The Return of the Undesirable: A Hungarian Classic Found
zita kisgergely
The history of film in Hungary is almost as long as the history of film itself. This is a nation that prides itself on its record of technical innovations and challenging narrative techniques. The country’s rich cinematic past twine with its technology-savvy present in the reels of Michael Curtiz’s A Tolonc (The Undesirable) which was restored and digitally re-mastered at Budapest’s National Digital Archive and Film Institute.
The Undesirable is one of the many lost films of Hungary’s golden age of silent film, and represents one of the first directorial efforts from Michael Curtiz, who went on to achieve international fame as the director of such films as Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, and The Jazz Singer. His hundred-year-old silent film was discovered in 2013 the basement of the Hungarian House, a cultural center in New York City. How it got there is still unknown, but great efforts were made to return the film to its homeland. The undertaking of returning and restoring the film, at the cost of close to 50,000 Euro, was funded by the Hungarian National Film Foundation, overseen by the late Terminator and Rambo producer, and HNFF head honcho, Andrew Vajna.
Curtiz, born Manó Kaminer Kertész, shot the film in 1914 in the then Hungarian-ruled city of Kolozsvár, (now known as Cluj-Napoca, Romania). Shooting for the film was completed in the summer before the outbreak of WWI. There is evidence that the film was shown in the United States in the 1920s. This would make it one of Hungary’s first releases into the US market.
Upon completion, the re-mastered version of A Tolonc had a theatrical showing in Budapest to celebrate the film’s 100 year anniversary. It was a fine homecoming for a film that spent so long abroad. What a difference a century makes.
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