Morace Park bought the film from an online auction site in 2009. On the surface, it looked like a battered cinema reel, but once opened, it revealed a roll of film titled “Charlie Chaplin in Zepped.”
Mr. Park could not find any records of the film from his research, but his investigation eventually led him to the discovery that it was the last copy of a forgotten Charlie Chaplin film.
“At first, I had no idea what I had. However, it soon became clear that ‘Zepped’ is a very special film. I visited film experts in Europe and the USA and lost count of the superlatives that they came out with, but one comment was common: None of them had ever seen this type of film before,” Mr. Park said in a press release.
Unfortunately, the movie only received one bid.
“Obviously we’re disappointed the film didn’t sell, but it’s an unusual item, and the nature of auctions means these things are always unpredictable,” a spokeswoman for Bonham’s told the BBC.
Bonham’s explains that the zeppelins were often called “baby killers” and “terrors of the sky” at the time, and it is believed “Zepped” was designed as propaganda, using Chaplin’s world-famous comedy to defuse the terror inspired by these attacks.
Professor Paul Wells, director of The Animation Academy Research Group at Loughborough University believes that “the zeppelin is possibly real, but could also be a premature form of puppetry,” according to the press release.
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