Long-lost movie by US legend rolls again

The black-and-white film, which tells the story of a group of artists, was among some 75 American movies — features and shorts, documentaries and even cartoons, dating from 1898 to 1929 — left undiscovered for years.

But it was only earlier this year that a visiting archivist from the Academy took a look at the material, and identified the gem by Ford, famous for westerns like “Stagecoach” as well as adaptations like “The Grapes of Wrath.”

“It's fantastic,” said Schawn Belston, a senior executive of Fox Studios, to which Ford — who won four Oscars during his glittering career — was contracted at the time he made “Upstream” 83 years ago.

“Unfortunately, it's not something that happens everyday. ... So many of the Fox silent films are lost or thought to be lost, that it's a big part of our company's history that's lost or been missing.”

Frank Stark, chief executive of The Film Archive of New Zealand, explained: “We have held these films for nearly 20 years and before that, they were in hands of private collectors in New Zealand.

“We were really very glad to have it and to take care of them, we had no money to preserve it. So all we would do was to store them as well as we could, and try to keep them in good condition,” he told AFP.

Like thousands of other Fox films, “Upstream” was thought to have gone up in smoke in 1937 when an enormous fire engulfed the studio's archives in Little Ferry, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.

Chances of any other copies of the movie surviving were slim, notably because of the way films were distributed at the time — and because they filmed using highly flammable chemicals.

“The copies were played over and over and over and over again,” said Michael Pogorzelski, director of the Film Archive of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science.

“And then, when there were no other bookings, and nowhere else to run the film, they were destroyed, because they were dangerous. They were more a liability than an asset. Storing it was a only a risk of fire.”

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