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| Hitch auditions for the lead in Home Alone. |
It's being hailed as one of the greatest finds of the century (so far, anyway) - the first three of the six reels of "Alfred Hitchcock's first film",
The White Shadow. The reels were found among a number of unidentified American nitrate prints that were donated to the New Zealand Film Archive in 1989 after the death of projectionist and collector Jack Murtagh. The Archive has been slowly going through these prints and has already identified and begun restoration of a number of significant films, many of them, like
The White Shadow, thought to have been lost forever. (For more on this discovery/restoration project, please check out
my previous article on the subject and the website of the
film archive itself.)
So what exactly is
The White Shadow about? Well, according to an article released by the
National Film Preservation Foundation,
The film is... an atmospheric melodrama starring Betty Compson, in a dual role as twin sisters—one angelic and the other “without a soul.” With mysterious disappearances, mistaken identity, steamy cabarets, romance, chance meetings, madness, and even the transmigration of souls, the wild plot crams a lot into six reels. Critics faulted the improbable story but praised the acting and “cleverness of the production.”
