FILM RADAR: The Universal Fire

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Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

The Universal Fire

I have been really saddened about the Universal Fire. My initial reaction was sheer terror because I feared that many rare films and negatives might be lost forever. Now I’m hearing that no negatives were burned and that only prints were destroyed. That still upsets me. It costs at least $5,000 to strike a new film print and I’m hearing that tons of them were lost. These prints were also the ones loaned to repertory theatres, revival houses and museums like LACMA. Now it might take a very long time (not to mention a lot of money) before many of these films can be screened for the public again. This is just a terrible loss. Isn’t there any way they can build fire proof vaults? Doesn’t that sort of technology exist?

This LA Times article goes into the history of fires on other studio lots as well. The only good news here seems to be that other studios are now going to take major precautions to prevent this sort of thing from happening to them. I know absolutely nothing about fire fighting, but I wish I could have helped them save those film cannisters!! (LA Times photo below)

Written by Karie (site owner) on 06/04 at 09:35 AM

1 Comments:

Karie,

Where film and videotape are concerned I think “fireproof” is about as attainable as “unsinkable” in shipbuilding. Most of Universal’s silent library went up in smoke years ago in a warehouse fire back East, but of course those were the days of nitrate. This time it may have been the videotape that was the fuel that fed it so long. That was the building that kept on burning long after the rest of the blaze had stopped. I really would have liked to have seen that print of “Cobra Woman”!

Posted by randy man on 06/06 at 12:19 PM