Napoleon : Abel Gance's classic film (New ed)

When a 15-year old schoolboy, Kevin Brownlow, saw two reels of the 1927 Napoleon, it changed his life.

The film was more daring technically and artistically than anything he had ever seen.

How could it have been forgotten? He got in touch with its director, and tracked down members of the cast and crew.

He discovered that the making of the film was as much of an epic as the film itself.

In 1967, he began an attempt to restore Naploeon. The work took years, but eventually Napoleon was presented with live orchestra to a new generation and, as one critic put it, it became 'the measure for all other films, forever.'