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The Case:
A Kentucky man was searching his grandfather’s Ohio attic when he stumbled upon a reel of 35mm nitrate film in a canister marked “Dangerous Hour - Eddie Polo.”
Could this snippet of film be an actual copy of an Eddie Polo silent film? Eddie Polo was a legendary stuntman in the 1920s silent film world, but very few of his films remain.
In its early days, silent film was seen as a transitory production, and movie companies such as Paramount and Universal dumped entire archives into the Pacific Ocean, melted nitrate prints to extract the silver, or used the flammable stock for special effects on their back-lot sets.
History Detectives ventures to Kentucky and Ohio to determine whether this reel could be one of thousands of silent films once thought to have been lost forever to film history.
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Anyone wishing to submit an artifact for investigation should do so through Submit a Story.
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- Latest CommentIt turns out that this collage was sold last fall: http://www.worthpoint.com/wort... I wonder if it would be possible to contact the buyer by way of the auction house about getting a print made. (2 weeks ago)
- Twitterremember this investigation with @TukufuZuberi @elyseluray Tonight they reunite! Let us know your thoughts! @PBS http://t.co/4KMnc27K (8 months ago)
- FacebookCongrats on your exhibit, TZ! Here's a Washington Post article about the exhibit, everyone, and the great story TZ and Elyse did on his "Our Colored Heroes" story. http://tinyurl.com/mzpuyo8 http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/our-colored-heroes/ (2 weeks ago)