The silent star known as "the girl with the golden curls" Mary Pickford received her first on-screen credit in Their First Misunderstanding, made in 1911.
The long-lost movie was thought to have disappeared by historians who followed the performer's career but a copy is being restored and shown to the public.
A solitary copy was discovered in a barn by carpenter Peter Massie in 2006 with the US Library of Congress is funding a project to restore it.
Massie found the film, along with six other vintage reels, in New Hampshire seven years ago languishing in a barn that had once been used as a summer camp for boys. It is believed the movies were shown to entertain the campers.
Not realising the nitrate film was highly flammable, Peter Massie kept the reels in his truck where he regularly smoked cigarettes. He later stored them near his woodstove at home.
Eventually he donated the discoveries to the nearby Keene State College, where scholars have since been working to identify and restore them.
"This is the coolest thing I've ever found on any job," said Massie. "They were seconds away from going into a dumpster."
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