Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rick Thompson 
You have to remember, that was when the leadership changeover was happening, when the movie-makers who built the studios were being run out of town by financiers, accountants and lawyers. Bad management decisions put them in that situation, but the replacements were in it strictly for the short term. If it didn't produce immediate cash, it was junk. Outtakes and cut footage didn't produce immediate cash, so they went into the garbage. (The exception would appear to be Disney. Even in unsuccessful times, they appear to have kept everything.)
Even ignoring the home video revolution, imagine what that footage would have brought at auction. Either the new folks had no imagination, or it was just contempt for the ones they forced out. Whatever the reason, all we can do is shake our heads and marvel at the stupidity.
There was very little worth to be found in "nostalgia" back in the 70s. In those days, if it was old--toss it out. Anything worth consideration had to be of immediacy. There was very little retrospective in terms of art or culture. People would make fun of you for listening to records that were two years old. Everything had to be
now. It wasn't really the "Me" generation, it was the "NOW" generation. That's what people thought in those days.
Interestingly, by the time we got to the home video revolution (circa 1985),
then it was okay to look back on old films and appreciate them, and find something of contemporary value in them (I hope we still do this today. I know the forum members do). But by '85 all those studio purges had been completed, and then they were crying the blues because they discovered the value of outtakes and such. Well, boo hoo. By the time the studios figured that out, all the people who'd thrown out all that stuff had long since been removed from their positions. I think, as you mention, Disney may have remained immune because unlike most of the major studios, it was never sold off to an outside corporation. Despite a lot of power changes at Disney, there's still been reverence for its film past, and therefore continuity in storing its materials. Thank God for the Disney Archives--let me tell you.
Ben--the vaults that are filled with materials that are currently being sorted and worked on are definitely clean and organized. However, Hollywood still has countless vaults and storage facilities filled with film that have been locked for decades. Probably nobody knows what's in them. I've worked on studio lots for all my adult life. I've actually seen some of those facilities opened up and people have to go in with facemasks because god knows what's on the other side of that door. I'd actually love to have that job, though--just a job where you go around opening up film storage nooks just to see what's inside lol
