Forgotten Silver Page #2

Until now.

Found among the films in the

Colin McKenzie collection

was an astounding cinematic record.

Seen here, publicly, for the first time

is a piece of film currently being examined

by the Smithsonian Institute.

A fragment of cinema that will

forever rewrite aviation history.

Minutes before takeoff, Colin positioned

his camera above a wagon.

And waited.

Colin McKenzie's remarkable film contained

yet another astonishing revelation.

The man on the left has

a newspaper in his pocket.

Digital enhancement

allows us to look closer.

The Wright brothers historic flight at Kitty

Hawk was not until December 17, 1903.

Richard Pearse, a farmer from New Zealand,

had beaten the Wright brothers

into the air by nine months.

But the thing that I find really funny is,

if you examine the footage,

He's flying straight at Colin McKenzie,

who's filming it, and he

has to swerve to avoid Colin and he

crashes into the hedge.

And if Colin had not been there,

he probably would have flown a lot further

and we would've all heard about it.

His father confiscated the film.

Forbade in his dual way

the boy ever to have anything to do with

this new-fangled filmmaking ever again.

Aged only 15, Colin McKenzie

ran away from home.

New Zealand was growing

into a prosperous dominion.

Even the poorest members of society

had some leisure time.

And most of them chose

to spend it at the pictures.

Opportunities were plentiful for

enthusiastic young men like Colin.

In 1905, Brooke joined him

to form the McKenzie Brothers

Picture Company.

Filming parades and weddings, the

brothers rapidly amassed a small fortune.

But Colin's dreams were more ambitious.

At 84 minutes, "The Warrior Season"

must now be acknowledged as the world's

first feature-length film.

But even more remarkably, it introduced

a revolutionary technical innovation.

By 1908, after three years of development,

Colin McKenzie had perfected a way to

record synchronized sound with pictures.

Conventional film history tells us

that Al Jolson sang in 1927

and in "Old Arizona" you could

here the sound of bacon frying.

Well, that's the late '20s. Here in 1908,

Colin McKenzie had figured out a way in

making this epic, battle-torn film

to have gun fire, to

have horses' hoof beats.

He recorded it all and it all came through.

And, most of all, he had dialogue.

He just forgot one thing:

All of his subjects talking were Chinese.

And while he figured out a way to record

It was his fatal flaw.

Audiences just walked out in droves.

They couldn't understand a word.

They were amused by the novelty

for a few minutes of hearing sound,

but then when they couldn't figure out what

anybody was saying, they just lost interest.

Disillusioned and financially crippled,

Colin abandoned his recording

experiments forever.

He turned his attention from

sound to pictures,

becoming obsessed with

the images themselves.

In late March 1911,

Colin succeeded in creating

an emulsion that reacted to

distinct wavelengths of light.

Producing an effect very like color.

There was only one problem:

The key ingredient was photinia aquefolium, a

berry found only in the islands of Tahiti.

The McKenzie brothers wasted

no time in packing their bags.

What Colin and Brooke achieved in Tahiti

was actually quite an extraordinary

feat of chemical engineering.

They take the berries, they boil them up,

they go through this complicated process

in a home-built laboratory

under the palm trees.

It takes him four and a half months

to produce 22 seconds of film.

Full of anticipation, Colin immediately

embarked on a test.

In this astonishing footage,

Colin trains his lens on a

colorful tropical scene.

But his carefully-composed

image is soon disrupted.

He attempts to reframe, without success.

The precious film rolls through

his camera and runs out.

Confident their technical breakthrough

would restore their fortunes

the brothers raced back to New Zealand.

They quickly setup a screening for

potential investors.

But the reaction was to prove

deeply disappointing.

On June 9, 1912, they appeared before

Justice McRobey in the Dunedin High Court.

Colin and Brooke were charged with

exhibiting a lewd document.

An all male jury deliberated for 37 hours.

Requesting repeat screenings of the film

before delivering a guilty verdict.

Colin and Brooke were jailed for 6 months.

With hard labor.

Upon their release, the brothers returned

home, to their mother, in disgrace.

What seems to have happened

then is really a transition in Colin.

Up until this point in his career he had been

interested in the technicalities of filmmaking.

He'd experimented with building cameras,

with sound, with color.

And now, really for the

first time, I think.

Colin started to think about

the artistic uses of film.

He wanted to produce, on film, something

that was going to have a message for people.

And he turned to the source

of all great messages.

Colin became fascinated by one

Bible story in particular.

Soon he announced his intention to

make a 20 minute film

based on the tale of

Salome and John the Baptist.

Colin's adaptation was

loose and imaginative.

Colin himself took the role of the Baptist.

Brooke was chosen to play Narraboth,

Herod's handsome captain of guards.

Colin's biggest problem was finding

a young woman to play Salome.

All the girls round about

had been warned off

by their fathers, outraged by the

scandal he'd been involved in.

And the girls who did show up

were certainly not suitable.

And then.

He saw Maybelle.

She took his breath away.

Even before he realized what was happening,

Colin was in love.

He told no one of his feelings.

Maybelle proved to be an excellent actress.

The chemistry between her and

Brooke was electric.

They lit up the screen.

Besotted with Maybelle, Colin moved his

camera nearer and nearer to her.

In the process, he invented the close-up.

But no matter how close he got,

Colin failed to see what had developed

right under his nose.

Brooke and Maybelle had

genuinely fallen in love.

Concealing his bitterness, Colin toasted

the happy couple and wished them well.

But a few days later, on the pretext of

exhaustion,

he suspended filming.

The adjournment was to last

longer than anyone expected.

The onset of The Great War

led to a huge outpouring

of patriotic sentiment in the

colonies of the British empire.

You men rushed to enlist, eager to do their

bit for King and country.

Amongst them was Brooke McKenzie.

He and Maybelle had been married

only three weeks when he joined up.

Colin tried to enlist too, but he

had flat feet and was classified unfit.

He farewelled his brother

with a heavy heart.

Brooke McKenzie was part of the first

New Zealand expeditionary force

that landed at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915.

He came armed not only with a rifle,

but a lightweight camera, built by Colin.

Here, seen for the very first time,

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