The Mountain Eagle
Alfred Hitchcock's second feature was released, reviewed and then disappeared without a known surviving print.
Quick facts
- Existence state
- Officially Gone
- Peak stage
- general availability
- Research confidence
- high
- Last verified
What it was
A silent melodrama directed by Alfred Hitchcock for Gainsborough Pictures, filmed largely in Germany and Austria.
The Mountain Eagle completed production and received theatrical release in Germany and Britain. Its survival problem came later: prints and negatives vanished as silent-era distribution materials were discarded, destroyed or decomposed.
Existence timeline
Hitchcock shoots studio work in Munich and exteriors in the Austrian Alps.
The film opens in Germany and is screened for British distribution.
It reaches cinemas after the success of The Lodger.
The BFI renews a public international search for a surviving print.
No complete surviving print is located as Hitchcock's early film passes into lost-film status.
Why it ended
No complete or partial moving-image copy is currently known to survive. It is the only completed Hitchcock feature considered entirely lost.
Last confirmed trace
Production stills, lobby cards, contemporary reviews, copyright records and Hitchcock's notes preserve its outline but not its images in motion.
What it left behind
The BFI placed it at the top of its Most Wanted search, making one missing film a public symbol of how much early cinema has been lost.
How we classified it
The archive unit reached normal public release or operation and is no longer available in its original public form.
The archive unit reached normal public availability, so Arrival Score V1 assigns 100.
Sources & verification
Last reviewed 2026-08-01. Sources are linked so readers can inspect the evidence directly.