Alfred HitchcockAccording to the Associated Press, the National Film Preservation Foundation at the New Zealand Film Archive announced that they have discovered the first half of the earliest known surviving feature film in which a 24-year-old Alfred Hitchcock is credited.  The 1923 silent melodrama, The White Shadow, consists of three reels, approximately 30 minutes long.

Directed by Graham Cutts and starring Betty Compson playing a dual role as opposing twins, Hitchcock is credited as writer, assistant director, editor and art director.  Author of The Films of Alfred Hitchcock David Sterritt stated that, “Even though he didn’t direct it, he was all over it."

Hitchcock made his own directorial debut with The Pleasure Garden two years later.  He is best known for movies such as Rear Window (1954), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963).

A restored copy of The White Shadow is scheduled to be shown in Beverly Hills at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater at Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on September 22.  No other print of The White Shadow is known to exist.