There appears to be no footage online from the introduction of The Ghost Ship from that premiere screening (the nearest is the junction promoting it at the end of the first screening of the 'restored' version of A Star Is Born earlier that evening) but I taped it and can confirm the opening slides before the film say this:Jonathan S wrote: ↑Mon May 23, 2022 9:15 amThere was of course also the exciting 1994 Lost and Found season, during which The Ghost Ship finally turned up on the BBC. I don't know if lack of good materials or the famous plagiarism case against RKO had prevented a previous broadcast; it had definitely been available for purchase (complete) on Super 8 since the 1970s - I bought a print - and I think 16mm rental too, though Joel E. Siegel called it "virtually a lost film" in his 1972 book on Lewton.
Apropos of nothing that "Lost and Found" season was a very formative experience in my early years of film appreciation. It showed so many different types of films from all eras, all bound together by just being obscure or having been difficult to see before that point: Christopher Strong and Becky Sharp (both RKO titles); the Hitchcock French propaganda shorts Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache; It Happened Here; Caged Heat (shrewdly scheduled to play around the same time that ITV were premiering The Silence of the Lambs!); Confidential Report; Tokyo Drifter; Before The Revolution; the Frank Sinatra starring Suddenly; the Robert Mitchum psychological western Pursued; Le Samourai and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's TV film I Only Want You To Love Me. And most famously Michael Mann's The Keep.[First slide]During the 1940s producer Val Lewton made a series of classic low budget horror films and thrillers for RKO including Cat People and I Walked With A Zombie.
[Second slide]The Ghost Ship, withdrawn from distribution following a law-suit, has long been the missing film from this group. This is its British television premiere.
Come to think of it, outside of the 1954 A Star Is Born, Le Samourai turning up on the Mark Cousins version of Moviedrome in 1999, and Film4 screening both Pursued and The Keep a number of times in recent years, I do not believe that any of the other films in that season have been shown since.