Famous director John Ford’s film The Scarlet Drop, lost for more than 100 years, has been discovered nearly in its entirety in Chile.
Released in 1918, The Scarlet Drop was one of 26 westerns that Ford made with actor Harry Carey, the most prolific partnership of the six-time Academy Award-winning director’s storied career.
Described at the time as the “most supreme hit of Harry Carey’s career”, the film has been missing since its initial release. About 30 minutes of footage from the film exists in the Getty Archive, with no full cut of the film thought to remain intact.
The movie was rediscovered by the owner of a warehouse in Santiago, a day before it was set to be demolished. While reviewing the building’s contents, the owner discovered a trove of films that were once owned by a local collector, left untouched for 40 years after his death.
The owner contacted Jaime Cordova, an academic from the University of Vina del Mar and Valparaiso Recovered Film Festival's director, who rescued the films from being discarded.
“The film was very damaged, which indicates that it was a very popular film at the time. It was shown a lot,” Cordova told Cinentransit, though he notes that the film is overall in excellent condition for a feature of its time, and is an important find.
Cordova digitised the film so that it could be shown at his festival, cleaning and repairing what he could, noting that it is still in need of a full restoration, and his materials may be missing partial aspects of the film. He screened the digitised version at his festival in Chile in September.
“The film is 106 years old. It was stored in conditions we don’t know about. I think there are films that decide to live,” said Cordova.
“I once found a Richard III starring Laurence Olivier, all the reels had vinegar disease, they had to throw it all away. That one is from 1955, this one from 1918. And this has survived much better. It decided to make itself known, which I find miraculous.”
According to Mubi, the film follows a man who refused to fight in the American Civil War and instead joins a gang of marauders, becoming a fugitive.
Contained in the discovery may be Ford’s first on-screen depiction of American president Abraham Lincoln, whom he also depicted in his films The Iron Horse (1924), The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), Young Mr Lincoln (1939), How the West Was Won (1962) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).
Ford, whose career spanned more than 50 years, directed more than 130 films from 1917 to 1970, with many of his silent films still considered lost. He won six Academy Awards throughout his career, including a four wins for Best Director – still a record.
While he made films in numerous genres, he is most renowned for his westerns, including Stagecoach (1939), The Searchers (1956) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). He was famed for his collaboration with actor John Wayne, who starred in 14 of Ford's films.
Filmmakers including Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles, Andrei Tarkovsky and Ingmar Bergman considered Ford among the greatest directors in the history of cinema. In 2022, Ford was portrayed by actor and director David Lynch in Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans.
Plans for a wider release of The Scarlet Drop have not been announced.
The specs
Engine: 3.6 V6
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Power: 295bhp
Torque: 353Nm
Price: Dh155,000
On sale: now
MATCH INFO
Serie A
Juventus v Fiorentina, Saturday, 8pm (UAE)
Match is on BeIN Sports
War 2
Director: Ayan Mukerji
Stars: Hrithik Roshan, NTR, Kiara Advani, Ashutosh Rana
Rating: 2/5
Zayed Sustainability Prize
Founders: Abdulmajeed Alsukhan, Turki Bin Zarah and Abdulmohsen Albabtain.
Based: Riyadh
Offices: UAE, Vietnam and Germany
Founded: September, 2020
Number of employees: 70
Sector: FinTech, online payment solutions
Funding to date: $116m in two funding rounds
Investors: Checkout.com, Impact46, Vision Ventures, Wealth Well, Seedra, Khwarizmi, Hala Ventures, Nama Ventures and family offices
GOLF’S RAHMBO
- 5 wins in 22 months as pro
- Three wins in past 10 starts
- 45 pro starts worldwide: 5 wins, 17 top 5s
- Ranked 551th in world on debut, now No 4 (was No 2 earlier this year)
- 5th player in last 30 years to win 3 European Tour and 2 PGA Tour titles before age 24 (Woods, Garcia, McIlroy, Spieth)
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
