One of the first films directed by the legendary John Ford has been found, after going missing for over a century. The Scarlet Drop, a silent Western film from 1918, was discovered in Santiago, Chile. The National reports the film was retrieved a day before the warehouse holding it was to be demolished.
The Scarlet Drop stars Harry Carey, one of the first Hollywood screen idols; he starred in many of Ford‘s earliest films, most of which are now lost. He plays Harry Ridge, a man who refuses to be conscripted into the Union Army during the American Civil War. He goes west, where he becomes a bandit and outlaw. Only thirty minutes of the film were known to exist before the owner of a Santiago warehouse discovered a trove of films from the estate of a deceased collector within it.
He contacted Jaime Cordova, a professor from the University of Vina del Mar, who soon realized what he’d discovered. He digitized the film, repairing and restoring what he could, and screened it at a festival in September. Says Cordova, “I think there are films that decide to live. I once found a Richard III starring Laurence Olivier, all the reels had vinegar disease, they had to throw it all away. That one is from 1955, this one from 1918. And this has survived much better. It decided to make itself known, which I find miraculous.” No plans to further restore the film, or to give it a wide release, have yet been announced.
Who Was Director John Ford?
Considered one of the greatest directors of all time, Ford directed his first feature in 1917. His first major success was The Iron Horse, a silent chronicle of the building of the transcontinental railroad; it cemented Ford as a master of the Western genre, which would go on to dominate his filmography. In the late 1920s, he successfully made the transition to sound films, and also began working with an actor whose career would be forever associated with his own: John Wayne.
Wayne starred in Ford‘s first sound Western, Stagecoach, which is still considered one of the greatest Westerns of all time. including Fort Apache, Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. However, Ford was not limited to Westerns; some of his other notable successes include The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, and Mister Roberts; Ford was also embedded with US troops during World War II to shoot documentary footage, and was wounded in the Battle of Midway. Over his career, he won four Best Director Oscars, which is still a record, and directed ten Oscar-winning performances.
The Scarlet Drop is not the first lost Ford film to be rediscovered. His 1927 silent comedy Upstream was discovered in the New Zealand Film Archive in 2009, and was subsequently restored and re-released. No plans for a wider release of The Scarlet Drop have yet been announced.
via Collider