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Bruce Calvert posted some shockingly disturbing pics in December on Facebook. I don't know why he didn't put them up here? They show an 35 millimeter Nitrate print presumably from the Library of Congress of the first reel of LILAC TIME in dire straights of being lost forever! This was an original print struck from the foreign (British?) negative. There it is, badly warping, turning to powder and decomposing into goo! I sure hope this has been copied elsewhere? I was under the impression that several archives had prints of this picture. I mean the film was just screened by the Silent Treatment in L.A. barely over a year ago. And that print came from the LOC. However, it was also incomplete. I'm suure they didn't run Nitrate. The photos appear to show only the first reel. Who knows what sort of shape the rest of the picture is in? Can we get some word on this very serious situation?

Blast the photos don't post here? I'll have to save them, and put them up on another site.

Here is the link to Jeff Codori's Colleen Moore face book page with a link to the photos.

https://www.facebook.com/colleen.moore.718" target="_blank"

That's nothing, look at Reel Two:

This is why preservation copies are made. Sometimes nirtrate breaks down.

Actually these photos were taken and posted by George Willeman of the Library of Congress. The Lilac Time reel was found by Bruce Lawton. While Warner Brothers already has material on Lilac Time, this reel was important because it had the original titles, which WB did not have. Only portions of the donated film were able to be saved.

I've seen this film both in 35mm and 16mm when they screened it in Los Angeles last year and I don't recall seeing anything as far as missing scenes or extreme decomposition.

That reel l in the photograph looks like it's in terrible shape but I'd imagine they already have extra prints of the film preserved now. Like the other poster said, the interesting finding in that particular reel were the original titles and I'm assuming they can try and preserve as much of that reel as they possibly can as well as they they already have preserved from Lilac Time.

Bruce,

My mistake, it looks like the first two reels of the movie were on that reel, based on the stills? Correct? I figured that this was probably the same mysterious British release print that I first heard about back in 2006? It was supposed to have alternate scenes, and extended Ariel footage not found in the surviving domestic version. Were they able to save that potion of the print at all? Although your telling me that this was just a single reel, so maybe it was not the print I heard about 7 years ago? Incidentally, Who is Bruce Lawton?

The 35 millimeter screening in L. A. in 2012 was listed at only 80 minutes. But LILAC TIME was originally 11 reels long. That's certainly quite a bit more than 80 minutes. Can we get some sort of update on what has been done if anything to restore the picture to close to full-length? Were they working on this back in December I presume, when the photos were posted on Facebook? I had never seen the original opening title design either until now. Thanks for the update.

If only three reels of Vita-phone discs are still missing to LILAC TIME, I wonder if Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, Mont Alto, Peacherine, or another group couldn't reprise the rest of the score? Playing all that Nat Shilkret stuff has to be an incentive. I mean if they plan on having them recreate most of the SYNTHETIC SIN track, why not LILAC TIME? It's not nearly as big a job having to record for 3 reels rather than all but one for the other film.

In any case, LILAC TIME is long overdue for a TCM premiere. I'm glad to know that WB has good materials. I think the last time we asked Warner Archive about this movie they said that they were waiting for these 3 sound discs to be discovered and restored. They acknowledged that it was an important film though, because of Gary Cooper, and that they would like to be able to release it at some point.

BankofAmerica's Sweetheart,

Was this Main-title design in the print that you saw? Thanks?

Gagman, you're jumping to too many conclusions based on not enough, or flat out erroneous information.

I've got no idea what this rumored British print consists of, but I doubt it was Mr. Lawton's (Bruce is a collector and film historian). Foreign negatives often contained alternate or longer footage, so just because there is an overseas print with different footage doesn't mean that it was necessarily in the American prints. LoC isn't working on this title at all—Mr. Willeman simply posted pictures as the reel came to him through his usual archival duties.

According to Harrison's Reports and Film Daily, LILAC TIME's general release footage count was 8,967 ft (99 min, 38 sec @ 24fps.) The above photos at Library of Congress show about one 1,000-ft reel, typical of sound-on-disc releases from that period, although the mounting of 2,000-ft reels had become common for silent and sound-on-film shows.

LILAC TIME's scoring is the point of some confusion on several websites, so here is what happened: When LILAC TIME was being cut, the studio head was Clifford Hawley, who struck a deal with Western Electric and Victor to release the film's soundtrack on the same Western Electric Sound-on-Disc process as used on Vitaphone (originally going to be released under the trade name "FirNaTone"). Music was recorded at Victor studios, Nat Shilkret conducting. Despite claims by a number of sources, the film didn't have talking sequences, but it's possible that there was a part-talk trailer made for the film.

Joseph P. Kennedy, at the time a major player with FBO (and its subsidiary, the Keith-Albee-Orpheum chain) & RCA, briefly replaced Hawley as president of the company, and scrapped the WE/Victor deal for a previous deal he brought with him from RCA (ie. Photophone, sound-on-film). RCA was sent the film from Victor, and I'm going to throw in an assumption at this point that RCA simply dubbed the discs to optical track.

Kennedy got the boot pretty fast, but despite FN's deal with Western Electric, the RCA track stuck, even to its premiere at Carthay Circle on July 16, 1928, where it was presented with a Photophone track. The press panned the quality of the track (again, I assume because it was a low-quality dub). When the film opened August 3 at the Central Theater in New York, the initial run was with a live orchestra because of union disputes over the sound equipment. Judging from the reviews, they used Shilkret's score. When the dispute was compromised, the Central played it with a Western Electric track starting August 16. My guess is that in the interim of the RCA debacle, FN worked out a deal to do a Western Electric sound-on-disc release, which is apparently the way it was seen in many places. Warner Bros. officially bought First National in January 1929 while the film was still in general release, so it's possible that later pressings of the discs were on the Vitaphone label.

That being said, there are still a number of LILAC TIME discs out there, and my guess is that if there was an organized search, all of the discs would turn up. I know of at least two collectors with discs on this title. Re-recording the Shilkret score would be a licensing nightmare, and not likely to ever happen.

As I mentioned to Mr. Willeman, the extant 35mm show prints of LILAC TIME are missing the original intertitles and are replaced with generic ones—I assume because it came from some source that only had flash titles, or one that was of foreign nature. As Bruce mentioned, WB seems to have been made aware of this.

Jack,

Well, those are all very fascinating facts to be sure. So how come none of this information was in Jeff Codori's book? You are saying that in your opinion that the remaining three sound discs could be rounded up without to much trouble? Does Ron Hutchinson or that other Jeff at the Vita-phone project know that? Have you mentioned this to them? I never said there were any talking scenes., but there do appear to be roughly two missing reels. Thanks again for the highly informative response. Have you got a rendition of "Jeannine" that's you've recorded per chance?

Ron Hutchinson can chime in, because I don't know if the Western Electric discs are double-sided or not, but at least three or four more discs must be found.

I haven't recorded "Jeanine," but I've played it a number of times on the Capitol organ—LILAC TIME was the film our theater opened with!

Lilac Time may never have had a DVD release but it was released on VHS. What score was attached? Was anything missing from the film? From what I remember it seemed a cohesive effort. I haven't watched it in years, but I have no memory of bizarre jumps or bad music.

Ed,

My impression is that the Critics Choice VHS release of LILAC TIME was processed from a 16 millimeter version that was sold by I believe Thunderbird Films in the 60's and early 70's? Completely unauthorized by Warner's. I don't think Blackhawk ever offered LILAC TIME, but they did have ELLA CINDERS, which is also missing a couple reels in all the surviving versions. There are no 35 Millimeter sources complete or otherwise for ELLA unless it's a recent find? I hope someone is on the lookout for missing scenes.

Gagman 66 wrote:Ed,

My impression is that the Critics Choice VHS release of LILAC TIME was processed from a 16 millimeter version that was sold by I believe Thunderbird Films in the 60's and early 70's? Completely unauthorized by Warner's. I don't think Blackhawk ever offered LILAC TIME, but they did have ELLA CINDERS, which is also missing a couple reels in all the surviving versions. There are no 35 Millimeter sources complete or otherwise for ELLA unless it's a recent find? I hope someone is on the lookout for missing scenes.

Thunderbird Films had nothing whatsoever to do with any release of LILAC TIME, nor did Blackhawk ever release ELLA CINDERS, stop spreading this sort of nonsense. Griggs Moviedrome had the print of ELLA CINDERS taken from the 16mm Kodascope prints that, though edited down to five or six reels, still retained most of the flavor of the film and were delightful.

The Critics Choice VHS came from a print that Paul Killiam had indeed licensed from United Artists (who was distributing the pre-1948 Warners Product non-theatrically and television at the time) in the late 60's and didn't even own at the time Critics Choice put it out. The piano score was by Phil Carli. UA8 actually put out an 8mm print of LILAC TIME in the late 60's that was from the then-recently-discovered material that had turned up at the Cinemateque, which had just fragments of an opening title and generic replaced intertitles, but otherwise were the most sparkling 8mm prints anyone had ever seen, oddly enough better looking than most of the 16mm prints that later circulated, usu ally duped from the Killiam prints.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Richard,

Well, I've been told repeatedly that Blackhawk did release ELLA CINDERS. Though I did not remember it being in any of my old Blackhawk Bulletin's. So sorry for the mistake. Rich Olivieri's 2nd transfer from an excellent quality original Amber Tinted Kodascope of ELLA CINDERS I don't think can be beat. Though it runs just 49 minutes. ELLA CINDERS was a 7 reel feature. So the Kodascope can't be more than 4 and a half to 5 reels.

Sorry I was misinformed about Thunderbird films as well. I was not sure if Killiam ever had a print of LILAC TIME or not? I can tell you that if Philp Carli recorded a piano score, it wasn't on the Critics's Choice tape. The music is Organ, and a Woman's name is listed. We do hear "Jeannine", but that's probably about all from the vintage selections.

Gagman 66 wrote:Richard,

Well, I've been told repeatedly that Blackhawk did release ELLA CINDERS. Though I did not remember it being in any of my old Blackhawk Bulletin's. So sorry for the mistake. Rich Olivieri's 2nd transfer from an excellent quality original Amber Tinted Kodascope of ELLA CINDERS I don't think can be beat. Though it runs just 49 minutes. ELLA CINDERS was a 7 reel feature. So the Kodascope can't be more than 4 and a half to 5 reels.

Sorry I was misinformed about Thunderbird films as well. I was not sure if Killiam ever had a print of LILAC TIME or not? I can tell you that if Philp Carli recorded a piano score, it wasn't on the Critics's Choice tape. The music is Organ, and a Woman's name is listed. We do hear "Jeannine", but that's probably about all from the vintage selections.

If it was organ, it was the old Killiam score, can't remember that organists name,Killiam used several, but Phil Carli recorded all of the then new piano scores for the Critics Choice videos.

I looked at my own amber Kodascope on ELLA CINDERS and it is indeed five reels, as most Kodascopes were, but some were six as well. As ELLA CINDERS was only 6,540 feet, you're really only missing a reel and a half, and as nice as they would be to see, the Kodascope versions play just fine.


RICHARD M ROBERTS