The Cook And Other Treasures

"Miraculous" isn't too strong a word for the 1998 discovery of two seminal silent shorts, long given up for lost, starring early comic greats Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Buster Keaton. Decomposed and incomplete prints of director-star Arbuckle's A RECKLESS ROMEO and THE COOK were discovered by Jan Olsson of Stockholm University among unidentified nitrate prints at Norway's Norsk Filminstitutt. In 2002, an additional eight minutes of THE COOK was found by Amsterdam's Nederlands Filmmuseum. The National Library of Norway's Media Lab restored the footage itself, in collaboration with America's George Eastman House. New Jersey's Milestone Film & Video used the Library of...