Worldhistoryblogspot.blogspot.com - Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) directed ten silent films during the 1920s, nine of which have survived and are currently preserved in the air-locked film vaults of the National Film Library in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. Most early silent films were destroyed when talkies were introduced at the end of the 1920s. The cellulose nitrate film on which they were produced was often melted down for its silver content and they were expensive and dangerous to store as the nitrate was very easily flammable. It is remarkable that Hitchcock’s silent films have survived – only his second film The Mountain Eagle (1926) has been lost.
The BFI National Archive recently launched a major campaign to restore all nine surviving films - The Pleasure Garden(1925), The Lodger (1926), The Ring(1927), Downhill (1927), Easy Virtue (1927), The Farmer's Wife (1927), Champagne(1928), The Manxman (1929) and Blackmail (1929) – to their original 1920s versions. The project is the biggest single undertaking in the archive’s history. The films are due to been shown to the public in London in 2012.
Henry Miller explains the restoration process in an article in the Guardian.