Alfred Hitchcock’s earliest film work released online

Acclaimed director Alfred Hitchcock’s earliest known surviving feature, in which he served as an assistant director among other credits, was released online on Thursday.

Acclaimed director Alfred Hitchcock’s earliest known surviving feature, in which he served as an assistant director among other credits, was released online on Thursday. The recovered parts of 1924’s The White Shadow, will be streamed free for the next two months at the US National Film Preservation Foundation’s website, the nonprofit group said in a statement.

The New Zealand Film Archive found three of the film’s delicate nitrate reels in its collection last year. No other copies are known to exist of the silent British melodrama, Stuff.co.nz reported. The foundation, which supports film preservation in the United States, said it was able to stream the film online from cash donations and bandwidth that was donated by the online film service Fandor.

HT Image

The White Shadow is also believed to be the first surviving production that Hitchcock, then 24, worked on with Alma Reville, whom he married in 1926.