A silent comedy made in 1919 has resurfaced in the sort of place where movie history can hide in plain sight: an antique shop in Japan. The surviving print of Van-ar-chy was found by film student Kohei Okita among old reels he bought while researching early cinema. Now the little comedy is headed back to Newport, New Hampshire, where it was filmed, for a rare homecoming screening.
That is the delightful part of this story: a movie that locals once watched being made survived halfway around the world, unrecognized, until a student started asking what was on the reels. It was not missing for a provable 100-plus years; it was made in 1919 and later fell out of view. The more careful description is that the film was believed lost for decades.
A student bought a box of old reels—and found a comedy
Van-ar-chy stars comedian Billy B. Van, a popular stage and screen performer whose name is less familiar now than it was to audiences of the early 20th century. The film’s title is a comic spin on “anarchy,” and its surviving catalog description identifies it as a two-reel comedy, about 1,574 feet long. The Billy B. Van archive dates its production to about 1919.
Okita, a film student in Sendai, was researching the history of the word “anarchy” in cinema when he bought several antique reels. He did not know what he had found. The film’s images eventually led him to archivist John Tariot, who recognized the performer and helped identify the material as Van-ar-chy. That process—an unlabeled reel, a curious researcher and an archivist who knew the period—is a reminder that film preservation often begins with someone simply refusing to assume an old can is empty of history.
The rediscovery was reported by The Guardian, while the Billy B. Van archive’s film listing records the production date, format and recent discovery. The archive is maintained by people preserving Van’s legacy; its dates and catalog details are useful, while the discovery account has also been reported independently.
Newport gets its streets back on screen
The film’s hometown connection gives this more than an archival “we found a rare movie” ending. Van-ar-chy was filmed in Newport and nearby Sunapee, New Hampshire. The surviving footage preserves glimpses of local streets, buildings, landscapes and residents from a century ago. Those images are not just scenery around a comedy; they are moving records of a place, made before anyone could know which ordinary corners would become historical evidence.
That is why a small silent film can land with the force of a time machine. A modern audience may come for Billy B. Van’s physical comedy, but it can also look for the familiar geography: what the town looked like, how people dressed, how a street was arranged, and which buildings survived. The film lets a community see its past in motion instead of piecing it together from still photographs.
According to the Newport-area historical societies’ event announcement, a digitally restored program is scheduled for November 1, 2026, at the Newport Opera House. The program pairs Van-ar-chy with another rediscovered Van comedy, Where Are Your Husbands?, and includes live piano accompaniment by Bob Merrill. The announcement describes the event as a return to the place where the films were made; it is a community screening built around recovery and local memory, not simply a rarity put behind glass.
Why an old print still needs a future
Finding a surviving print is the beginning of preservation work, not the end. Film must be handled, inspected, transferred or restored with care, and its provenance and condition documented. Digital restoration can make images available to new audiences, but the physical element remains important: it is the source from which future preservation copies can be made.
There is also a lovely bit of accidental teamwork in the route from Japan to New Hampshire. A student noticed something worth investigating, an archivist supplied context, and local historians could connect the images to the landscape they recorded. No single clue solved the whole puzzle. Each person brought a different kind of expertise to a film that had outlasted the memory of where it belonged.
For Newport, November’s screening offers something more personal than a “lost film found” headline. The audience can watch a town encounter its own earlier self—alongside a comedian whose work had slipped from popular memory. For film fans, it is a rare chance to see an obscure silent comedy re-enter circulation. And for anyone who has ever wondered what might be sitting unnoticed in an old box, Van-ar-chy is a wonderfully specific answer: sometimes it is a movie waiting for somebody to look closely.
Image note: The featured image is an original illustration representing the film’s journey; it is not an archival frame from Van-ar-chy.
