“A rare survival”: The long-lost silent British masterpiece found in an abandoned Dutch cinema
One of the most curious aspects of the film industry is just how many movies are considered lost.
There’s something unsettling about the phrase ‘lost film’, like a whole world has been thrown away, the image of smiling actors and the memory of everyone involved in making this piece of art now existing somewhere unknown.
These days, there are enough people working in film preservation to keep movies alive, but back in the early years of cinema, particularly the silent period, many movies wound up being lost for good – even big filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock made movies early in their careers that have since disappeared, with only a few stills existing as evidence. Eager cinephiles long to solve these mysteries, to find these missing films and restore them to their former glory, but it’s often a case of chance.
Many films from the silent era have completely disappeared because the highly flammable nitrate used in their negatives often caused fires, rendering them completely destroyed, because otherwise, studios would simply throw old negatives away – you have to remember that the industry, while rapidly expanding back then, was a far cry from the status that Hollywood has now – many people didn’t see the importance of preserving film history during a time like the 1910s.
So many great films have been lost, and it seems like many will never be found, but we can’t give up hope, and the story of Love, Life, and Laughter is the ultimate proof – made in 1923 by George Pearson, the movie was a star vehicle for Betty Balfour, whose appearance in the movie is as captivating as ever, her movements larger than life, and her facial expressions leaving an indelible image. She’s whimsical and dreamy, dancing around as Tip-Toes, a working-class chorus girl, constantly moving, bursting with energy and vigour – the fact that the movie was lost for so long is a true tragedy.
The film faded into obscurity and eventually disappeared upon its release, and for many years, the BFI had it right near the top of their ‘most wanted’ list. There had to be a copy somewhere, but where?
After many years of searching and pining, the movie emerged in 2014, not in England, but in the Netherlands. The Dutch film museum EYE found a copy of the film in a cinema in Hattem, and soon, progress was made to get it back out there in circulation.
Upon its discovery, BFI’s silent film curator Bryony Dixon said, “It is also a rare survival of the work of George Pearson, one of Britain’s most talented directors of this time, whose First World War drama Reveille is another film on the BFI’s most wanted list. Contemporary reviewers and audiences considered Love, Life And Laughter to be one of the finest creations of British cinema; it will be thrilling to find out if they’re right.”
In 2019, after a restoration project between BFI National Archive and EYE, the film was finally screened to the public, allowing the beauty of Pearson’s lost film – and Balfour’s mesmerising talents – to be appreciated at last.
Due to being lost for so long, Love, Life And Laughter remains a rather obscure title, but it’s a brilliant piece of work that comes with a pretty fascinating story to boot. Now, we’re left to wonder just how many other negatives are sitting discarded in abandoned cinemas – there could be thousands.
