I saw an interesting thread on Twitter by Nicolas Falacci talking about his involvement in the restoration of Citizen Kane, and the sad state of the original material:
After NYU, I was working in a film restoration lab in NYC. It had two employees. Me. And a crazy, secretive Yugoslavian chemist that had devised a treatment that could remove most scratches from film. We restored any and every type of film. From the oil-slicked pornos of the Old School Times Square theaters to Ira Gershwin’s and Gary Cooper’s home movies. I inspected and restored the technicolor fine grain masters of the racist 30s and 40s Warner Bros cartoons - cartoons so odious in their racial content you’ll never see them broadcast again. The original financiers of the Coen Bros brought in their early dupe negatives of Blood Simple to clean up. We restored the entire collection of Josephine Baker movies. And much to my delight as a climber, the surviving relative of a member of the U.S. 1938 K2 expedition came to us to restore and video transfer the original expedition film.
I worked on 16mm Kodachrome originals from the 30s. Worked on nitrate originals. Dupes, negs, masters. Everything.
Then one day film cans began to arrive. Lots of them. Pallets stacked with canisters of prints. Boxes and boxes full of dupe negatives and fine grain masters. We were stacking it all right up to the ceiling. And it was my job to go through all of it ... ALL of it ...
Frame by frame. Literally. Frame by frame.
The film, of course, was the motherload. The film that continues to produce Cinematic Microwave Background radiation that permeates everything in American cinema without you even knowing it. In other words, it is the Big Bang of American film art: Citizen Kane.
I was confused. Why was what seemed to be every single lab and print element of Citizen Kane doing stacked like a Great Wall of cinema behind my inspection desk? And why was there this older RKO executive showing up every day nervous and sweating? Eager to read every single one of my inspection reports?
The answer was - the 50th anniversary of Kane was approaching and suddenly someone very important had told this older RKO executive to find a pristine copy of the movie for a video master. And this RKO man seemed to be incredibly anxious about that task. It was like ... he knew I wouldn’t find any pristine prints. Or dupes. Or FGMs.
And I did not.
Reel after reel had problems.
Deep emulsion scratches. Negative dirt. Missing frames. Poor sound.
As the days went on, even more pallets and boxes showed up. There was no room to walk in our lab. I had to crawl over and around the canisters and crates and boxes. And as the days went on, the RKO executive grew more agitated and distraught. The phone kept ringing. Just so you know ... the phone rarely ever rang in the lab. We were in the Film Center building in Hell’s Kitchen. Most of the major labs were in the building. Most work walked in the door.
Now ... the phone was ringing. All day.
But every time I opened a fresh box and pulled out another Fine Grain Master or Dupe negative and loaded up the spools on my inspection table ... disappointment struck again. Often in the form of emulsion scratches but also in the form of poor contrast and exposure. There were registration problems. The blacks were not black. Not deep. Or the shadows were too black, too contrasting.
And the RKO man began to show up each day looking more frayed and desperate.
More people started to show up. Technicians from Technicolor. Fotokem. Other labs. This was a big deal.
One day, I naively asked, "So ... what about using the camera negative?" And two lab techs looked at me like I just asked them something incredibly stupid and incredibly dangerous. I got no answer.
So after 4 weeks I handed over the best elements I could find.
I had been instructed to simply grab the best of what there was regardless of the element. Print, dupe negative, fine grain master. Mix and match. I did the best I could. Much of it was decent. But I could not find a replacement for one 6 second section. A section that was hideously scraped by white emulsion scratches. White because they scratches ALL the emulsion off the base until nothing but the base was left and light shine through.
Months later - the 50th Anniversary release of Citizen Kane arrived in small art house theaters. I went to see how it looked. The six seconds of brutal emulsion scratches were still there.
A week later, one of the lab techs who had helped came by and I brought up the issue. Why wasn’t there a pristine copy? Why was RKO man so upset? WHERE was the camera negative? Now, if you Google Citizen Kane original negative, you’ll be taken to sites that mention the story of how the Kane camera original negative was burned in a storage/warehouse fire.
And you’ll notice that the most recent restoration of Kane STILL relies on prints and masters.
STILL to this day, no really good "pristine" HD or 4K master exists. The newest "pristine" master out there was cobbled together from private collection prints, masters and dupes. Slate did a piece on it. In that article is a fascinating quote. The person who supervised that restoration said, "I've never seen any documented proof that it was destroyed."
He says that in a hopeful manner. As if maybe someone just came along before the fire and checked out the negative. The problem is ... I think someone did. But it’s what he did with the camera negative that’s a problem.
See, when that lab tech came by a week after the release of the 50th anniversary and I asked him again about what was going on with the RKO executive ... he looked at me then looked around to make sure we were alone.
And then he said, "He was worried the real story would come out." I shrugged. "Real story?" The tech leaned in close and told me quietly ...
"He used to be in charge of the inventory. He sent the Kane camera original to—"
And now he dropped his voice down a whole other level of volume. "—a reclamation plant."
The confusion on my face led him to be more specific. "By mistake ... he sent it to a silver reclamation plant."
The tech arched his eyebrows and then pantomimed zipping his lips.
So I have no way of verifying that story. But as of yet, there is no verification of Citizen Kane being lost in a warehouse fire either.
But if there are people still holding out hope like Ned Price that the original negative might just show up somewhere ... I hate to say it, but the odds are this will never happen.
The odds are this story is likely true. And Welles’ and Toland’s camera original negative was destroyed in a silver reclamation plant that strips the silver that used to be in the emulsion of older films.
I worked on 16mm Kodachrome originals from the 30s. Worked on nitrate originals. Dupes, negs, masters. Everything.
Then one day film cans began to arrive. Lots of them. Pallets stacked with canisters of prints. Boxes and boxes full of dupe negatives and fine grain masters. We were stacking it all right up to the ceiling. And it was my job to go through all of it ... ALL of it ...
Frame by frame. Literally. Frame by frame.
The film, of course, was the motherload. The film that continues to produce Cinematic Microwave Background radiation that permeates everything in American cinema without you even knowing it. In other words, it is the Big Bang of American film art: Citizen Kane.
I was confused. Why was what seemed to be every single lab and print element of Citizen Kane doing stacked like a Great Wall of cinema behind my inspection desk? And why was there this older RKO executive showing up every day nervous and sweating? Eager to read every single one of my inspection reports?
The answer was - the 50th anniversary of Kane was approaching and suddenly someone very important had told this older RKO executive to find a pristine copy of the movie for a video master. And this RKO man seemed to be incredibly anxious about that task. It was like ... he knew I wouldn’t find any pristine prints. Or dupes. Or FGMs.
And I did not.
Reel after reel had problems.
Deep emulsion scratches. Negative dirt. Missing frames. Poor sound.
As the days went on, even more pallets and boxes showed up. There was no room to walk in our lab. I had to crawl over and around the canisters and crates and boxes. And as the days went on, the RKO executive grew more agitated and distraught. The phone kept ringing. Just so you know ... the phone rarely ever rang in the lab. We were in the Film Center building in Hell’s Kitchen. Most of the major labs were in the building. Most work walked in the door.
Now ... the phone was ringing. All day.
But every time I opened a fresh box and pulled out another Fine Grain Master or Dupe negative and loaded up the spools on my inspection table ... disappointment struck again. Often in the form of emulsion scratches but also in the form of poor contrast and exposure. There were registration problems. The blacks were not black. Not deep. Or the shadows were too black, too contrasting.
And the RKO man began to show up each day looking more frayed and desperate.
More people started to show up. Technicians from Technicolor. Fotokem. Other labs. This was a big deal.
One day, I naively asked, "So ... what about using the camera negative?" And two lab techs looked at me like I just asked them something incredibly stupid and incredibly dangerous. I got no answer.
So after 4 weeks I handed over the best elements I could find.
I had been instructed to simply grab the best of what there was regardless of the element. Print, dupe negative, fine grain master. Mix and match. I did the best I could. Much of it was decent. But I could not find a replacement for one 6 second section. A section that was hideously scraped by white emulsion scratches. White because they scratches ALL the emulsion off the base until nothing but the base was left and light shine through.
Months later - the 50th Anniversary release of Citizen Kane arrived in small art house theaters. I went to see how it looked. The six seconds of brutal emulsion scratches were still there.
A week later, one of the lab techs who had helped came by and I brought up the issue. Why wasn’t there a pristine copy? Why was RKO man so upset? WHERE was the camera negative? Now, if you Google Citizen Kane original negative, you’ll be taken to sites that mention the story of how the Kane camera original negative was burned in a storage/warehouse fire.
And you’ll notice that the most recent restoration of Kane STILL relies on prints and masters.
STILL to this day, no really good "pristine" HD or 4K master exists. The newest "pristine" master out there was cobbled together from private collection prints, masters and dupes. Slate did a piece on it. In that article is a fascinating quote. The person who supervised that restoration said, "I've never seen any documented proof that it was destroyed."
He says that in a hopeful manner. As if maybe someone just came along before the fire and checked out the negative. The problem is ... I think someone did. But it’s what he did with the camera negative that’s a problem.
See, when that lab tech came by a week after the release of the 50th anniversary and I asked him again about what was going on with the RKO executive ... he looked at me then looked around to make sure we were alone.
And then he said, "He was worried the real story would come out." I shrugged. "Real story?" The tech leaned in close and told me quietly ...
"He used to be in charge of the inventory. He sent the Kane camera original to—"
And now he dropped his voice down a whole other level of volume. "—a reclamation plant."
The confusion on my face led him to be more specific. "By mistake ... he sent it to a silver reclamation plant."
The tech arched his eyebrows and then pantomimed zipping his lips.
So I have no way of verifying that story. But as of yet, there is no verification of Citizen Kane being lost in a warehouse fire either.
But if there are people still holding out hope like Ned Price that the original negative might just show up somewhere ... I hate to say it, but the odds are this will never happen.
The odds are this story is likely true. And Welles’ and Toland’s camera original negative was destroyed in a silver reclamation plant that strips the silver that used to be in the emulsion of older films.
Comment