Posted on 03/10/2024 7:31:49 AM PDT by lowbridge
It’s a movie that hasn’t been seen in decades, missing for so long that many didn’t even know it existed.
That is, until it turned up in Omaha, Nebraska.
On a projector in a Kansas City home, Gary Huggins cues up a recent discovery.
“I was relieved to find it wouldn’t explode!”, he said.
Huggins soon refocused his attention from the technical to find something he definitely wasn’t expecting.
“Wow, I think I’ve discovered this film that nobody’s seen in at least 50 years, if not 100,” Huggins said.
Huggins, a filmmaker himself, picked up the film at an auction in Omaha last year.
“There was a distributor that had been in Omaha for decades that had gone out of business a while ago and this auction house had some of their films, and so I drove up just for that just to see what was up there,” Huggins said.
Everything at the sale that day needed to be sold.
“On one table, there were eight or nine stacks, about 3 or 4 feet high of films,” he said.
It was an old cartoon on one pile that caught Huggins’ eye, but to get it, he had to buy the whole stack.
“The stack was $20. It was the best 20 I’ve ever invested, for sure,” Huggins said.
In that stack that Huggins bought was a silent film from 1923.
“That was a big rush when I realized it was a Clara Bow,” he said.
WHO IS CLARA BOW?
Clara Bow biographer David Stenn said she was the most popular film start of the late-1920s.
“The fact that this film was discovered a century after it was made, when does that happen?” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at wifr.com ...
The “It” girl.
Clara Bow was an early silent picture star. In Highway Men, Woody Harrelson picks up a copy of a Hollywood magazine with her picture on the cover (some say it was Jean Harlows picture) and says, I love Clara Bow. Cool find for $20.
ping
Oh wow...compare today’s eye brows to those of 100 years ago.
Just reading some of the highlights of her life, damn she went through a lot as a child.
Stenn, who wrote a book on Bow called “Clara Bow: Runnin’ Wild,” referred to her as the first sex symbol in American film.“Men wanted to have her and women wanted to be her,” he said. “You have to imagine a time when the idea of a woman having independence and autonomy didn’t exist, and you went to the movies and saw Clara Bow. She was really the first truly liberated woman on screen.”
A STRANGE PATH TO OMAHA
Strange. He must have never of Marlin Perkins' Wild Kingdom..
Stenn estimates that 80% of all silent movies have been lost due to the unstable chemicals used to make them, including about half of the movies Clara Bow was in.
WHO IS CLARA BOW?
On September 24, 1960, the children's TV institution Howdy Doody came to an end, and it was Clarabell the Clown who made sure we knew it was truly over. Clarabell was an important cast member, though unlike the chatty puppet Howdy Doody and main host Buffalo Bob, Clarabell never said a word.
>>>
But on the show's finale, after prodding by Bob, Clarabell turned to the camera and tearfully whispered, "Goodbye kids." And suddenly, it was no longer Howdy Doody time, and never would be again. Nothing lasts forever, kids.
>>>
'Howdy Doody's Finale Was Called 'Clarabell's Big Surprise'
https://groovyhistory.com/howdy-doody-1960-clarabell-clown-goodbye-kids/2
Thanks, lowbridge!
Those bright lights tend to make features disappear, so they have to exaggerate the stars’ makeup.
Debbie Reynolds once said doubled her makeup so as to appear normal under the lights.
Thanks lowbridge. Many years ago one of the "most wanted" lost silent movies, the first Frankenstein, was rediscovered in an unidentified pile. Apparently viewable on the Library of Congress YouTube channel.
Wow! Amazing find!
Found in a parking lot? Was it there for 100 years? Read on! Oh, it was a liquidation sale held in a parking lot. The film was 100 years old and was a lucky find at yard sale. Not nearly as exciting as finding out how a film was laying around in a parking lot for a hundred years. Did you click the link?
It’s very fortunate that it has not “exploded” (self combusted). Many old films are made with nitrocellulose. They can become unstable and just catch fire. They pop quite a bit when they are burning. It sounds a bit like gunfire. I had that happen with some old newsreels that I used to own.
There are still some things made of nitrocellulose and they all love to burn. Ping pong balls and guitar picks come to mind. Back in the day they made combs, eyeglass frames and all sorts of things from it.
I wonder if she talked like Mia Farrow’s drunken character in Radio Days?
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