Among the many pieces of dubious “evidence” cited by conspiracy theorists that say the moon landing was faked is the fact that the tapes of the original transmission were erased over. Surely, if America had actually landed on the moon those recordings would be an invaluable part of human history and not treated so carelessly as to be erased on accident years later. But NASA isn’t a Hollywood studio accustomed to storing various media for posterity. And as we’ve noted here before, Hollywood studios lose their films all the time for a variety of reasons, with lack of storage space seemingly the most common. In one very interesting case, an entire cable channel disappeared for nearly 30 years before some clever writers ( cough ) tracked down the only known footage. Today’s Tedium looks at how we lose the things we once loved and what can happen when they return from the grave.
2,749
The number of silent-era American films that are considered complete, according to the U.S. Library of Congress (LOC), the government entity tasked with preserving the country’s cultural legacy. This number only represents about 25 percent of all films produced from that era. A much smaller number of those films, about 11 percent, exist in their original release. Championing the preservation of early films has been spearheaded by big-time directors like Martin Scorcese and Quentin Tarantino. Understanding how these films were lost in the first place should help us better preserve the massive influx of intellectual property being created today.
A devastating fire in a vault
With hindsight, it is completely understandable why we lost so many early films. The medium was so new and abstract at its inception that no one really knew what they were doing. Even brilliant performers and producers whose legacies resonate into modern day, like Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin, were guilty of short-sightedness with their own work. But due to the notoriety of these performers, much of their lost work has seen been rediscovered.
Lesser known but historically significant films often didn’t receive the same treatment. The LOC noted that it was common practice for movie studios to destroy the negatives of many silent films. One of the most notorious offenders in this regard was Universal. By 1948, the studio had either deliberately destroyed or neglected all of their silent film negatives, including one gem that’s believed to be lost forever.