A 'lost' movie by legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock has been found locked in a vault by researchers in New Zealand. The film, titled 'The White Shadow' was shot in 1923 and is thought to be the director's earliest known work, reports CNN.
The National Film Preservation Foundation will now help to restore the three reels of film, with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and others. Hitchcock is credited with writing, directing and editing the movie, while also naming himself as art director and assistant director. David Sterritt, author of 'The Films of Alfred Hitchcock' explained, "This is one of the most significant developments in memory for scholars, critics, and admirers of Hitchcock's extraordinary body of work.These first three reels of 'The White Shadow' - more than half the film - offer a priceless opportunity to study his visual and narrative ideas when they were first taking shape". The director, who went onto make 'Psycho', 'Rear Window' and 'The Birds', was only 24-years-old when he made 'The White Shadow'. The movie is described as an atmospheric melodrama starring Betty Compson who plays the dual role of twin sisters - one angelic, the other without a soul.
Hitchcock directed his last movie, 'Family Plot' in 1976. He died four years later in his home in Los Angeles, aged 80.