ONE A.M.: missing footage...or not

"RFCSAC627N" <rfcsac627n.RemoveThis@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030730122951.08274.00000720@mb-m20.aol.com...
> Going through the archives I found the following post from 2000:
>
> <<Many years ago in Munich, I saw a wonderful 35mm print from
> british archives including additional scenes - the one near the Taxi, on
> the table in the appartment, and most importantly, the stair-climbing
> scene (showing Charlie in climbing-gear and sporting an Alpine hat, to
> me one of Chaplin's funniest gags).
> I cannot understand why Shepard couldn't get at those scenes and that
> the Image Entertainment ONE A.M. version has been released as a
> "restoration".>>
>
>
> I've been trying for a long time to copy this print from the National Film
> Archive -- two trips to England for promised cooperation, films sent to
the
> BFI, correspondence as recent as last month. Nothing comes out.
>
> It used to be said that the NFA actually stood for "no film available" but
it
> is a new world now. Maybe this post will help shake the film loose.
>
> That said, however, there is no indication that these extra scenes were in
the
> film when it was generally distributed in the silent era. Certainly they
were
> no longer part of the ONE A.M. by the time the earliest prints I have seen
> (about 1921) or the Kodascope prints (about 1925) were made. They are
spliced
> into the NFA's conflated print from source material clearly quite
different
> than everything else in the movie.
>
> David Shepard


Here's a later post (August 2nd, 2001) from David Shepard which confirms
that this "extra" footage was indeed originally part of the film:

"The longer version of ONE A.M. that is around apparently originates with a
TV
series of Chaplin shorts prepared by Mo Rothman in 1972 and scored with a
jazz
band from the Netherlands. All the films in this series are kinescopes,
slowed
down (to irregular degrees from one film to another, so that each episode
comes
out to a standard length). The source print of ONE A.M. came from the
National
Film Archive, London, and since the unfamiliar scenes are spliced into it
from
material of other origin and of worse quality than the rest, one could think
that indeed someone may have cut in out-takes.

However, I recently obtained a 35mm print with English titles from about
1919
which is absolutely integral and intact and does include all this extra
material. It is still two reels -- very full ones. In the usual version
this
film was always shorter than the other Mutuals.

The unusual scenes would have been cut out before about 1925 when the
earliest
16mm and 28mm prints were made. I dont know why or by whom, however.

David Shepard"
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