The long lost American silent film The First Degree (1923) was digitised and screened with its original score last year. The story started 16 years ago: Chicago filmmaker Stephen Parry drove down to a house in Peoria to look through a film collection in hopes of finding footage for his documentary, where boxes of highly flammable nitrate film reels were sitting perilously close to a water heater! Some of these boxes then remained mostly unexamined for 14 years in the Chicago Film Archives. With the pandemic, the staff have had a lot more time to focus on processing and cataloguing their collection. In 2020 they got a look at what turned out to be a well-preserved nitrate film print of The First Degree!
Although the film has been already digitised, CFA still hoping one day they can get it photochemically preserved and show it on 35mm.
The First Degree Trailer: https://youtu.be/ZEVFx7HD14c
Further readings: ‘Lost’ Film From 1923 Uncovered in CFA Collection
https://chicagofilmarchives.org/news/the-first-degree
Photo credit: Sylvia Breamer in The First Degree, from Chicago Film Archives
