What's new

MOMA Fox Nitrate Prints (1 Viewer)

Garysb

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 31, 2003
Messages
5,862
Looking at the film scheduled for the Museum of Modern Art in NYC I notice this listing


Among the many unique nitrate prints rescued by MoMA from the Twentieth Century Fox studios in the 1970s were several major works by Fox’s most prominent director, John Ford. This virtual program highlights two recent restorations: The Brat, a pointed social comedy from 1931, and Pilgrimage, a devastating antiwar drama first released in 1933, neither of which are currently available on cable or home video.

Anyone have a clue about a complete list of what MOMA was able to rescue from the 1970's Fox nitrate purge?
 

Bert Greene

Screenwriter
Joined
Apr 1, 2004
Messages
1,057
Somewhere around here I have the old list of Fox Films that Alex Gordon salvaged back in the 1970s. The majority of those 1930-35 Fox Films are indeed extant, although the quality of the surviving prints obviously seem to vary a great deal, with some occasionally being 'work prints' and such. Fifty of those early Fox titles were put into a syndicated package, and they circulated a little bit. I caught most of them in the late-1980s. As for the 'lost' titles, the ones not on Gordon's list, it seems possible a few of those have turned up elsewhere. It's still always been rather inexplicable (to me, at least) how three of the Charlie Chans went missing. At least, when you take into consideration percentages, because for titles from 1931, 1932, and 1933, it seems like only seven or eight Fox titles are lost, yet THREE of them wind up being Chans!

It's easier to concentrate on the 'lost' titles, since there are fewer of them. The 1929 output is indeed pretty grim, in terms of survival rate. 1930 is much better, but there are still about ten that seem to be missing (unless they've indeed turned up elsewhere in all these ensuing years). Like the two Sue Carol films "Big Party" (1930) and "The Golden Calf" (1930). Or, "The Sky Hawk" (1930), with John Garrick and Helen Chandler. But from 1931 onward, the survival rates improve pretty drastically. Other than the Chans, along with "Annabelle's Affairs" (1931), whose loss seems to naturally consternate a lot of Jeanette MacDonald fans. There are also a few British-made films that Fox released around this time, and they were apparently not in that batch that Gordon worked on, but they might very likely be in overseas vaults.

While the survival rate improved massively, there were four 1934 films that were strangely not on the list. I'm thinking they're probably around, however, maybe having prints housed elsewhere with the later Fox fare. Those four, for the record:

THE DEVIL TIGER (1934) Kane Richmond, Marian Burns
BACHELOR OF ARTS (1934) Tom Brown, Anita Louise
LOVE TIME (1934) Pat Patterson, Nils Asther
PURSUED (1934) Rosemary Ames, Victor Jory
 
Last edited:

Harold Chasen

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Aug 8, 2018
Messages
135
Real Name
Steven
Anyone have a clue about a complete list of what MOMA was able to rescue from the 1970's Fox nitrate purge?

It wasn't the 1970's nitrate purge that resulted in so many silent and early sound films from Fox being totally lost. It was the 1937 Fox vault fire in New Jersey:


The 1970's purge meant that the "best original" materials of films were destroyed, but copy materials remain (at the time, though to be only of use for television, but at least they weren't trying to destroy the films themselves). The 1937 fire, however, means that many films are lost forever, or are only saved if they are rediscovered in foreign archives.

The Blu-Ray of Sunrise (1927) notes that the original Movietone version survives because a copy was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in 1936. Had this not happened, it likely would have perished in the 1937 fire.
 

Gary OS

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2004
Messages
5,995
Location
Florida
Real Name
Gary
Somewhere around here I have the old list of Fox Films that Alex Gordon salvaged back in the 1970s. The majority of those 1930-35 Fox Films are indeed extant, although the quality of the surviving prints obviously seem to vary a great deal, with some occasionally being 'work prints' and such. Fifty of those early Fox titles were put into a syndicated package, and they circulated a little bit. I caught most of them in the late-1980s. As for the 'lost' titles, the ones not on Gordon's list, it seems possible a few of those have turned up elsewhere. It's still always been rather inexplicable (to me, at least) how three of the Charlie Chans went missing. At least, when you take into consideration percentages, because for titles from 1931, 1932, and 1933, it seems like only seven or eight Fox titles are lost, yet THREE of them wind up being Chans!

It's worse than that, Bert. There are FOUR Chan films missing! 'Charlie Chan's Courage' (1934) is also gone.


Gary "if any of these Oland 'Chans' could be found I'd be through the roof excited" O.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Latest Articles

Forum statistics

Threads
356,814
Messages
5,123,752
Members
144,184
Latest member
H-508
Recent bookmarks
0
Top