8 Hard-to-Find Movies Worth Tracking Down, From the Author of 'Missing Reels'

“People who love old movies are used to having certain things that are out of reach,” says writer Farran Nehme Smith, who cracks open a world of lost and hard-to-find films in her novel Missing Reels (on sale now). The book follows Ceinwen, an old-movie buff in 1980s New York City, who makes it her mission to track down a forgotten silent movie. The specific film at the center of Missing Reels is fictional, but Smith has a vast knowledge of early Hollywood cinema, and her engrossing novel is filled with references to forgotten gems (alongside more well-known titles like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Thin Man, and Imitation of Life). We asked the author, an accomplished film critic who also blogs at Self-Styled Siren, to talk about 8 of the lesser-known films mentioned in Missing Reels and where to track them down.

The Crowd (1928)

The Backstory: “I wanted to pick a movie that I thought even people who had a limited experience with silent films might easily fall in love with,” Smith says of The Crowd, King Vidor’s slice-of-life drama about an ordinary man (James Murray) struggling to get by as “one of the crowd” in New York City. As evidence of how compelling the movie is, Smith says she recently screened it at New York City’s IFC Center, which accidentally received a copy without the soundtrack attached. Even accompanied by nothing but the coughs of the audience, The Crowd held the theater spellbound.
Where to Find It: You’ll have to work for this one. The Crowd has yet to be released on DVD, but airs occasionally on Turner Classic Movies. Used VHS copies and torrents also exist.

One Way Passage (1932)

The Backstory: “One of the great romances of the 1930s,” according to Smith, this shipboard drama stars Kay Francis as a terminally ill woman who falls in love with an escaped murderer played by William Powell.
Where to Find It: Once impossible to find, this film is now available on manufactured-on-demand disc. “You’re not going to get a superb Blu-Ray experience, but you’ll get a good, clean, clear copy of the film,” Smith explains.

La Boheme (1926)

The Backstory: Silent-film superstar Lillian Gish approached her roles with a commitment that would put many a modern Oscar contender to shame. In Missing Reels, Smith mentions Gish’s La Boheme death scene, which she prepared for by going without food and water for days. “It’s quite something to see,” says Smith, though she cautions that La Boheme is a “full-out, melodramatic, operatic tale” that’s probably not the best introduction for silent-film novices.
Where to Find It: Available on manufactured-on-demand DVD from the Warner Archive.

The Big Parade (1925)

The Backstory: “If you want to see something by [director] King Vidor that is widely available in a good copy, the one I would recommend is The Big Parade,” says Smith. A “brilliant movie” about World War I that stars John Gilbert and “plays like gangbusters,” the film has just been released on Blu-Ray.
Where to Find It: Available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Stella Maris (1918)

The Backstory: The first movie star to be nicknamed “America’s Sweetheart,” Mary Pickford showed off her acting chops with a dual role in this highly regarded melodrama about a wealthy girl and impoverished orphan. “It’s basically my favorite performance of hers,” says Smith. “I think Mary Pickford is really wonderful and somewhat underrated, in that people tend to think of her as this woman who played child characters until she was in her 30s, sort of like a silent Shirley Temple. If you watch Stella Maris, you’ll see that that’s really not the case. “
Where to Find It: Available on “sort of iffy DVD copies,” as Smith puts it.

Shanghai Express (1932)

The Backstory: “Shanghai Express is pre-Code, made by the great Josef Von Sternberg with his muse Marlene Dietrich, and together they created this really extraordinary tale set on a train,” Smith says, “and the real knockout performance is given by Anna May Wong.” Though the film, about international intrigue and murder, has some very dated attitudes about its Asian characters, Wong “transcends the stereotypical aspects of the character that she’s playing, and becomes the most sympathetic figure in the film. Just a truly fierce, heroic woman.”
Where to Find It: Available on manufactured-on-demand DVD.

Johnny Eager (1941)

The Backstory: This gangster love story, which Smith calls “a very early sort of proto-noir,” stars Robert Taylor as a racketeer who falls in love with a district attorney’s daughter, played by Lana Turner. “I have a soft spot for Lana Turner, and it’s definitely one of her better performances,” says Smith.
Where to Find It: Available on manufactured-on-demand DVD from the Warner Archive.

The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

The Backstory: This Best Picture-nominated William Wellman drama about a posse looking for frontier justice “is something of a Western for people who don’t like Westerns, because I think the moral quandary and the anti-lynching theme are very easy to latch onto,” says Smith. Henry Fonda stars alongside Harry Morgan, best remembered for his later role as Colonel Potter on M*A*S*H.
Where to Find It: Available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and VOD.

Image credit: Everett