Video of the day. Graham Cutts & Alfred Hitchcock's "The White Shadow"

Long thought lost, this collaboration between Graham Cutts and Alfred Hitchcock gives us a look at some of the great auteur's earliest work.
Notebook

Via the National Film Preservation Foundation (click here to watch the film at their site): The White Shadow (1924), directed by Graham Cutts with Alfred Hitchcock credited as assistant director, art director, editor and scenarist.

From David Sterrit:

"Watching the surviving reels of The White Shadow with an audience vividly illustrates the natural gifts of the young Hitchcock as well as the enduring power of silent cinema. When the film comes to a halt in the middle of a bravura staircase shot, you’re likely to hear an audible sigh of disappointment from those around you, and from yourself as well. I began by evoking the richness of the film’s individual images, and I’ll close by praising the rhythmic vitality and superbly choreographed movement of these moving pictures when the projector brings them alive. “Just as the sun casts a dark shadow,” the opening intertitle tells us, “so does the soul throw its shadow of white, reflecting a purity that influences the lives of those upon whom the white shadow falls.” The spirited whites, somber darks, and intriguing shades of grey created and orchestrated by Cutts, Hitchcock, and their talented crew will be enjoyed by cinephiles for years to come. The return of The White Shadow is a triumph of film preservation, a bonanza for scholars, and a thrill for movie buffs, showing both Hitchcock and his chosen medium on the threshold of their fullest powers. We are in a better position than ever to study and assess his monumental creativity when it was first crystallizing in his imagination."

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