5 “Lost Films” I Can Live Without Seeing

Well, this is more of a headline that a blogpost, I’m afraid. It seemed like a nice heretical stunt until I tried to draw up the list. I started with ten, and then realized I’d better make it five, and then had a hard time filling the five. Like you, no doubt, I rate any loss a tragedy and I have a lot of curiosity. There is a long list of silent films and early talkies and director’s cuts that I am extremely bummed about. These are just a few that I don’t lose any sleep over.

Greed  director’s cut (1924)

Eric Von Stroheim’s original cut of his masterpiece was reportedly a gazillion hours long: eight? Then six? Then five? Then three? Producers kept asking for shorter versions until it was down to 2 hours, 2o minutes. And then unfortunately a janitor destroyed the cut footage. There’s a “restored” version that employs stills that’s about four hours. Some of the 12 people who saw the complete version hailed it as the greatest movie ever made. But the edited one remains near the top of the list anyway. Given that A) I’ve seen the general release edit and think it is a great masterpiece, and B) the average silent feature is about ONE hour long, I’m really content to imagine what the eight hours consisted of without having to sit through them. Eight hours is a long-ass silent movie.

The Seagull or A Woman of the Sea (1926)

The only reason Edna Purviance was ever in films was that Chaplin’s scouts had spotted her in a cafe and he decided to try her out. Purviance was a secretary with no ambitions to become an actress. Still, from 1915 through 1923 she was Chaplin’s leading lady, and a memorable and important part of his classic pictures. After A Woman of Paris (1923), Chaplin’s ardor cooled. Purviance had long since ceased to be his paramour offscreen, and in his view she had gotten to be too mature for what he required in a leading lady onscreen. To ease her transition to Life After Chaplin, he commissioned Josef Von Sternberg to direct her in this feature, sometimes called The Seagull, or Seagulls or A Woman of the Sea. When Chaplin saw the rushes, her performance was apparently so embarrassing that he destroyed all of the footage. It must be noted that Chaplin directed by telling the actor every move to make, which often enabled him to work with neophytes, children or amateurs. Without Chaplin’s painstaking directorial style as a guide, Purviance was probably fairly lost. Yet she was charming in Chaplin’s movies. I have no morbid desire to see her limitations exposed.

London After Midnight (1927)

Due to Lon Chaney’s iconic make-up this Tod Browning horror film used to rate high on my list of wanna-see lost films, and it remains there for many people. But I’ve now seen a reconstructed version made up of production stills, and was disappointed to learn that it has the exact same plot as the director’s later Mark of the Vampire (1935). It’s really a silly plot. But many of Browning’s films have extravagant, implausible stories. So, I’m not glad precisely that I can’t see the complete London After Midnight. I’m just kind of OK with it!

The Magnificent Ambersons director’s cut (1942)

RKO messed with Orson Welles’ planned edit of his second feature when he was down in South America shooting It’s All True. Not only did the studio switch scenes around and cut it differently, but they tacked on a silly ending which Welles’ didn’t even shoot. But I am completely okay with that. I love the existing version of the film. Maybe Welles’ version would have been better, but maybe not. He did seem to have obscurantist, baroque instincts when it came to editing, which are what they are. It makes it rewarding to watch his films many times, as many of us love to do. But the first viewing of nearly all of his films tend to be confusing, and producers and audiences can be forgiven for not warming up to that. I’m totally okay with the existing version of Ambersons. It is by no means a given that Welles’ version would have been objectively “better”.

Him (1974)

A gay pornographic film about Jesus. Yeah, no, I don’t ever need to see this.