A few nuggest found
Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:47 am
Just got off the phone with Kevin Brownlow and he confirmed that roughly 2 1/2 reels (approx. 25 minutes) of Maurice Tourneur's TREASURE ISLAND has been found, transferred to safety stock.
It came from a Czech film archive. There had been rumors of a print floating around for close to a year, but those in-the-know kept a lid on it. Guess they had to do a lot of horsetrading to get the nitrate print and then get it fixed up ($$$).
According to Kevin, there are titles (in Czech) which will eventually be translated to English. He says the overall quality is great, not too much wear & tear. the opening 3 minutes is choppy, missing frames, etc., which makes the action & actors jump around. There are 3 sequences. The first one is pretty jumpy, but you can follow, the second is on a ship (Kevin says it looks great, but I couldn't tell from what he said if it is a pirate ship with Long John Silver) and then the remainder is on the island.
The good news, for me anyway, is that a lot of the footage on the island sequence features Lon as Merry the pirate. There is a brief clip (in the jumpy part) of Lon as Pew, but Kevin says you don't get a great look at him & the makeup as one would wish, because of the jump cuts. He says there is a closeup of Lon, but it is too brief. Rats!
I guess UCLA wqas trying to get the safety print in time for an unveiling at their current festival of preservation, but timing wasn't in their favor. I will get to take a gander at a copy of the print in a few weeks. Kevin is already in talks with the Motion Picture Academy to have some sort of showing in the fall, as they also recovered & restored some behind-the-scene shots from NAPOLEON and some reels of an early William S. Hart western and a Lois Weber film thought to be missing.
It came from a Czech film archive. There had been rumors of a print floating around for close to a year, but those in-the-know kept a lid on it. Guess they had to do a lot of horsetrading to get the nitrate print and then get it fixed up ($$$).
According to Kevin, there are titles (in Czech) which will eventually be translated to English. He says the overall quality is great, not too much wear & tear. the opening 3 minutes is choppy, missing frames, etc., which makes the action & actors jump around. There are 3 sequences. The first one is pretty jumpy, but you can follow, the second is on a ship (Kevin says it looks great, but I couldn't tell from what he said if it is a pirate ship with Long John Silver) and then the remainder is on the island.
The good news, for me anyway, is that a lot of the footage on the island sequence features Lon as Merry the pirate. There is a brief clip (in the jumpy part) of Lon as Pew, but Kevin says you don't get a great look at him & the makeup as one would wish, because of the jump cuts. He says there is a closeup of Lon, but it is too brief. Rats!
I guess UCLA wqas trying to get the safety print in time for an unveiling at their current festival of preservation, but timing wasn't in their favor. I will get to take a gander at a copy of the print in a few weeks. Kevin is already in talks with the Motion Picture Academy to have some sort of showing in the fall, as they also recovered & restored some behind-the-scene shots from NAPOLEON and some reels of an early William S. Hart western and a Lois Weber film thought to be missing.
