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September 28

Looking for a deleted YouTube video (TSI Switzerland broadcast from 1996)

Hello, I am looking for a video that was recently deleted from YouTube. It was a broadcast recording from the Swiss Italian television (TSI) titled "Sequenza Tsi - Mercoledì 31 Dicembre 1996 + Textvision".

The original YouTube URL was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYD9GKSTN9o, but unfortunately, it was never archived on the Wayback Machine.

Since it is a piece of television history (New Year's Eve 1996 from Switzerland with Teletext/Textvision), does anyone know if this specific clip has been re-uploaded elsewhere, or if there is an alternative archive where I can find TSI continuity clips from that exact date? Thank you. DanielParoliere (talk) 07:24, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Did you check the rest of the Internet Archive? Wayback Machine archives webpages, but they may also simply have a copy of the video completely unconnected from what was put on YouTube. Something along the lines of their Prelinger Archives repository (but not that, specifically, as it is US-focused). Matt Deres (talk) 01:53, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

October 2

Name of movie

I think it may have been a French movie. Mainly I remember there was a woman who got married, seemingly happily, but then her husband tragically perished in a freak accident. After a period of mourning, she remarried, but husband #2 then died in his own freak accident having no resemblance to the first. Similarly with husbands #n for n=3, 4, 5, and 6. I don't specifically remember her inheriting money each time, but that may have been part of it. I half remember that one of the husbands was a Dutch novelist, but that scene may have been from a different movie. It showed him writing "Eerste Kapitel" on the first page of a new novel, with a voiceover or subtitle saying "Chapter One". Any recognition? Something just reminded me of this. Oh yes, in one of the freak accidents, the husband then in effect was riding somewhere in a car (he may have been a front seat passenger) near a construction zone, when a steel beam swinging from a crane smashed through the windshield and crushed him. Thanks. ~2026-52011-78 (talk) 04:59, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

A real Dutch novelist would have used "Eerste Hoofdstuk".  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:12, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I immediately thought of What a Way to Go! (1964), directed by J. Lee Thompson, with Shirley MacLaine as the widow and Dick Van Dyke, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Gene Kelly, Dean Martin as the husbands. It does have an episode in France. —Antonissimo (talk) 01:12, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll check into that. I think the movie is likely to not be that old, but I could be wrong. ~2026-52011-78 (talk) 08:18, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

October 6

Great lost silent films

Are there any lost films that are silent films and that were considered truly great by cinema critics either in the past (contemporaneously) or nowadays? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 01:36, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Excluding rediscovered and partially rediscovered films such as Metropolis (1927 film), where a full copy of this film was found in Argentina in 2008. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 01:37, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

One possibility: in 1929 Emil Jannings won an Oscar for his performances in The Way of All Flesh and The Last Command. The first of those is lost apart from two fragments. --Antiquary (talk) 17:13, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

What about F. W. Murnau's Four Devils? Is it likewise considered a great film? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 20:53, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

It's not a silent. --~2026-53838-66 (talk) 04:29, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

The entirely lost Adventures of Mr. Pickwick seems to have got excellent reviews. --Antiquary (talk) 09:13, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Note: This is a great test for AI chatbots. Silent films are long enough ago that the information is highly compressed. AI chatbots will confidently conflate many different things, producing nonsense. For example, ChatGPT claimed that Germaine Dulac's 1929 "The Wedding Basket" is widely considered the best French silent film, with only fragments of some reels still available to see. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 12:12, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

The British Film Institute is looking for:

The Mountain Eagle (1927), Alfred Hitchcock's second film.

The Patriot (1928), by Ernst Lubitsch, "one of the most critically praised lost movies ever" (a part-talkie).

London After Midnight (1927), Tod Browning’s first vampire film.

The Life of General Villa (1914), a drama-documentary featuring Pancho Villa himself.

Hollywood (1923), a comedy featuring Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, 'Fatty' Arbuckle, Cecil B DeMille and Douglas Fairbanks.

Greed (1924), the original uncut edition is lost.

See Six of the greatest ‘lost’ movies (BBC) amd BFI Most Wanted - The hunt for Britain’s missing films.

Alansplodge (talk) 13:04, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Does Cleopatra (1917) also count for this? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 03:04, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

October 9

Charlie Chaplin's little tramp and World War II

Did Charlie Chaplin plan to continue his little tramp character after his 1936 film Modern Times and before the start of World War II, before World War II and its Cold War aftermath caused him to permanently retire his tramp character? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 00:20, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Apparently Chaplin regretted killing the tramp character (according to the Wikipedia article linked to above about the "little tramp"): "In 1959, having been editing The Chaplin Revue, Chaplin commented to a reporter regarding the Tramp character, "I was wrong to kill him. There was room for the Little Man in the atomic age."[4]" ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 00:22, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

October 10

Cleopatra (1917): A great film?

wp:deny The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Was Cleopatra (1917) considered a great film when it was released, akin to The Birth of a Nation (1915) or Intolerance (1916)? ~2026-54216-90 (talk) 00:31, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I know that the political message of The Birth of a Nation is racist as Hell, having recently watched this movie in full. However, 1915 Americans were much more racist, and I'm talking about reception at the time of the movie's premiere, and in any case, even nowadays this movie is still praised for its cinematography while being vehemently condemned for its political message and glorification of the Ku Klux Klan as Southern heroes. Anyway, back to Cleopatra! ~2026-54216-90 (talk) 00:38, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-54216-90 The article you linked says the film was a huge box office draw, becoming one of the most successful blockbusters of 1917.. If that is not what you consider "great" please clarify. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:17, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

Not universally, it seems. "Cleopatra...inspired awe and derision in equal measure, its sets considered magnificent, but Bara's costumes dividing censors and her acting the critics." --Antiquary (talk) 08:46, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

Belatedly I remember the existence of Rotten Tomatoes. It gets 91% on the Tomatometer. --Antiquary (talk) 09:16, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

How do they manage to critique a film which supposedly has only 40 seconds extant? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:38, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

Those are 1917 reviews – what all those 2021 dates mean I couldn't tell you. Nor can I explain how one guy in 2008 "got bored with this one" unless his attention span is worryingly short.--Antiquary (talk) 10:19, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

There's a recreation of this film online, apparently based on film stills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRqajPZQFlY&t=3296s ~2026-54216-90 (talk) 20:47, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

Maybe it's a "great" re-creation, then. In any case, comparing Cleopatra to Birth of a Nation is like trying to compare The Wizard of Oz to Gone With the Wind. Apples and bananas. I also doubt the Cleopatra film would have invoked the KKK. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:57, 10 October 2026 (UTC)