The Legion of The Condemned, 1928 ~ Gary Cooper & Fay Wray The Legion of the Condemned is a 1928 American silent film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Fay Wray and Gary Cooper. The film portrays four young men from various walks of life who sign up for the Lafayette Escadrille, known as The Legion of the Condemned. No copies of this film are known to have survived, and it is now considered a **lost film. The film used some aerial footage from the Paramount film Wings (1927). Director William A. Wellman was encouraged by the studio to maximize his use of stock footage and unused footage from the earlier movie. Studio management then became uneasy at the result, as Wings was still on its road show when this film was released, and apparently had some of the stock footage cut. The film was produced by Jesse L. Lasky, Wellman, and Adolph Zukor. The film was distributed by Paramount Pictures. **Many silent films were just thrown out with the trash after talkies came along. Since talkies were so popular the studios didnt see much value in their silent films. During WWII many silent films were melted down to get the silver out of the film for the war effort. Some just deteriorated over time as the nitrate film they are on is very volatile and can actually spontaneously combust under the right conditions. Its estimated that only twenty percent of the silent films that were made are still around. Luckily, lost films often turn up as many studios simply dont know whats is in their archives. Also silent films didnt have spoken dialogue, so they could be made in one country and shipped all over the world as replacing title cards in another language is very easy to do. Some years ago a handful of Colleen Moores lost silents turned up in a Czech archive as well as a more completed print of Metropolis, one of the most well known silents, was discovered in Argentina. So, its like the lottery, hey you never know!
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 03:11:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015