Newly discovered Hitchcock film is available to watch now

A film print titled “(Twin Sisters) with Betty Compson” sat in canisters the New Zealand Film Archive until the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Leslie Anne Lewis examined the print and caught sight of some intriguing frames.

The White Shadow (1924) is Alfred Hitchcock’s earliest known surviving film, with 2 caveats: only 3 reels of the total 6 have been discovered & Hitchcock wrote the script and edited the film but did not direct it.

So how Hitchcock is it?

Yes, there is a staircase. No there isn’t a blonde. No, Hitchcock doesn’t make a cameo appearance (a practice that commenced three years later, in the third feature he directed, “The Lodger”). What’s most Hitchcock about it is what drives the movie: doubling, impersonation, and mistaken identity.

Hopefully The White Shadow will have a similar fate to Metropolis; now that people know there are missing reels out there, they’ll be on the lookout for them.

The White Shadow is available to stream on the National Film Preservation Foundation website through January 15th, 2013.

(via Open Culture)

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