Lost Films & Film List Competionism

This weekend, we will continue our "Sunday Leftovers" series with another silent film from Alfred Hitchcock's early filmography.  I'm excited to encounter this movie, but I would be remiss if I didn't point out that we're making our one true skip of the project.  The point of the series is to watch every single feature film in Hitchcock's filmography, but this is an action borne of failure, as while there are movies of his that are little-seen today, there is one movie that no one has seen.  Alfred Hitchcock's filmography has one gaping, nagging hole in it for any true fan who wants to say they've "seen them all": The Mountain Eagle.

The Mountain Eagle is arguably the most sought-after lost film of all-time.  Made in 1926, it's a romantic melodrama set in Kentucky, and was a troubled shoot.  Hitchcock was sick for much of the duration due to altitude sickness, and the reception to the film was mixed, at best.  It was only released widely in theaters in the United Kingdom because of the success of Hitchcock's The Lodger, and audiences weren't enthused by the project, and neither was Hitchcock.  The director would later say he was relieved the film appeared to be lost, and while stills of the film (as well as photographs of the shoot) still exist in some capacity, the movie itself has never been recovered, and is likely lost for all time (though photographs of the shoot were discovered as recently as 2012, so keep looking if you have a pile of memorabilia or are the grandchild of a 1920's theater owner).  The film gets its reputation as a "great lost film" not because of its contemporaneous reception, but because Hitchcock became so celebrated, this is the one missing puzzle piece in his filmography, and even if it's a monochromatic edge piece rather than a vibrant corner portion of the puzzle...people still want that jigsaw fulfilled.

I point this out not just because The Mountain Eagle deserves its due in a series about all of Hitchcock's movies, but also because film preservation is an issue near-and-dear to my heart, and because this isn't the only film completion project that I am undertaking.  I used to think that an article like this would be relatively niche (i.e. only a vanity article that I'm writing), but as I've delved into Film Twitter and other online cinephile communities, I realize that things like my Oscar Viewing Project are not only not specific-to-me, but also some people are way further in these projects than I am.

Because yes, the OVP is not ever going to be done, not in a true way.  By my count there are at least nine films that were definitely nominated for an Oscar category that would qualify under the OVP that are considered completely lost, and a tenth film (The Magic Flame) is probably lost though there are rumors a copy exists at the George Eastman House...and that's just based on a cursory bit of research I did a few years ago (there may be more).  Barring some sort of miracle, I won't finish this project in the truest sense.  This is true even if you just try to see the Best Picture nominees (The Patriot is considered completely missing), or if you try to see just the acting nominees (three of which, all early Best Actor nominees, are lost).

But the question becomes what happens when you expand beyond the films that are considered universally lost & go into the theoretical.  I was listening to the "Gilded Films" podcast the other day (highly recommend if you are an Oscars fan), and they were doing a series about 1934, and the inability to see The White Parade, which is a Best Picture nominee from that year starring Loretta Young that is not technically lost, but almost impossible to see.  There is a partial surviving print in the UCLA film archive, but it is considered in rough shape, and unless you can gain access to the UCLA film archive (which it seems a number of people have done based on a brief Twitter search, but most of them have academic credentials so I don't know how a lay fan like myself could do so), you can't see it.

The White Parade is not the only movie that is not available in any capacity other than through a film library (which means you have to navigate such a request).  Sorrell and Son, which was nominated for Best Director, is only available in the Academy Film Archive, while The Dove (a best Art Direction nominee), is partially available, but only if you visit the Library of Congress (and that's just based on rumor-I have not made it far enough in this project to start buying plane tickets to see movies).

The question here is obvious (if very niche)-what qualifies as completing seeing "all of Hitchcock's films" or "all of the Oscar nominees?"  This isn't an easy question to answer, because the definition of "lost film" changes based on how you discuss it.  There are movies that literally you need to have some age on you to have seen (for example the occasional 1960's or 1970's movie that was never released on home video in any fashion), and of course as we shift to streaming, technology becomes a factor in addition to access.  What happens when a movie is only available on a medium that doesn't exist anymore (like a VHS or a laserdisc) where players don't exist?  I don't have a great answer here, but it's one that as we eventually close out years in the OVP where I will have to hunt (and potentially hunt fruitlessly) for movies that are virtually impossible to see without some sort of luck or travel that I'm going to have to encounter & with which I'll have to come to grips.

All of this is to say that the Academy misses the boat by not investing more in its history.  Films like Sorrell and Son and The Dove, movies that are technically existing but near impossible to watch, deserve Academy releases or some sort of streaming capability through the new Oscars' museum.  Perhaps that will be something that the Academy allows-a way to view these movies at their new museum, buying tickets to screenings of long-forgotten prints.  It is sad, but lost and "lost" films are going to continue to mount in number the further we delve into streaming & start to only value the new on these platforms.  It'd be nice if the Academy remembered the films that it honored, rather than just letting only the most devoted (and wealthy) of film fans get the chance to watch them.