Ohio History Journal

ESSAY AND COMMENT

Preservation of the Newsreel Films

of President Harding

 

by Robert W. Wagner

 

Efforts of the professional archivist in his attempt to preserve historical

materials are often complicated by the very nature of the substance he

is trying to preserve. For example, all 35mm. motion picture film from

1888 to 1951 was made with a cellulose nitrate base which makes the

reels highly flammable and under some circumstances highly explosive.

A partially decomposed nitrate film may ignite spontaneously at 120

degrees F., or even at 105 degrees F., if deterioration is far enough advanced.

Another material, triacetate, or so called "safety" film, was used on 16mm.

and, since 1951, for all 35mm., 70mm., and magnetic film and tapes. But

the problem of proper storage of this film remains. The optimum storage

place for archival films would be in an airfiltered room at 60-70 degrees F.,

with a relative humidity of 40 to 50 percent. It is now the opinion of the

commerical producers of this film that black-and-white films should last

as long as high quality paper records, in proper storage areas.

In 1952 officials of the Library of Congress, in an effort to find a way

to restore to usefulness its collection of photographic prints on bromide

paper dating from 1894 that had been accepted by the United States

Copyright Office as evidence of ownership of original 35mm. nitrate

motion picture negatives, sought the aid of the Academy of Motion Picture

Arts and Sciences. Mr. Kemp R. Niver of the Renovare Film Company in

Hollywood was contacted, and he worked for more than ten years to develop

a restoration printer. In doing so, he found it necessary to identify and

solve some twenty-seven separate and distinctly different technical problems

in the conversion of images from the opaque bromide paper onto new

16mm. acetate film.

Restoration of archival film in Ohio has been significantly aided by

the presentation in 1967 of the original restoration printer made by Niver

to the Ohio State University's Department of Photography and Cinema.

The first significant task of an archival nature employing the use of the

new equipment was the project to preserve the fast-deteriorating 35mm.

newsreel prints of the presidential years of Warren G. Harding. In 1967,

at the initiative of Daniel R. Porter, Director of the Ohio Historical

Society and custodian of the film, the collection of newsreels was removed

from the Ohio State Museum and transferred to a specially prepared air-

conditioned fireproof room used by the Department of Photography and

Cinema where cautious handling of the reels was begun.

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The identifiable stages in decomposition of nitrate film were all present in the Harding collection, from the discoloration and fading of the image, to the brittleness and flaking of the emulsion, to the sticky or "tacky" condition accompanied by the erosion of the images and a softening and blistering of the base, to a solidification of the layers of film with a frothy exterior appearance, and finally to the appearance of a clinging, brown powder having a very acrid smell, denoting the ultimate stage of decomposi- tion. Some of the material was in good condition while other reels had deteriorated to the stage where it is necessary to destroy the film before it destroys itself. After the retrievable parts of the old film had been transferred onto new 16mm. film, all the old nitrate film was ignited on the university dump, where it burned with a fury which cannot be extinguished by any known means since it produces its own oxygen; it will even continue to burn under water or when sprayed with carbonic acid snow. The newsreel films in the Harding collection were shot by the major motion picture companies of the early twenties, such as International, Pathe, and Fox. Depicted are the highlights of the President's career after

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140                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

his election in 1920 until his death in 1923. The film record, however, is

fragmentary and consists of a sequence of snapshots; it is not a "documen-

tary" presentation as television viewers of the sixties have come to expect.

It shows the traditional stereotyped "image" of the American President:

the golfer, the shaker of hands, the friend of the weak (the American

Indian in Harding's case), the fisherman, the public ceremonial figure

dedicating monuments and saluting at parades, and the lover of children

and dogs. But the unrelenting camera eye reveals Harding to greater

depths than surface gestures, if one is alert enough to distinguish between

the trivia and the profound.

One may ask whether the restoration of archival film is worth the cost

and effort. The cost for the Harding films was from $200 to $300 per 10-

minute 35mm. reel, and the collection now includes 1600 feet of film

recovered from about 2500 feet of the original. The time required for

the job included 357 man-hours by highly trained specialists. Would we

not today treasure a film record of generations past? Of Alexander the

Great, Julius Caesar, George Washington, or Napoleon Bonaparte? Do

we of the present generation, therefore, not bear a responsibility to future

generations to preserve a film record of our times? With the development

of the Niver Restoration Printer the immediate technical problems of

preservation have been solved. Now what is needed is a desire backed

by the necessary funds to support programs aimed at improving the

technology for restoration work and for perpetuating our motion picture

heritage--a form of human communication, creative expression, and

historic documentation so unique to the United States that cinema has

almost become our second "language."*

 

ROBERT W. WAGNER

The Ohio State University

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* An expanded version of this article, entitled "Motion Picture Restora-

tion," appears in The American Archivist, XXXII (April 1969), 125-132.

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