My husband and I are both silent film buffs. (That makes us sound really pretentious but honestly, we got into silent film through our love of horror films–the Nosferatu/Caligari/German Expressionist route, you know. ) So naturally, there are a lot of films that were lost or destroyed (the whole silver nitrate thing) and that, unless someone finds a show-at-home reel or something stashed in an attic, we’ll never get to see.
I don’t really have a holy grail lost film anymore. Mine used to be the lost footage from Metropolis, but now most of that has been found and I’ve seen the restored version in all its (flawed) glory. But if I had an ask of the silent film gods, it would be any (and all) lost Lon Chaney Sr. films. And not necessarily London After Midnight, either. Though that would be cool to see, even though the general suspicion is that it kind of actually sucked. My other ask, even though it’s not film but actually television, would be all the lost Second Doctor episodes of Doctor Who from the sixties.
What about you? What lost film (or television episode, or even album) would you magically find if you could? What’s your holy grail?