Earliest known film work by Hitchcock found

Alfred Hitchcock is still surprising his fans.

Film preservationists said Wednesday they’ve found the first half of the earliest known surviving feature film on which Hitchcock has a credit: a silent melodrama called “The White Shadow.”

The first three reels of the six-reel film, made in 1923, were discovered by the National Film Preservation Foundation at the New Zealand Film Archive.

“The White Shadow” was directed by Graham Cutts, and the 24-year-old Hitchcock was credited as writer, assistant director, editor and art director.

Hitchcock made his own directing debut two years later with the chorus-girl melodrama “The Pleasure Garden.” He went on to direct such suspense classics as “Psycho,” “The Birds,” “Rear Window” and “Vertigo.”

“The White Shadow” is a “missing link, one of those few productions where we are able to bridge that gap of Hitchcock, the young guy with all these ideas, and Hitchcock the filmmaker,” said David Sterritt, author of “The Films of Alfred Hitchcock.”

“Even though he didn’t direct it, he was all over it.”

Foundation Director Annette Melville said the three “White Shadow” reels – about 30 minutes – were found among films donated to the archive by the family of New Zealand projectionist and collector Jack Murtagh.

No other copy of “The White Shadow” is known to exist.

The film stars Betty Compson in a dual role as twin sisters, one angelic and the other “without a soul,” Melville said, calling it “a totally crazy, zany plot with soul migration back and forth and all these improbable meetings.”

A restored print of “The White Shadow” will be shown Sept. 22 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences headquarters in Beverly Hills, Calif.