So where IS the missing footage?

Most likely there are no surviving prints of the original von Stroheim cut. The unused and cut footage is said to have been rendered down for the silver nitrate.

While I understand the desire of Thalberg to create a commercially viable product for Metro, I verge on being physically ill when I think of the brilliance that was lost with such brutal editting. I can't help wondering if Thalberg was getting back at von Stroheim in some fashion for how difficult von Stroheim was.

It's so old that I doubt there is any surviving footage, though I could be wrong, after all, look at Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc. Anyway, I really hope that if there is anything that could be made to give a complete version, that it would be done. I would love to have a DVD, only there has not been a release by any company as of yet.

I don't think the missing footage will ever turn up. It's not like other movies that were released then cut - the cuts here were made before any distribution prints were struck. And no way was the studio going to let Von Stroheim anywhere near the print after they seized it.

I guess it's possible that someone snitched pieces as souvenirs, but 80% of the movie - eight hours' worth? That would have been robbery (because of the silver content) and this was a high-profile hatchet job. I just don't see enough of it showing up to add much of substance to what's been reconstructed in the last ten years.

Here's the thing:

There's a theory on alien life and all that stuff that echoes anything like this: SO much would have to happen (aliens would have to know how to hear our signal, be looking for it, be willing to respond, and so on) that the likelihood is a complete print will never be found.....

For example:

Just SAY somebody "stashed" a full copy under the floor boards in a basement back in the day. This basement was converted into a small bar in the 1940's. The owner of the bar re-did the floors in the 1950's and found the 10 reels somebody had stashed years ago. Not knowing what the hell they were, he tossed them away without a care. There goes your one print.

While that's a pointless example: Sure, a copy likely exists, or at some point existed, somewhere in this world. BUT, the question is if or when it is or was found...does/did the person who finds it know what to do with it? Do/did they care? Has/did it fallen apart? If it had/did, how would anybody have known or would know what film it is/was?

Point being that I don't doubt SOME element of the missing footage exists, I just don't think most people would have or would be able to ID it (or care) if they found it and think it is or was just another piece of junk.

Just hope, if it is out there somewhere, somebody who knows what it is and what to do with it....finds it. :)