Actually, I think “It’s the Old Army Game” WAS considered a lost film for a while, before a print did turn up. MGM apparently got control of Paramount’s “The Show-Off” when they remade it in the late-1940s as a Red Skelton vehicle. Same way they also got control of Paramount’s 1932 “Make Me a Star,” when they also turned it into a Skelton film (Merton of the Movies).
The Louise Brooks film I’d probably most like to see is “Rolled Stockings.” But I tend to think it’s one of the lost ones, unless it has been discovered in some of those foreign archives in recent years.
As if Paramount’s track record of lost films isn’t bad enough, equally lamentable is Universal’s. Especially since I’ve always been partial to their top female star, Laura La Plante. “Skinner’s Dress Suit” from 1926 is particularly nice, but the only print I’ve seen is pretty beat-up. Universal also has all those breezy and consistently entertaining b-westerns of Hoot Gibson, Jack Hoxie, Art Acord, and others. Very, very few survive.
It’s very cool talking with you - as always. Merton of the Movies was originally a play by Marc Connelly. Buster Keaton toured with the play in the 1950s - doing many of his film stunts including the house falling in on him from Steamboat Bill. I guess when they made it in’32, they changed the title and changed it back again for the Skelton movie.