You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. It's a subject that is very near and dear to my heart.

You know, the name of the book is In Search of Lost Films, and with a title like that, I am bound to pick it up.

Oh, really? That's great.

What kind of triggered you putting this one together?

I've been writing about film history for about 30 years, and it's always been a curious aspect about that,

because in doing research on

many great artists on both sides of the camera, there are many instances where films don't

exist anymore. This is a bit strange because you can't have a complete appreciation of somebody's

output unless you have access to all of their work.

And in recent years, a number of films that have been considered irretrievably lost have been recovered.

And I figured, well, see, maybe at times right for a new book on the subject of lost films.

The last truly great book on the subject came out 20 years ago, and that was Frank Thompson's book,

Lost Films. And so much has happened in those 20 years, I thought the time was right for an update

on the subject, and also an expansion on the subject, because one thing I noticed in doing

a lot of research on Lost Films was that there was a tendency to focus on American silent films that

disappeared. And granted, there are many of them that are lost. But there are also a surprisingly

large number of sound films made in the U.S. that have disappeared, as well as films from other

parts of the world. And I thought it would be a good idea to have a more comprehensive overview

of what's missing. So for you, when you decided to write about stuff, because I know that there are, what, hundreds,

if not thousands of lost films out there, how did you decide what you're going to narrow it down

to? I know that you talk about silent films, but you also do talk about sound films and especially early talkies,

which I really appreciated reading about some of those.

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