Last night, April 19, 2005, the day the Conclave of Cardinals revealed that they had voted to elect Cardinal Ratzinger as the new pontiff, i was lucky enough to view an imperfect (missing about 540 feet of film amounting to about 5 minutes of duration) 'preserved', as opposed to 'restored', print of the silent film, "A million bid' with Italian titles, in the Mary Pickford Theatre, at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. I shared the experience with about 30 viewers in the Pickford. An employee of the LOC read an English translation of the Italian titles, as the Italian titles appeared, through an amplified audio system ...
"A million bid", of 1927, is one of the most beautiful black & white films that i have EVER had the pleasure to view and was considered to be a lost film until this 'preserved' Italian copy was recently found....Warner Oland, before he starred in the Charlie Chan series of films, and William Demarest, (the audience chuckled at Demarest's appearance) long before he joins the Preston Sturges stock company of players, are just fine, but 'la piece de resistance' of the film is the glorious performance rendered by the absolutely gorgeous Dolores Costello, the wife of John Barrymore and the grandmother of Drew Barrymore, of Charlie's Angels notoriety....Dolores Costello is simply a knockout, in more ways than one....i can only pray to my pagan gods that this film will find itself onto a DVD format so that more viewers can discover this marvel of melodrama and belatedly join the Dolores Costello Fan Club....i should point out that this 'preserved' print did not have a sound track of music, for we simply sat in luscious silence while the film took us away... Maybe the LOC can be persuaded to show it again....
Alberich
