Von Morgens bis Mitternachts is one of the most evident examples of how today we have to take another look at the History of the Cinema, delving deeper into the sources of information available. The film wasn’t a commercial success and the only copy to survive was found in Japan. It had credits written in English, but no intertitles. From that ‘original’ many copies were printed and bought by film archives all over the world. In this way the film came to be known and studied by generations of critics that remarked on, not only the incredible force of the images, but on the complete lack of intertitles, something completely new at the time of the film. In 1985 the Münchner Filmmuseum/Stadtmuseum obtained a copy from the Japanese National Film Center and National Museum of Art in Tokyo. Then in 1987 Professor Inge Degenhardt of the University of Frankfurt discovered the approval document from the censorship office including the list of more than a hundred intertitles.
This happy coincidence gave birth to the restoration of the film that you’ll see this evening at Il Cinema Ritrovato. The text graphics were reconstructed by the Münchner Filmmuseum based on the writing already found in the film.