The whereabouts of the original Last Takeoff film is turning out to be quite a mystery. The collections manager at the National Film & Sound Archive (NFSA) has searched under every imaginable subject, category, and title - but no joy. I asked if there is a chance that the film might have been of the old and dangerous nitrate variety and was destroyed rather than transferred. he replied, "It's true that most, if not all films in the National Library of Australia's (NLA) collection were transferred to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), after the NFSA was established in 1984. Some foreign nitrate films were repatriated to overseas archives in the 1990s, but these are still listed on our database and it would be improbable that a film shot in New Guinea would have been repatriated. Besides, it's highly unlikely that this film would have been shot on nitrate stock as to the best of my knowledge all nitrate film is 35mm, so if it was 16mm, it would have been acetate or safety stock. Like Amelia Earhart herself, the disappearance of the film is a mystery, but will let you know if I get any leads."
My next step will be to go back to the NLA and ask if there are records that might confirm that the film was once in their collections and, if so, where it went.