Asheville ghost hunter Joshua P. Warren screened portions of Conquest of Canaan Tuesday night at Pack’s Tavern. The movie, shot in Asheville in 1921, is a visual treasure that shows Asheville streets, storefronts, homes and many of its denizens as they were way back in the day. There was a standing-room-only crowd on hand to see about 25 minutes of the silent movie (Warren edited the 90-minute film down to its most interesting, and most visually fascinating, bits.) The place was filled with local history buffs, and many Asheville natives and long-time residents. A fun event.
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In more Conquest of Canaan news, The Library of Congress has just acquired a copy. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118026104.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
To clarify: The intact Russian film reels owned by The Asheville Historic Resources Commission are held in cold storage at Ramsey Library. A digitized copy of these reels tells the story in sequence and will be shown in 2011.
I assembled the 35mm film onto 2000 foot reels for Mr Banner, myself. I also know that the original cans from Russia were destroyed years ago. If I had the opportunity, I would have saved them. The film is in very good condition.
Actually Joshua Warren did not remove these materials or alter what he presented in anyway. Bill Banner put together the best of the available footage when he aired this on WLOS TV in the 80s. What you saw is the surviving video footage and no one knows completely where the film footage is as Bill recovered after his death for the video and the film footage that remains has been transfered into storage after his death. So what you viewed is the video footage Joshua was given to keep for future purposes intact.
Brandy-
Thanks very much for this information!
@Marina
Ramsey Library at UNC Asheville and the Asheville Historic Resources Commission have long planned a 90th Anniversary Screening to be held in 2011. We'll be showing the film with Russian intertitles and their English translations. Related archival materials will be on exhibit and scholars will discuss the film and times.
I thought this screening was a missed opportunity. There was obviously community interest in seeing "Conquest of Canaan", but unfortunately Warren chose to show us only 25 minutes of "visually interesting" but incomprehensible bits. Maybe if he had shown the whole film, the audience could have understood what was happening. Also, he said he removed the inter-titles because they were in Russian. It would have been very helpful if they were translated rather than removed. It could not have been very difficult to find someone to translate a few slides. Very disappointing evening.
The titles were in old russian, and Bill Banner, the man that GOT the 35mm print of Conquest in the first place, told me that nobody was around that could easily translate it now. Plus, the movie is very dull in its unedited form.
I handled the 35mm print for Mr Banner myself.