'Like walking into a time machine': Long-lost Lincoln film found

A copy of "The Heart of Lincoln," a 1915 film thought to be lost forever, was found by an intern sifting through donated reels at a New York film archive. WNBC's Greg Cergol reports.

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[CarlosBenjamin]

It’s a film about Lincoln, not a film of him. Just trying to disambiguate the title.

[julienielsen]

I watched a silent movie last night. I was looking at a letter written by my great, great, grandmother from 1926, on a genealogy site. She said she had went to see a movie "The Volga Boatman". She said it was spectacular. So, I thought it would be nice to watch the movie my great, great grandmother had seen. She was 78 at the time. And I liked the movie. Good actors and a great story. Gowns were by Adrian. One of Cecil B. DeMille's favorites that he did. Thank you Grandma Jessie.

[alanrobeson]

So for anyone who was expecting an actual film of Lincoln, the motion picture camera wasn’t invented until 1891. Lincoln of course died in 1865.

[madahab]

It gives us hope that a copy of London After Midnight will be found.

[akster]

That's amazing! I'd love to see those old films, stepping back into time.

[JBB]

It boggles the mind that so many of these places literally don’t know what they have

[adriandunne]

All western 16mm film was distributed on acetate stock (known as “safety film”) which is non-flammable and does not disintegrate in storage. This is because it was intended for showing in halls and gymnasiums which did not have fireproof projection rooms. The USSR did use 16mm nitrate film for use in cinemas in Siberia, but this was done to reduce weight because of transport difficulties especially in winter. After World War 2 other film materials were adopted which were even stronger than nitrate film but safe and stable. A lot of early nitrate film was lost because it broke down or it was destroyed because storing it was dangerous.

[racookster]

That's a very special machine they used to play it, no ordinary projector. It must be able to run brittle old film without putting much strain on it at all.

[MyLateralThawts]

There’s no recording of Lincoln ever speaking, but there IS a recording of his son making a speech and some contemporaries who say he sounded just like his father. One of these days someone is going to post that online and subsequently all historical depictions of Lincoln will be that much closer to the truth.

[smittycle]

So when that movie dropped it was the equivalent to us watching a Vietnam film. That’s crazy.

[talldrummer]

I have about 500 16mm films I rescued from a private collection. Amongst them, I have already seen two of them returned to the rights holders in England that somehow got out into the public domain. Many of them are educational films, but there are a few gems in there.

[sandrafaith]

What a great story and what an amazing find. Unexpectedly emotional while watching this footage…

[XAirForcedotcom]

Too cool. Thank you for everybody that works on saving history.

[craigdeaton]

Seeing all of those boxes of old films, I can't help but think of the ending of Inglorious Basterds. I hope they make an effort to digitize everything before an errant spark comes along.

[bluekitty]

Amazing! 1915 was only 50 years after the death of Lincoln, so people in the theaters watching the movie could've seen Lincoln while he was alive!

[frschoonover]

WOW! It's hard to believe that this over a century film is still in good condition. It's also hard to believe that it has survived this long. It's fascinating in and of itself that this film is still watchable without hardly any real aging. Most films like this would need to be cleaned up before anything can be done because celluloid film does age, and at times, you may need to clean the celluloid using special machines and cleaners that are made for this sort of thing. Again, hard to believe and fascinating at the same time.

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[SoItGoesCAL]

That's great. Please find & restore more of these treasures. Thanks for sharing this!

[zappasmustache]

They lost this one, but Birth Of A Nation Has been available forever. They're both 1915 Civil War silent films. I guess that kind of shows which one was more popular.

[JamJells]

Saving our history! thank you so much!

[ABW]

I clicked on this video because i wanted to know how they filmed Lincoln some 40 years before this technology even existed 😂