Rescue the Hitchcock 9
By Kathryn Hadley
The British Film Industry (BFI) has launched a major project to preserve nine of Hitchcock’s surviving silent films to their original 1920s versions.
Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) directed ten silent films during the 1920s, nine of which have survived and are currently preserved in the air-locked film vaults of the National Film Library in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. Most early silent films were destroyed when talkies were introduced at the end of the 1920s. The cellulose nitrate film on which they were produced was often melted down for its silver content. _6_ , they were dangerous to store as the nitrate was very easily flammable. It is remarkable that Hitchcock’s silent films have survived – only his second film The Mountain Eagle (1926) has been lost.
The BFI National Archive recently launched a major campaign to keep all nine surviving films in their original versions. The project is the biggest single undertaking in the archive’s history. The films will be shown to the public in London in the summer.
historytoday.com, 2011