Deep Cuts

Casual Hitchcock fans are probably familiar with some extent of the publicity done for Psycho: the movie trailer in which Hitchcock gave a tour of the Psycho sets, certainly; perhaps The Care and Handling of Psycho booklet; maybe even the "press book on film," given how readily such things sometimes become available online: Different pressings of Psycho lobby spots (for playing in theatre lobbies) and radio spots found various places online:

There's a longer history to that sort of thing with respect to Hitchcock's filmography than probably most realize.

For Woman to Woman (1923), directed by Graham Cutts, Alfred Hitchcock was an art director, assistant director, and screenwriter; he also invited his future wife Alma Reveille to be editor. Of all the films he worked on prior to becoming a director, Woman to Woman seems to have done the best, and to have been the most highly-regarded, making the fact that it'a a lost film all the more unfortunate.

PHONOGRAPH RECORDS FOR FILM EXPLOITATION

     Selznick have conceived the happy idea of using phonograph records for exploitation purposes. This is how it is done. The records which are being sent broadcast to all exhibitors, are virtually selling talks on “Woman to Woman” and “Roulette,” the two latest releases. Each is a separate record and can be played on any standard make of machine.

    The miniature discs are mounted, for mailing, on heavy cardboard cards which are illustrated in colored pictures taken from the film. However, no printing appears on the card, all the ad copy being contained in the record. If for no other reason, the exhibitor is sure to play the record out of curiosity and the message will in this manner be sure to reach him whereas, if the same information were printed, it might go unread by him.

Exhibitor’s Trade Review. January 19, 1924. 32.

Here the matter online video sharing comes back into the picture...even for the lost film Woman to Woman!

As ephemeral as a cardboard publicity record for a lost silent film must be, a partial recording of the Selznick publicity department's Woman to Woman record had been made available. It could be seen to featured attractive color pictures of Betty Compson in various poses in her Moulin Rouge outfits.

Note the tense above: had been. The video disappeared for a while when the uploader's account was abruptly suspended (in error?), then reappeared when the suspension was lifted.

It's often said that once something is on the Internet it's there forever. Good advice, maybe, in counseling young people not to sext, or to discourage people from posting inflammatory content that may come back to bite them when they apply for a job or run for office, etc. There's certainly some truth to how things posted online may get copied to other sites or otherwise republished in unexpected ways and places, how things might survive on servers even when they're deleted from websites and so forth.

However, unless you're a hacker or a digital forensic investigator (and sometimes even then), once something posted to the Internet is deleted it is for all practical purposes gone - unless you've made a backup, which is something you should do if it's something important to you! Back it up in multiple ways, for that matter.

Library of Congress "Why Digital Preservation is Important for Everyone" Youtube, uploaded by Library of Congress 1 April 1 2010. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEmmeFFafUs

I had saved both a screenshot and a video copy of the Woman to Woman publicity record to my own computer (and backed up to a cloud drive) before it disappeared from the Internet, but as mentioned it has since reappeared:

“Rare 1924 promotional cardboard record movie title Woman to Woman Alfred Hitchcock” YouTube, uploaded by vwxvw Disney, 31 January 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNEFnxr0TO8 It doesn't seem to feature the whole recording; possibly the uploader didn't want to include the whole thing, or maybe the record was no longer capable of playing the whole way through.

The recording had been made in conjunction with an eBay auction; the listing was archived by Worthpoint, from which this image of the record has been cropped:

The same uploader also published a recording of the Roulette cardboard record!

"Rare 1924 promotional cardboard record movie title Roulette" YouTube, uploaded by vwxvw Disney, 31 January 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLj29KMkc6U

That record had not begun playing from a standstill, so a good screen capture of it is not possible, but the same image—albeit in b&w—had been used in magazine advertising:

Also cropped from Worthpoint's archive of the eBay listing:

Christopher K. Philippo