, the director created a new cut using rejected takes of the censored scenes…but
that cut was lost in a lab fire.
• With God seemingly trying to stop this film from being seen.
Then in a seemingly divine miracle the original cut was found in a Janitors closet….In a
mental institution….In Oslo.
Somewhere the film was never recorded being shipped to.
Clearly there is a God.