Silent cinematic history set for Havelock North

March 23, 2011

One of the greatest American directors of all time, John Ford directed more than 140 films and won four Academy Awards for Best Director. More than 60 of those were from the silent era, and most of those have been lost.

One of those films, Upstream, was found in 1993 in a little garden shed in Hastings, Hawke’s Bay and was held at the New Zealand Film Archive for 16 years before being ‘rediscovered’ by the US National Film Preservation Foundation in an event that made headlines around the world.

That moment will be celebrated when Upstream receives its New Zealand re-premiere 3pm Sunday April 10 at Havelock North’s Cinema Gold, 11 Joll Rd, presented by the New Zealand Film Archive with piano accompaniment by Nick Giles-Palmer.

John Ford’s lost 1927 film Upstream was found in Hastings collector Jack Murtagh’s backyard shed in 1993, following an extensive New Zealand search for nitrate film by the New Zealand Film Archive’s Last Film Search.

It is the only known surviving print of that movie in the world and it came into the Film Archive’s collection after Jack’s grandson Tony Osborne answered the Film Archive’s call.

The Film Archive stored the film and it was rediscovered by US film archivists Leslie Lewis and Brian Meacham who found Upstream among a treasure trove of 75 films which were selected to be restored and repatriated to the US for the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Wellington’s Park Road Post carefully restored the film, and the restored and transferred Upstream was proudly re-premiered September 1, 2010 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Beverly Hills.

“It was an amazing find to have a piece of cinematic history sitting in a shed in Hawke’s Bay,” said the Film Archive’s Jane Paul, who led the Last Film Search in 1993. “New Zealand has a lot of hidden and lost gems because we were often the last stop for films traveling around the world.

“Jack Murtagh, like many other nitrate film collectors, worked in picture theatres and squirreled away reels left in projection boxes. Jack amassed a huge collection. All the New Zealand nitrate was preserved a long time ago but the American nitrate had only been stored as preservation money was not available for non-New Zealand films.

“So it’s a huge coup that these films will be preserved and New Zealand will receive copies of them. A lot of thanks is owed to Jack’s grandson Tony Osborne that we can now show this carefully restored film that caused excitement around the world in this special premiere,” she said.

ENDS

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