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put them in tins and cut them every twelve 5000 feet, has been trimmed to 400 feet as
hundred feet for easy storage. various scenes gradually became unviewable.
I've got original prints of early French Pathé The ultimate tragedy for a film collector is the
situation films, which were made to clear the actual destruction of an entire collection by fire.
French vaudeville houses that go back to the This has happened previously to Davidson. He
turn of the century. I can still screen them now. arrived home from work one day during 1966 to
There's no sign of decomposition -- they've find his house and collection a smoldering ruin
shrunk a little, but they still run all right. And yet from a fire which was presumably deliberately lit.
other stuff, which was made in the late twenties, Many early J. C. Williamson original prints were
is gone. I've had to throw it out. I think a lot of it destroyed, as well as a Lubin Company film
depends on the original wash, how much of the Souls in Bondage (1910), and the sole print of an
hypo they left in it to start this reaction. Sure it American film The Way to a Man's Heart (1912).
decomposes, but I'm sure it's got a lot to do with The loss of many valuable films from the early
the original processing. Various companies years of Australian film-making has occurred
differed in the attention they gave to processing. more frequently through the ignorance of people
The Efftee material, which was all done by hand, with access to those `old film cans' long before a
all rack and tank development, is still surprisingly collector has heard of their existence. This was
good, no problems at all. Yet there was a batch the fate of the only surviving print of Jeweled
of Cinesound newsreels floating round for a Nights (1926) starring Louise Lovely and owned
while that had been made during the war and by her.
they've all turned brown. Obviously Cinesound There was a copy of this early Australian classic
had someone who tried to speed up washing -- in the projection room at the Victory Theatre in
but that was just one particular batch. Also, since St. Kilda for years - ever since it was made. A
all silent films were tinted various colours for present city projectionist was then selling Screen
particular scenes, those that are tinted blue have News at the theatre. He went to the operator and
decomposed to a greater extent than those (that said, 'Have you got any old films?' "Yeah", said
weren't). the operator, "we've got this old thing up here,
With little standardization of storage procedure you can have that. What do you want it for?"
amongst the many private film collectors, the "Well", he said, "I want to make stink-bombs out
future of irreplaceable prints, "saved" for of it." So he gave him the feature and this guy
posterity by an industrious film collector, is still a proceeded to chop it up into 20-foot lengths,
precarious one. This is not necessarily due to wrap it in paper, set fire to it, jump on it, and
any actual maltreatment of the film on the part of watch the smoke go up. I said to him, "How do
the collector, but to the nature of the old silent you know it was Jeweled Nights"
film stock itself. Nitrate film can deteriorate to a "Oh it was Jeweled Nights, all right," he said, "it
point where it becomes explosive. It can also was on the tin and the labels and everything."
degenerate into a sticky, viscous glue, or dry into I said, "Was it a good print?"
powder. These are extreme states of He said, "oh yeah, it was beaut."
decomposition. More commonplace is the Films can he stolen. Davidson once possessed a
fogging of the emulsion. In this respect the age Vaughan Marshall film Learn to Swim made in
of the film is not always an indication of the 1928 in "the little village of Cuddlemure" before it
degree of decomposition. "vanished" from his collection. The film was a
This decomposition of nitrate film does pose a valuable historical record of Heidelberg during
potential hazard for film collectors. It can be the late 1920s. Davidson has also heard about
recognized by rust marks on the tin, an people with a stack of old film cans in their
inflexibility of the reel, globules of a honey-like homes knowing little of what to do with them and
substance either on the lid of the tin or oozing eventually throwing them out with the rubbish.
out the side of the reel. Nitrate film in any of Many of the early Australian films were lost
these conditions is highly inflammable. If the forever before the advent of sound, but the fate
process of decomposition has not gone too far of many more feature productions still in
the film can still be saved by duplication onto existence is daily held in the balance.
35mm colour negative stock. Ironically, for It would he difficult to overestimate the work
collectors with limited financial resources, this is carried out by men such as Harry Davidson.
the point where the film may be lost. In most Single-handedly they have saved for posterity
cases they are not copied and the film continues films, which are of priceless historical and artistic
to deteriorate. A print of an early Charlie Chaplin value. Yet their work has hardly begun. The
production, Old Dad, bought by Davidson at variety and number of the collections, the
disparity between storage procedures, and the
8 REEL DEALS September 2006