One of Alfred Hitchcock's early films, The White Shadow (1923), was about twin sisters--one good and one evil. It is doubtful that is has any connection to the Ken Howard TV show of the same name. The movie bombed in the box office, and eventually all known copies had either disappeared or had simply decomposed, having been recorded on unstable nitrate-based film.
However, in 2011, the first three of the six reels in the movie turned up in New Zealand. They had been in the storage rooms of the New Zealand Film Archives since 1989. The Archives had inherited the reels from a local projectionist, Jack Murtagh, who had kept them and hundreds of other early films in his garden shed.
Murtagh was not a movie thief. Because of the flammability of nitrate film, it was very expensive to transport it. Since New Zealand was usually the end of the theatrical line, most movie companies simply abandoned the films in New Zealand rather than pay the cost of shipping them back. Murtagh merely retrieved the discarded reels from the trash bin.
The three surviving reels of The White Shadow are in surprisingly excellent condition. If the other three reels are ever found, the completed movie would be worth millions of dollars.
To watch the three available reels, click here.
To watch the three available reels, click here.
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