You can now watch “Daughter of the Dawn” on Netflix or ShowBox. The silent movie was made in 1920 and features 300 Kiowa and Comanche Indians.
Here is a taste of an article from The Wichita Eagle:
The rare silent movie, “The Daughter of Dawn,” was made in 1920. Only one copy of the movie, which was filmed on highly flammable and easily decomposable silver nitrate film, was made. It was shown to the public only once, at a 1920 viewing in Los Angeles.
The lone surviving copy of the movie was found in a North Carolina garage nearly 15 years ago where it had been stored for decades. The Oklahoma Historical Society purchased the copy in 2007 for $5,000.
Grants were received to restore it. Amazingly, the entire movie – all 83 minutes – survived. The film was digitized, with closed captions added.
The movie started streaming earlier this month on the online-subscription service for movies and television shows – in part, because of high demand. Within the past few years, the Oklahoma Historical Society has offered small viewings of the restored movie around the region. Word of mouth and social media quickly helped spread interest of the movie.
“We have been fortunate to share this with tribes in Oklahoma and the feedback from the tribal members is that it is such a rare opportunity to see family members and elders they have heard about in this movie,” said Jeff Moore, director of the Oklahoma Museum of Popular Culture.
“It would be like going and seeing a movie your grandparents were all in.”
What makes “Daughter of Dawn” so valuable and a historic wonder are the actors, all of whom are the sons and daughters of the Kiowa and Comanche tribes who once roamed the plains of Kansas. They brought their own clothing, horses, tepees and everyday objects to be filmed on location in the summer of 1920 in the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma, near Anadarko.
Key actors were White and Wandada Parker, the children of Comanche Chief Quanah Parker.
Here is a nice video about the movie:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hhb9QXxcCM]
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