An Intern Stumbled Upon A Copy Of A Silent Film Thought To Have Been Lost To History, And It’s About The Life Of Abraham Lincoln
Last summer, an intern named Dan Martin at the Historic Films Archive in Greenport, New York, made an unexpected discovery.
He had been going through some boxes in the archive owner’s office, where forgotten films donated to the archive were stored.
That was when he came across five sealed cans containing a 16-millimeter copy of The Heart of Lincoln, a silent film from 1915 thought to have been lost to history.
The film was 65 minutes long and was directed by Francis Ford, who played the role of Lincoln. Ford’s younger brother was John Ford, a celebrated Hollywood director known for his Westerns and Oscar-winning features such as The Grapes of Wrath (1940).
John Ford earned four Academy Awards for Best Director, and he also went on to make his own movie about Lincoln many years later.
According to Joe Lauro, the archive owner, The Heart of Lincoln was made in 1915 and recut in 1922. But then, it seemingly disappeared into thin air, just like many other silent films from this period.
Between 1912 and 1929, almost 11,000 American silent feature films were released, but only about 3,300 are known to have survived, per the Library of Congress. Previously, the library had added The Heart of Lincoln to a list of 7,200 silent films categorized as “lost.”
Back then, many silent movies were printed on nitrate film stock, which was unstable and highly flammable. It deteriorated easily, and studios were not concerned with preserving films.
The Heart of Lincoln is about the life of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, and several young Americans during the Civil War.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
It was created around the war’s 50th anniversary. Francis and John Ford were particularly interested in Lincoln’s story. Experts say it is a valuable piece of film history.
“The [Ford] brothers were almost obsessed with Lincoln as this emancipating messiah figure in American history,” said Martin, who is studying film preservation at Toronto Metropolitan University.
“[The Heart of Lincoln] was a missing puzzle piece to the whole myth around these guys.”
After Martin found the reels, film archivist Eliot Kissileff was able to clean and digitize the movie so it could never be lost again. It was fortunate that the cans were sealed and left in an environment that did not cause them to decay.
Now, clips of The Heart of Lincoln are available on the Historic Films Archive’s YouTube channel. Lauro plans to restore the film, and hopefully, add his own score. He will also donate the reels to the Library of Congress.
“It was very rewarding to end my internship on this high note,” Martin said. “A film like this provides evidence that film history is still being written.”
More About:News
Read This Next
