Hitchcock’s earliest surviving film online

LOS ANGELES - Reuters

The earliest Hitchcock film will be released on Nov 23.

The earliest known surviving feature in which Alfred Hitchcock is credited was released online after sitting under the noses of archivists for decades.

The recovered parts of 1924’s “The White Shadow,” in which Hitchcock served as an assistant director among other credits, will be streamed for free for the next two months at the U.S. National Film Preservation Foundation’s website, the nonprofit group said in a statement.

“The White Shadow,” a silent British melodrama directed by Graham Cutts and a financial flop, tells the story of twin sisters, one angelic and the other soulless. It stars Betty Compson as the twins.

The New Zealand Film Archive stumbled across three of the film’s delicate nitrate reels in its collection last year. No other copies are known to exist.

The foundation, which supports film preservation in the United States, said it was able to stream the film online from cash donations and bandwidth donated by the online film service Fandor.

“The White Shadow” is also believed to be the first surviving production that Hitchcock, then 24, worked on with Alma Reville, whom he married in 1926.

Part of Hitchcock’s and Reville’s life together has been dramatized in “Hitchcock,” a Fox Searchlight film starring Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock and Helen Mirren as Reville. The film is set to be released on Nov. 23.