Back to 1915: Reconstructing W.H. Durborough's Historical World War I Film

Durborough filming the Great War, 1915

Link to high res image

In the April 2015 issue of the Journal of Film Preservation, Jim Castellan has described his extensive research on Wilbur H. Durborough's remarkable First World War documentary On the Firing Line with the Germans. Starting from scratch, nearly all film segments of this historical movie have now been located and identified from various film sources both at the National Archives and the Library of Congress. As a result, this historical feature documentary allows us to revisit the Great War, as seen through the lense of an American war correspondent who was a close witness of the German offensive on the Eastern Front in the summer of 1915.

Reconstruction Project

The Library of Congress has started a reconstruction of the Durborough film, with an intended completion in October 2015, one hundred years after it was first shown in the United States. We will ofcourse keep you posted on this interesting project!

Jim's article for the Journal of Film Preservation can be read and downloaded here.