David Shepard

Past chats with our guests.
drednm

Post by drednm »

I'm always disappointed that my favorites always seem to be ignored by film preservationists and the companies that market silent films. Who actually makes the decision to restore film X?

And why is it that superstars like William Haines and Marion Davies seem to be so ignored? Each has a large number of existing silent films but no one does anything with them.

Even mega-star Gloria Swanson has relatively few silent films available. I know Eastman House has a bunch of Swanson films but they are not marketed and not readily available.

So how do we get these films restored and marketed?
Ed
drednm

Post by drednm »

I guess to elaborate..... what good does it do anyone to restore a silent film, add a new score, etc. and then have the film sit in a vault? Eastman House, Library of Congress, UCLA, AMPAS (Oscars) all restore films and maybe show them locally and then pack them away in vaults. No one markets them.

I know that a bunch of films have been restored in the last several years and about 20 people have seen them. Jeffrey (gagman) has mentioned several of them in his posts here. Even if there is a "small" market for films like HER WILD OAT or THE BARKER, the people who want to see them cannot or don't traipse around the country to see a special one-time screening.

I made a special trip to Rochester to view 5 rare Swanson films, but I didn't have the time or money to see other films Eastman House had vaulted away, including TILLIE THE TOILER.

How can we get these films marketed?
DShepFilm
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Friday night -- thank you for sharing and for listening

Post by DShepFilm »

It has been a real pleasure being with you this week. I appreciate your interest -- and your patience with my long-winded posts!

CoffeeDan asked about censorship. If a film survives in one copy only, basically it has to be taken as found. Of course most films were designed to avoid censor cuts as much as possible, but inevitably, some have survived only with cuts, especially if they descend from used distribution prints. If it is possible to determine that footage is lacking, it can be covered with an explanatory title (as in the latest restoration of "Metropolis" or more intrusively, in the Museum of Modern Art's restoration of "Way Down East") or with stills (as in "Lost Horizon") but sometimes it's better for the viewing experience just to leave the film alone, in its cut form (as with "Love Me Tonight" or "Man's Castle.")

Sometimes, however, the files of censor boards contain valuable documentation of the original edit which make restoration possible (the NY State Board of Censors gave us the information to reconstruct "Foolish Wives" to the extent possible). I always enjoyed the name of the head NY censor: Hugh M. Flick. Perhaps he was related to every MGM director's favorite film editor at the studio, Hugh Wynn. No arguments from him!

Luckily, there are occasional surprises such as the extra footage in the DVD of "Public Enemy". It was in a British dupe neg, evidently cut from the domestic versions because of strong homosexual inferences.

The Hughes silents have not yet been released on DVD because the copyright owners have so far refused consent. As you can imagine, Jeff Masino of Flicker Alley has no intention of giving up his efforts to persuade them.

I hugely admire the 4-hour reconstruction of "Greed" by Rick Schmidlin. I'm acknowledged on it only because Kevin Brownow and I talked about approaches to the project with Rick for a few hours one morning. It is brilliant, and entirely his project, although he was very fortunate that (unlike "London After Midnight") the "Greed" stills contained enough character and density of information to stand very close scrutiny. After it was all finished, Rick discovered another huge cache of stills that would have made it even richer; such is life.

The collector in Argentina "Gagman 66" talking about is perhaps Enrique J. Bouchard. He's a very nice man, and seems to have quite a hoard, but as far as I know he is not ready to turn anything over to anyone. In the absence of overwhelming public interest, no one should be compelled to give up their private property for public access, whether it is Sr. Bouchard or Paramount. Our brochure in the DVD for "Saved from the Flames" discloses how we (Lobster or Blackhawk) got most of the films represented there -- but there are sad stories also.

In the mid-1970s I knew an elderly collector named Edmundo Mangino Gabilondo, who lived near an oil refinery in Mexico City. I visited him and he ran me nitrate treasures on his 1906 Pathe projectors for a whole week. His rarest holding was more than 100 reels of news coverage of the Mexican revolution of 1910-17 -- it had been taken by a commercial company; bits and pieces had been sold to newsreels around the world, but during World War II he bought (and printed) the uncut negatives. At the time I wanted to make a documentary on this wonderful subject, and did make a deal with Sr. Gabilondo, but every time I went home and he thought it over, he would change the terms. While negotiations dragged on and on, the oil refinery caught fire and --- you guessed it.

My advice is NEVER to turn nitrate film over to people who do not know how to deal with it, such as a local college film department. Contact a responsible archive specializing in motion pictures; contact me if you wish. One of the great wildlife photographers of the early 20th century, William Finley, began shootiing 35mm movies in 1908, mostly in Oregon, including extensive coverage of the California condor when the bird was still plentiful in the wild. When Finley died in 1947, his widow turned most of this film over to Oregon State University, and a small amount of duplicate material over to the Oregon Historical Society. The OHS preserved what they got, but the University fire marshal found out about the nitrate film and without seeking any other home for it, immediately burned more than 100,000 feet of pricelsss material. One can only guess from Finley's 80,000 glass plate still negatives at the OHS and from newspaper reviews of his public lectures, which he illustrated with film, what must have been in that footage.

You ask about my upcoming projects. One of the most ambitious efforts I have been involved in, co-produced with Eric Lange, will be released by Flicker Alley on February 26th. It is "Georges Melies: First Wizard of Cinema." We have canvassed the world and gathered for the first time anywhere almost all of Melies' surviving work -- 173 original films, all fitted with new music, some with Melies' original English narrations, and some hand-colored. The films are arranged in chronological order -- there are 60 made between 1896 and 1901 alone -- and run about thirteen hours on five DVDs. To watch these is to witness a great pioneer discover the nature of cinema. Pride is one of the deadly sins but I must confess I am awfully proud of this.

"Drednm" asked why one cannot find more of the silent films he (she?) would like to see on DVD: William Haines, Marion Davies, Gloria Swanson, and projects like HER WILD OAT which have been restored by archives. Sometimes these films are still the exclusive property of a copyright holder (Warner Bros. for most of the Haines and later Davies films, Paramount for the pre-1927 Swansons; preparing them seldom makes business sense). Yes, mostly it is MONEY. The Treasures from American Film Archives series is funded by gifts and grants from the National Endowment for Humanities and the National Film Preservation Board; I believe at least a quarter of a million dollars was spent on each of those DVD sets. As for the rest, whether it is my work, or Ned Thanhouser's, or Kino's, or Warner Bros.', it is funded by your purchases of DVDs (and to some extent by Turner Classic Movies, the only television customer for such projects). Some of our DVDs don't sell even one thousand copies, and very few indeed sell more than 2,000. On average, we get about 12.5% of retail as our royalty, from which we pay costs of acquisition, licensing where applicable, preservation, scoring, telecine, digital cleanup, and the saltines and peanut butter we live on. The Melies set, for example, represents an investment (this is an approximation, I'm sort of scared to add it up) of about $80,000. You do the math.

One of my favorite aunts (who had great film stories -- she worked in the Warner Bros. publicity department during the transition to sound) had a list of house rules posted in her country home for the benefit of visitors. [Example: "Kissing the hostess will not be regarded as a gratuity by either party".] One of her rules is applicable here: "All suggestions for improvement of the property must be accompanied by a certified check."

I rest my case. God bless!

David Shepard
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moira finnie
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Post by moira finnie »

Hi Mr. Shepard,
Please let me add my deep thanks to you for your visit here. I hope that you'll consider continuing as a member with us, especially since the news and knowledge that you're sharing will undoubtedly be disseminated by our members throughout the cinephile community.

Could you please tell me if there have been any advances in the preservation of nitrate film in recent years? Is it any easier to transfer the images on the delicate film to a more stable state? Thank you very much.
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drednm

Post by drednm »

Thanks for the response, David... I had NO idea the numbers were that grim..... and yet I wonder at the red tape that doesn't allow an entity (let's pick on Eastman House again) that has restored a print of say FINE MANNERS or STAGE STRUCK to sell copies.

It's just so ironic that the end product of all this brilliant and dedicated work sits in a vault and that only a handful of people ever see the wonders done by film preservationists.

Thanks for the great responses.
Ed
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Post by Ollie »

I am familiar with a debacle that the BBC perpetrated on their archives in the early '70s, where they deliberately destroyed tapes of classics series (like the Peter Cook-Dudley Moore series) and films, with some estimates ranging into the ten-thousand or so tapes. Wiped out. Thrown away to make shelf-room space.

Peter Cook, at the time, offered several opportunities to save his work - he offered to buy them from the BBC. He offered to buy them new tapes to replace the ones his series were stored on. But because the BBC had no policies for such, and because their administrator preferred expeditious destruction rather than solving her and the archivists' problems, they were destroyed. She was widely blamed after she destroyed them, but she got what she wanted: shelf space and empty tapes. She also earned a huge degree of shame and degradation. I've often wondered if her flippant laziness was worth it to her.

I'm not sure I have any more sympathy for those rightsholders who bury their 'products' rather than expend the money or seek placement of them in the marketplace for the costly preservation. None of the art was meant to be buried or lost - every artist made it to be seen. That's the point that some rightsholders ignore.
Thedafan
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Theda Bara films

Post by Thedafan »

I am actively involved in trying to locate any surviving Theda Bara films and was wondering if you have heard of any that may still be held by archives and in private collections? I was also wondering if you know of any reduction prints of her movies? I know that Pathex released Madame Mystery on 9.5 and since her movies were so popular and Cleopatra was even shown in the 1930s I was wondering if any may have been copied to 16mm?
It is disappointing that East Lynne and The stain do exist but have only been shown at some film festivals. Many companies would be willing to release them on DVD but from what I understand, the owners of these prints are reluctant to have this done for some reason.
Any advice or leads on Theda's films fould be greatly appreciated.

Peter
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Gagman 66
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Post by Gagman 66 »

Dear David,

:) Yes, thank you ever so much Mr. Shepard for honoring us here with your presence this past week. I learned many things and enjoyed your keen and wit and humor along the way! You have been most helpful. Now I know who to approach when it comes to inquiring about certain films. Where as before I was not certain?

:o However, please note that the name of the individual that I was referring to in Argentina with the vast Silent film Archive is "Roberto Di Chiara", and not "Enrique J. Bouchard"! Apparently, a different person altogether, and I would assume a different motion picture archive?

:shock: Again, I am very concerned that the this man's Archive has received so little attention? I mean it quite literally boggles the mind! It's my understanding that there could be many Columbia Pictures, and FBO Silent's in there for example that have long been considered to be lost for ever? And those may be just the Tip of the Ice-berg? :?:

:? Also my good friend Jorge would like to know, Why no one ever restores any Silent films from Argentina or, even Puerto Rico (after all, it is a part of the United States) nor any Latin American nation? A picture like EL ULTIMO MALON' (1918) for example, would appear to have great historical signifcance? Your comments, or any information you could impart would be most appreciated! Thanks.
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Post by charliechaplinfan »

Thank you, David. I found the whole thread very interesting and enlightening.
DShepFilm
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One last word

Post by DShepFilm »

Greetings. I’m back (for the last time on this thread) to respond to a couple of queries posted since Friday evening.

Film preservation has changed a great deal in the past few years. The previous approach was to copy nitrate film to triacetate (safety) film which was thought as stable as high quality book paper – about four hundred years. Of course the appearance of “vinegar syndrome” proved this to be untrue. Now, when nitrate is copied, it is transferred to polyester (mylar, estar) based film, thought to be as stable as granite (which also decomposes). So a more current approach is to invest in better nitrate film storage, which greatly extends the life of the original elements. Forty years ago the ideal was thought to be 50 degrees farenheit, 50 per cent relative humidity. Now it is 20/20 (which is not easy to achieve, at least the humidity part). And instead of photochemical copying to another piece of film, it’s clear that the near future, at least, involves digital scanning and restoration, with film recording of the final result. I’ve seen very impressive results with this method for such films as Singin’ in the Rain, Meet Me In St. Louis, The Jazz Singer, Dr. Strangelove, and among silents, The Matinee Idol, Metropolis, and the new Nosferatu. It’s still very expensive, and given the labor involved it probably won’t ever be cheap (hey, anyone want to start a digital film restoration company in Bangladesh?), but it is certainly the wave of the present; digital intermediates are now pro forma on new feature films.

I believe FIAF member archives exist in several Latin American countries. Such archives are charged primarily with the preservation of their own domestic production. I know some Latin American archives have sent material to labs in Hollywood so they can obtain first class preservation. But I’m guessing that the survival rate of Latin American productions is very poor (few original prints made, few foreign sales which would have required export of elements) and also that Latin American economies don’t fund their archives sufficiently. ( I remember about twenty years ago a big nitrate sweep in Mexico gathered lots of early material into its archive, to the point that piles of nitrate film were standing in corridors. Then they had a fire and lost almost their whole collection. Fortunately, prints of a few silent films were with cultural attaches abroad, so it’s still possible to see The Grey Automobile Gang (1919) and Iron Fist (1927), both quite good.)

Maybe Hugh Munro Neely can lead Thedafan to some Theda Bara films. He’s the fellow who made a good film about her despite terribly sparse source material, "Theda Bara: The Woman With the Hungry Eyes".)

"Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you ..."

DS
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