Even I must admit to what might be termed a frisson of excitement the other day when I came across a website claiming that the old silent movie had surfaced. I diligently read the longish article from start to finish. It claimed that an 82 year old chicken farmer called Clyde McGuffin (a clue if ever I missed one) had found the film propping up one of his chicken sheds in El Segundo, California. The story claimed that Clyde was an ex-achivist for MGM and when he returned the lost treasure to the company they went just a little bananas. The tale finished by saying the company was now trying to sort out the legals before restoring it and issuing it on DVD. I was a little surprised at not having heard about the discovery before but swallowed the story whole until I logged off. A box came up explaining it was all a spoof – but wasn’t it fun? You would think at my age I might have learned something. When I was first offered the job I was told it was the modern version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I’m still trying to work that out. Roughly, as far as I can remember, the story was about an actress, Alice Allison, (me) making a film about the iniquities of war while her husband/director is having it off with her understudy, Caroline Johnson (Judy Huxstable). Alice gets to hear about it and is not best pleased. It all goes a bit pear-shaped after this with Alice sacrificing Caroline on an alter. Or not! I’ve always hoped that one day I might find the elusive celluloid just to see if it really is as bad as the reviews make out. For some reason I’ve never actually seen it. Someone once told me that they had seen it in France on Canal Plus but when I contacted the TV station they denied everything. But they are French. Anyway the real drama connected with this film happened after the film was released. At least that is what I have been told. But every so often someone pops up to tell me that they have seen the film at some festival or other but when I try to track it down it mysteriously disappears. So if you should see Nobody Ordered Love being advertised, please let me know. But if a chicken farmer from El Segunda tries to offer you free eggs with a rare copy of London After Midnight – tell him to scramble ’em. Ingrid writes every Tuesday at Den of Geek – read her last column here.
