News & Events

The Mary Pickford Foundation and the Library of Congress are now partnering to digitally preserve and master a number of Mary Pickford’s films, utilizing elements housed in the Mary Pickford collection at the Library of Congress and at the Mary Pickford Foundation’s collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive at the Packard Humanities Institute.

Using the most recently restored and highest quality film elements, selected titles will be scanned in 2K and 4K by the Library of Congress digital team. Films chosen for scanning are Cinderella, Rags, Pride of the Clan, Poor Little Rich Girl, and M’liss, along with one Jack Pickford film. They will also be scanning seven American Biograph short films and some rare home movies. The Mary Pickford Foundation will then complete the digital work to master these titles for release.

Johanna Enlists and Tess of the Storm Country ’22 will be scanned in 2K High Definition, with all digital work to be completed by the Library of Congress’s Motion Picture Conservation Center’s digital team in cooperation with the Foundation.  The Library of Congress will also digitally preserve, and master two titles produced by Mary Pickford and directed by D. W. Griffith, Lady of the Pavements and Drums of Love.

The Pickford Foundation will finalize the work on all titles and produce original, modern scores to be synced to the films for worldwide distribution. All meta-data will be stored at the Library of Congress facility in Culpepper, Virginia.

The Library of Congress will also be upgrading and preserving selected film elements from the Mary Pickford Foundation’s collection.

The Mary Pickford Foundation and Paramount Pictures Archive are partnering to bring three of Mary Pickford’s films to a modern audience. Tess of the Storm Country (1914) and Madame Butterfly (1915) have been digitally mastered onto 2K High Definition, with all digital work completed by Paramount’s digital team. Stella Maris (1918), which features Mary playing two different roles, is currently in production, and will also be mastered onto 2K HD.

The preservation and restoration of these films used the best of all the elements housed at Paramount, the Pickford collection at the Library of Congress and the Pickford Foundation’s collection at UCLA/Packard Humanities Institute. The Mary Pickford Foundation will finalize the work on all titles, and will produce original, modern scores to be synced to the films for worldwide distribution.

The Mary Pickford Foundation and Paramount Pictures Archive are also partnering to digitally store and preserve the Foundation’s entertainment assets with Paramount’s in-house Digital Preservation procedures.  Multiple copies are created and geographically separated to ensure recovery in the event of a disaster or loss.   These procedures along with complex custom software are designed to ensure the films will  be preserved at the highest quality possible and available to be screened and appreciated for generations to come.

It is fitting that Paramount Pictures, who distributed Mary Pickford’s films over 100 years ago, is today playing this key role in preserving her films. Paramount began as a distribution company and by the time Adolph Zukor, Jesse Lasky and others had merged their companies into Paramount Pictures, Ms. Pickford had already been instrumental in gaining international audiences for Paramount. We are so pleased that the relationship between Paramount and Ms. Pickford can continue into its second century.

The Mary Pickford Foundation and the UCLA Film & Television Archive are partnering to digitally preserve and master a number of Mary Pickford’s films.  Using only the most recently restored and highest quality film elements, selected titles will be scanned in 4k by the UCLA digital team. The Mary Pickford Foundation will then complete all digital work in collaboration with the staff at the UCLA Archive. MPF will produce original, modern scores to be synced to the films for worldwide distribution.

Mary Pickford films currently in production are The Little American (1917) , in cooperation with the Cecil B. DeMille Foundation; The Love Light (1921), in cooperation with the Packard Humanities Institute; and Amarilly of Clothesline Alley (1918), accessing elements from the Mary Pickford Foundation’s Collection.

https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/blogs/archive-blog/2020/02/07/mary-pickford-films-announcement