Oldest Known Hitchcock Film Uncovered in N.Z.

But where The White Shadow's second half ended up is a mystery worthy of the timeless British director.

The oldest known Alfred Hitchcock film, a silent flick dating back to 1923, has been uncovered in a cache of old film reels in New Zealand. The first three reels of The White Shadow, which a young Hitchcock wrote, edited, and designed sets for, were found in a collection given to the New Zealand Film Archive in the 1990s. The cache was a gift from the family of a projectionist who worked in the New Zealand town of Hastings throughout the first half of the 20th century and held on to his film reels in a storage shed instead of destroying the prints after they were used. While the film's second three reels have yet to be discovered, film buffs say the first half of The White Shadow, a drama about two sisters representing good and evil, presents a great opportunity to witness the gestation of Hitchcock's genius long before he produced such thriller landmarks as Psycho, Vertigo, The Birds, and North by Northwest.