{"id":594698,"date":"2026-04-20T01:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T01:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/594698\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T01:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T01:33:09","slug":"familys-collection-of-old-films-no-one-wanted-turns-out-to-contain-only-copy-of-worlds-first-sci-fi-flick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/594698\/","title":{"rendered":"Family’s collection of old films no one wanted turns out to contain only copy of world’s first sci-fi flick"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Pennsylvania man<\/a> spent years trying to offload his great-grandfather\u2019s trunk of old silent films with no luck \u2014 until the Library of Congress discovered it held the last known copy of the world\u2019s first sci-fi movie.<\/p>\n

For years, Bill McFarland lugged two dusty trunks full of his great-grandfather\u2019s old films to antique stores and museums and he even listed them to eBay, but nobody wanted them until a film digitizing company recognized its value and pointed him toward the Library of Congress<\/a>, according to local outlet the Times Observer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bill McFarland spent years trying to offload his great-grandfather\u2019s trunk of old silent films with no luck \u2014 until the Library of Congress discovered it held the last copy of the world\u2019s first sci-fi movie. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Archivists at the library were happy to accept the donated contents of the trunks, and made a stunning discovery buried inside the forgotten haul \u2014 a copy of a 56-second film from 1897 titled, \u201cGugusse et l\u2019Automate\u201d\u2013\u201cThe Clown and the Automaton\u201d \u2014 the last known original copy of what is believed to be the first science-fiction film<\/a> ever made.<\/p>\n

The old trunks of films belonged to McFarland\u2019s great-grandfather, William DeLyle Frisbee, known as \u201cProfessor Frisbee,\u201d a traveling showman who spent roughly 30 years touring rural schoolhouses and churches across northwestern Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio starting in the late 1800s, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Archivists at the Library of Congress discovered the collection included the last known original copy of the world\u2019s first science fiction film. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

His road show kit included hand-painted glass magic lantern slides, an Edison phonograph, and eventually silent movies on nitrate film, a format McFarland allegedly learned is so hazardous it can explode and burn even underwater.<\/p>\n

But after the trunks sat in storage for decades, McFarland set out to find them a proper home, he told the outlet.<\/p>\n

The old trunks of films belonged to McFarland\u2019s great-grandfather, William DeLyle Frisbee, known as \u201cProfessor Frisbee,\u201d The McFarland Family\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

McFarland\u2019s friend Dan Sorensen helped shopped the collection to antique stores, museums and online film forums, but nobody wanted them until the Library of Congress recognized for the first time how unique the collection was, reports said.<\/p>\n

The William DeLyle Frisbee Collection, which contains 42 films, now rests in a climate-controlled vault at the Packard Campus in Virginia \u2014 a Cold War-era bunker once built for the Federal Reserve Bank and later refurbished into a state-of-the-art film preservation facility before being donated back to the government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Pennsylvania man spent years trying to offload his great-grandfather\u2019s trunk of old silent films with no luck…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[29922,88,206,12226,194],"class_list":{"0":"post-594698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-classic-movies","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-sci-fi","12":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}