Roger Rollins
Supporting Actor
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2001
- Messages
- 931
The old "MGM" was forced by its city government (Culver City) to get all its nitrate off of the studio premises within a certain time. The studio preserved all of its existing nitrate material (whether it be feature, short, cartoon, or trailer)onto safety film, and then shipped its nitrate originals to George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y. for "safe keeping".
Imagine my horror (and the horror of everyone else concerned with film preservation) when I read in the New York Times of a massive vault fire at Eastman House, sometime in the late 1970s. The original negatives of some films were lost forever (although the safety copies existed) from that fire including virtually the entire orig. 3 strip Nitrate of SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. SINGIN', incidentally, was one of MGM's last to be filmed on nitrate stock. By the time the film was released the prints were all safety stock.
Recent prints and masters have been ultimately generated from the safety separations that MGM made before the nitrate was shipped away.
Turner and WB made an excellent documentary about the need for film preservation and restoration which I saw on the Turner channel a few years back. The show was called "A Race to Save A Hundred Years". It specifically mentioned the film destroyed at the Eastman House disaster, including SINGIN'. That having been said, it is likely that Warners will use the same state-of-the-art quality standards they have applied recently to other films when tackling a new SINGIN' DVD Special Edition. An exciting prospect.
In re-reading Bob Thomas' article posted above, it indicates there are TWO documentaries coming from Warners, not one. There will be a new docuementary on SINGIN' (I assume a 'making of'), and separately a DVD release of that wonderful docu on Gene Kelly which aired on PBS earlier this month. I look forward to purchasing BOTH releases.
Imagine my horror (and the horror of everyone else concerned with film preservation) when I read in the New York Times of a massive vault fire at Eastman House, sometime in the late 1970s. The original negatives of some films were lost forever (although the safety copies existed) from that fire including virtually the entire orig. 3 strip Nitrate of SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. SINGIN', incidentally, was one of MGM's last to be filmed on nitrate stock. By the time the film was released the prints were all safety stock.
Recent prints and masters have been ultimately generated from the safety separations that MGM made before the nitrate was shipped away.
Turner and WB made an excellent documentary about the need for film preservation and restoration which I saw on the Turner channel a few years back. The show was called "A Race to Save A Hundred Years". It specifically mentioned the film destroyed at the Eastman House disaster, including SINGIN'. That having been said, it is likely that Warners will use the same state-of-the-art quality standards they have applied recently to other films when tackling a new SINGIN' DVD Special Edition. An exciting prospect.
In re-reading Bob Thomas' article posted above, it indicates there are TWO documentaries coming from Warners, not one. There will be a new docuementary on SINGIN' (I assume a 'making of'), and separately a DVD release of that wonderful docu on Gene Kelly which aired on PBS earlier this month. I look forward to purchasing BOTH releases.
