The Wizard

Most sources think The Wizard is a lost film. The Silent Era website lists its survival status as "unknown". So I am not sure how to take the authoritative comment published here, even if 25 others have found it useful. If Trent Bolden owns a print, or has seen one, it would be a good idea for him to tell us the wheres and the whens (or as much as he can). As it is, there does not seem to be much concrete foundation for his enthusiasm - which means that it is easy for cynics to dismiss everything he says about what, after all, may well be a significant silent horror film. I can understand if Bolden cannot tell us much about the print he saw. Whatever elements of the film may have survived will probably not be from the Fox vaults or a print held in any of the world's film archives. So the most likely source is a private collector, and some collectors are very, very unwilling to reveal what they have for fear that some law or another will force them to give it up.

THE WIZARD is, indeed, a lost film. The negative was destroyed in a vault fire in 1937, and no copies of the film have surfaced since. So anyone who claims to have seen the movie should prove it or shut up. THE WIZARD was not widely shown, even in its day. The few reviews it received said the film was only mediocre at best. Definitely not the classic some would have us believe. However, like London AFTER MIDNIGHT, the film's publicity photos promise much, what with their hideous ape monster and scowling hook-nosed villain; that, alone, often leads modern day fans to assume the film is a classic. Would that it were.