Marie Doro was an American silent movie actress of the early 1920s. Isn’t she stunning? She started out as a chorus girl and actress at which time she inspired a young Charlie Chaplin to fall madly in love with her.
She moved into silent movies in 1915 but sadly 13 out of the 18 movies she made are now lost. How on earth did so many movies from this period get ‘lost’? I can’t believe all the copies got destroyed it seems amazing!
Image source and copyright: 2, 3: This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1923.
The just did a study of American Silent Films and they figure about 70% have been lost in their entirety … Only about 14% are still complete, and 11% partial … The nitrate film was really poor quality, suceptible to crumbling and also were extremely flammable … Other films were simply thrown out, weren’t really considered an art form … Some lost US films have been found oversees, but a lot that were sent over were even worse quality … So what, about 1500 US complete silent films survive …? Probably similar elsewhere …
That’s such a terrible shame. I just can’t understand why people would throw movie film away! I also heard that so many original movie scores were simply destroyed when film studios fancied having a clear out. I guess you’re right about it being the same everywhere but it’s such a shame!
I can agree that it’s a shame. I never could why people would throw silent reels of silent films away either. Even the sound audio quality is not up to par nor formidable. Those type of films should be in a museum.