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Lost Hitchcock Film Discovered in New Zealand

Betty Compson in Alfred Hitchcock's The White Shadow (1924). CLICK HERE for more images.

The New Zealand Film Archive and the NFPF are thrilled to announce the discovery of a lost work by celebrated British/American filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980). The print is incomplete—only the first three reels survive—but what has been recovered reveals a master in the making.

The film is The White Shadow, an atmospheric melodrama starring Betty Compson, in a dual role as twin sisters—one angelic and the other “without a soul.” With mysterious disappearances, mistaken identity, steamy cabarets, romance, chance meetings, madness, and even the transmigration of souls, the wild plot crams a lot into six reels. Critics faulted the improbable story but praised the acting and “cleverness of the production.”