By Kathryn Hadley
|  |
| The British Film Industry (BFI) has |
| launched a major project to preserve nine |
| of Hitchcock’s surviving silent films to their |
| original 1920s versions. |
| Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) directed ten |
| silent films during the 1920s, nine of |
| which have survived and are currently |
| preserved in the air-locked film vaults of |
| the National Film Library in Berkhamsted, |
| Hertfordshire. Most early silent films were |
| destroyed when talkies were introduced at the end of the 1920s. The |
| cellulose nitrate film on which they were produced was often melted down |
| for its silver content. [id:99299] , they were dangerous to store as the nitrate |
| was very easily flammable. It is remarkable that Hitchcock’s silent films |
| have survived – only his second film The Mountain Eagle (1926) has been |
| lost. |
| The BFI National Archive recently launched a major campaign to keep all |
| nine surviving films in their original versions. The project is the biggest |
| single undertaking in the archive’s history. The films will be shown to the |
| public in London in the summer. |
| |
| historytoday.com, 2011 |
