IT CAME FROM THE BOTTOM SHELF!

On January 1st, written works, songs, and films officially published or released prior to 1924 became public domain.  As a result, many silent films that have been previously unavailable to the public can be released on DVD or Blu-ray without cost-prohibitive fees.

Wasting no time, film historian Edward Lorusso, author of The Silent Films of Marion Davies, has launched a Kickstarter to produce a quality DVD release of Little Old New York (1923).  If funded, the DVD will be sourced from a new scan of a 35mm print in the Marion Davies Collection held at the Library of Congress, and silent film accompanist extraordinaire Ben Model will provide the score.

The Kickstarter will run through February 1st at 11 am CST.  Please visit the Kickstarter page for the full details and to help make this release a reality. Below is an excerpt of the description from the Kickstarter page:

Little Old New York boasts a tour de force performance by Marion Davies who was just coming into her own as an actress. After the mammoth success of When Knighthood Was in Flowerin 1922, Davies again dominated the box office with Little Old New York in 1923. Both films ranked in the top 5 hits of their years, and Davies and Rudolph Valentino were named King and Queen of the Screen by theater owners at their 1924 convention.

Set in early 19th century America, Little Old New York tells the story of Patricia O’Dare, an Irish immigrant who comes to this country with her family to claim a family fortune for her brother. After the brother dies during the sea voyage, her father decides she must pose as Patrick in order to claim the fortune and prevent a cousin from grabbing it.

Davies has a field day. With her hair cut in the “little Dutch boy” bob of the day, she poses as the slightly bratty young boy and gets into a series of scrapes and embarrassing moments. There’s also an odd “tension” between her and her cousin that he can’t quite understand.

Set against the sprawling panorama of early 19th century New York, the plot includes the famous launch of Robert Fulton’s “folly,” the steam-powered Clermont, which sets sail on the Hudson River. Producer William Randolph Hearst spared no expense in this film, and he had built an exact replica of Fulton’s boat to sail the Hudson River in January of 1923. Along with Fulton, we also see real-life people like Washington Irving, John Jacob Astor, and Cornelius Vanderbilt as characters in the film.