A battered wooden trunk had been passed down through one family for over a century, moving from attic to barn to garage, with no one realising it contained a cinematic treasure. For the past 20 years, retired teacher Bill McFarland, 76, had been its keeper. The trunk originally belonged to his great-grandfather, who travelled rural Pennsylvania in the early 1900s showing silent films. McFarland always felt the films were too valuable to discard but had no idea what they were or how to view them. Attempts to donate or sell them failed, especially after he learned the old nitrate reels were highly flammable.
Last summer, McFarland drove from Michigan to the Library of Congress’ National Audio-Visual Conservation Centre in Virginia. There, experts made a remarkable discovery: hidden within one of the 10 reels was a long-lost 45-second film from 1897 titled “Gugusse and the Automaton”, created by pioneering filmmaker Georges Méliès. Made just two years after the first public film screening, the short features Méliès as a magician battling a growing automaton, using early special effects and precise jump cuts that still impress today.
Méliès, once a leading innovator in cinematic storytelling, later fell into obscurity as filmmaking shifted to the United States. Many of his original works were lost — some even destroyed or repurposed during World War I. Ironically, piracy helped preserve parts of his legacy and the rediscovered reel is believed to be a later-generation copy.
The find also shed light on McFarland’s great-grandfather, William DeLyle Frisbee, born in 1860. A farmer, beekeeper and teacher, Frisbee travelled by horse and buggy, presenting shows with an Edison phonograph, lantern slides and eventually motion pictures. His diaries describe modest earnings and lively, sometimes rough audiences.
At the Library of Congress, archivists quickly secured the fragile nitrate reels in a temperature-controlled vault to prevent fire risks. McFarland realised he had unknowingly been transporting dangerous material. Specialists spent a week carefully restoring and digitising the film, which, despite its age and storage conditions, was in surprisingly good shape.
Today, the once-forgotten reel is preserved as a piece of early cinema history and is available for public viewing online, turning a family heirloom into a globally significant discovery. — AFP
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