“The conversation inevitably turned to what films we held in our collection,” recalled Steve Russell, the New Zealand archive’s manager of corporate services. “Brian was not surprisingly excited to learn the Film Archive held a number of non-New Zealand titles, primarily early nitrate films, including a substantial number of American films. We offered to compile a list of the U.S. material, and it was a short step to here.” Many foreign films remained in New Zealand after their commercial lives were over because the studios didn’t think the return shipping was worth the expense. “It’s one of the rare cases where the tyranny of distance has worked in our and the films’ favor,” Mr. Russell said.

Image “The Girl Stage Driver” (1914), with Edna Payne, and other films in the New Zealand trove underline the contribution made by women to early cinema. Credit... National Film Preservation Foundation

Because of the importance of the John Ford film, “Upstream”  a backstage drama from 1927, a year that was a turning point in the development of one of America’s greatest filmmakers  it is being copied to modern safety film stock in a New Zealand laboratory, rather than risk loss or further damage in transit.

Although Ford was already famous as a director of epic westerns like “The Iron Horse” (1925) and “Three Bad Men” (1926), “Upstream” appears to be his first film reflecting the influence of the German director F. W. Murnau, who had arrived at Ford’s studio, Fox, in 1926 to begin work on his American masterpiece, “Sunrise.” From Murnau, Ford learned the use of forced perspectives and chiaroscuro lighting, techniques Ford would use to complement his own more direct, naturalistic style.

Richard Abel, a professor of film studies at the University of Michigan and an authority on early cinema, was one of the experts called in by the National Film Preservation Board to evaluate the inventory and establish priorities for films to be returned. “ ‘Upstream’ was an obvious choice,” Mr. Abel said, “and I suggested strongly that they do ‘Dolly of the Dailies’ with Mary Fuller, because there’s very little that survives of her films. But we were also looking to fill in gaps, which is why many of the early westerns were chosen.”

Internationally popular, westerns were an important export for the early American film industry, as were short comedies, with their broad physical humor that required no translation. The New Zealand collection features nine comedies, including the 1918 “Why Husbands Flirt” from the prolific producer-director Al Christie.