Lost 1919 silent comedy Van-ar-chy found in Japan
A silent comedy filmed in New Hampshire in 1919, long thought lost, was discovered in a Japanese antique shop and will have its world premiere.
The lost 1919 silent comedy Van-ar-chy has been rediscovered in Japan and will premiere in Newport, New Hampshire, over a century after it was made. Film student Kohei Okita found the film in a stack of old reels at an antique store while researching early cinema related to the word 'anarchy'. He did not recognize star Billy B. Van at the time. Okita reached out to New Hampshire film archivist John Tariot, who identified the film that had miraculously surfaced.
The film’s origins and creator
Billy B. Van built the Equity Motion Picture Company on the shores of Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire. Born William Webster Van de Grift in 1870, Van began his career on Broadway and in vaudeville before turning to film-making. He cast local residents in his slapstick comedies and filmed them on the streets of surrounding towns, including Newport and Sunapee. The Equity Motion Picture Company, originally called the Van Harbor Casino Movie Co., is believed by many historians to be northern New England’s first movie studio.
Van lived until 1950. He was associated with New Hampshire, where he raised Guernsey cattle and is credited with coining Newport's official nickname, 'The Sunshine Town'. Its catchphrase was 'where the sun shines on both sides of the highway at the same time'. Around 1927, he founded the Pine Tree Products Company in Newport.
The premiere event
The film will have its official world premiere at the Newport Opera House on November 1 at 2 p.m. The screening will feature live piano accompaniment composed and performed by Bob Merrill. Organized by the historical societies of Newport and Sunapee, the program will also include another rediscovered Van comedy, Where Are Your Husbands?. That film was found in 2017 in the collections of the Library of Congress. John Tariot restored the print and is preparing to screen it publicly for the first time in a century.
Kiki Keating, a spokesperson for Tariot, called it an extraordinary story of international discovery, lost cinema, and local New Hampshire history. The lost film is making its official world premiere back where it was created over 100 years ago.
The significance of the recovery
The recovery is remarkable given that roughly 75% of American silent films are lost. A 2013 Library of Congress study found that only 14 percent of American feature-length silent films made between 1912 and 1929 survive in their original 35mm format. The survival of Van-ar-chy is significant on two fronts. It preserves the work of a little-known early American film company. It is also a piece of local history captured in motion, with scenes preserving glimpses of the streets, landscapes, buildings, and people of Newport and Sunapee in 1919. New Hampshire natives might see their great-grandparents or past relatives as extras.
John Tariot said, "We aren’t just seeing where Billy B Van made movies. We’re seeing the world in which he made them." He noted that two films have now turned up in places no one expected to find them. Tariot added that there are still Billy B. Van films missing, and there may be more sitting unidentified in archives or private collections somewhere. The search goes on.
