The Queen of Sheba (1921) — Complete Film
Fox built an immense biblical romance around Betty Blythe's spectacular costumes; today seventeen seconds stand in for more than nine reels.
Quick facts
- Existence state
- Officially Gone
- Peak stage
- general availability
- Research confidence
- high
- Last verified
What it was
The complete original cut of J. Gordon Edwards's silent epic The Queen of Sheba.
The film dramatised the romance of Solomon and Sheba through battle scenes, monumental sets and elaborate pageantry.
Existence timeline
Fox stages the biblical romance on a large scale.
The complete film enters theatrical distribution.
A major fire destroys much of the studio's silent heritage.
No complete print is located.
Seventeen seconds formerly labelled Cleopatra are matched to the film.
Only the fragment and paper materials survive.
Why it ended
The full feature was lost, probably among Fox silent holdings destroyed or discarded, while only a tiny fragment survives.
Last confirmed trace
A seventeen-second piece identified in 2011, plus stills and publicity art, provides the only moving glimpse of the production.
What it left behind
Its surviving sliver makes the scale of early studio loss tangible: seconds remain from a once highly promoted epic.
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.
Sources & verification
Last reviewed 2026-08-01. Sources are linked so readers can inspect the evidence directly.