Officially GoneFILM & TV

A Daughter of the Gods

Hollywood's first million-dollar spectacle filled Jamaican locations with mermaids, armies and Annette Kellerman, yet no known moving print survives.

HOW CLOSE TO REALITY100/100
CATEGORYFilm & TV
LIFECYCLE1916—lost
00

Quick facts

Existence state
Officially Gone
Peak stage
general availability
Research confidence
high
Last verified
01

What it was

A formally released silent fantasy feature directed by Herbert Brenon and starring Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman.

The three-hour production used aquatic performance, fantasy creatures and enormous sets to stage a romantic fairy tale.

02

Existence timeline

Production in Jamaica

Herbert Brenon mounts the expensive aquatic fantasy.

Premiere

The feature begins its public theatrical life.

Wide exhibition

Audiences encounter Kellerman's most elaborate film.

Prints disappear

No circulating copy remains known.

Film classified as lost

Archives document the work through paper and still material.

Publicity survives

NFSA images hint at a spectacle that cannot be screened.

03

Why it ended

The widely exhibited feature disappeared from distribution and no complete or fragmentary print has been located in an archive.

04

Last confirmed trace

The National Film and Sound Archive preserves publicity images and a later documentary record of the otherwise lost film.
05

What it left behind

Its scale, budget and Kellerman's performance make the absence a major gap in both American and Australian screen history.

06

How we classified it

The archive unit reached normal public release or operation and is no longer obtainable in its original public form.

Verified normal public availability maps to 100 under Arrival Score V1.

07

Sources & verification

Last reviewed 2026-08-01. Sources are linked so readers can inspect the evidence directly.

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