Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films

Synopsis

Among the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips from such lost films as Cleopatra (1917), starring Theda Bara; The Miracle Man (1919), with Lon Chaney; He Comes Up Smiling (1918), starring Douglas Fairbanks; an early lost sound film, Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), filmed in early Technicolor, and the only color footage of silent star Clara Bow, Red Hair (1928). The program is rounded out with interviews of film preservationists involved in identifying and restoring these films. Also featured is a new interview with Diana Serra Cary, best known as "Baby Peggy", one of the major American child stars of the silent era, who discusses one of the featured fragments, Darling of New York (1923).

Cast

Baby Peggy

Herself

Heather Linville

Herself - Film Preservationist: Academy Film Archive

Mike Mashon

Himself

Michael Pogorzelski

Himself

King Baggot

Himself (archive footage)

Theda Bara

Herself (archive footage)

Clara Bow

Herself (archive footage)

Louise Brooks

Herself (archive footage)

Lon Chaney

Himself (archive footage)

Betty Compson

Herself (archive footage)