Responses from archives

[douglaswulf]

I believe it was in 2002 that I saw a brief mention that a film archivists has stumbled across the trailer for the first Warner Oland Charlie Chan film from 1931. For fans of this film series, it would be an interesting find since the film itself (along with three other early Chan films) is considered lost with no known existing prints. The catch was that the trailer was on 35mm nitrate film stock and was described as highly degraded to the point where the film itself might just be thrown away rather than be a possible candidate for restoration.

I wrote an email to the archive and asked for news on whether the print would be restored or not. I received a reply stating that the film was unfortunately highly degraded and so was destroyed. This was obviously unfortunate news and I knew nothing more about it until yesterday.

Following a link that someone had posted to a Library of Congress website, I discovered that this 35mm print had actually been shown in public on July 26, 2005 at the Mary Pickford Theater in Washington, D.C. (near where I live).

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Chan Carries On [trailer] (Fox, 1931) With Warner Oland. (3 min, 35mm) … To provide historical context, the evening begins with several trailers from the 1930s Hollywood Asian detective series, including the Pickford premier of the Library's restoration of the trailer of Charlie Chan Carries On, the first of the series to star Warner Oland. The trailer is all that survives of this now-lost Chan film, which marked Oland's switch from starring in a series on the villainous Fu Manchu to the sagacious, just Chinese immigrant detective of the Hawaiian police.

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The official story I had been given was false. The print was not destroyed. It still existed, was restored, and was later shown in public. However, believing that I knew for a fact that it no longer existed, I had stopped even looking for any further information. Why bother? I knew it was gone. But I had been given misinformation.

What I think had happened was this: The person I contacted probably didn’t have any more information than I did. It would have taken effort to figure out the status of the print and be in a position to answer YES it would be restored. The person either didn’t have the time or inclination to make this effort. Saying I DON’T KNOW would have been honest, but wouldn’t have answered my question. The easiest thing to say was NO the print was destroyed.

The same phenomenon occurred with Doctor Who episodes in Hong Kong. After replying that nothing existed to be returned, the Hong Kong archive located Web of Fear 1. Again, there was supposedly nothing more to find. However, some time later, all four episodes of Tomb of the Cybermen surfaced in this archive. Now again, nothing more exists there (but perhaps it is true this time).

It is an interesting psychological phenomenon that those who should either make an effort determine if an answer in the affirmative is possible or who should otherwise admit no ability to confirm either way, instead confidently answer in the negative.

Was the person who replied to my email about the 1931 trailer a bad person? Probably not. The response I received was prompt and politely worded. However, it was also incorrect. I only wish to say that it could be possible that prompt and politely worded responses from archives stating that episodes were definitely destroyed could eventually prove to be incorrect. It would really take some extraordinary efforts to make an exhaustive search and officials probably do not want to admit not knowing, thus the path of least resistance is to state, “Those prints were all destroyed years ago.” I don’t know what might be done about this, but this might be cause for retaining a small amount of hope.

[Brian Wilson]

Interesting story which, once again, goes to prove the point that statements like "we don't have it" could be completely wrong. I raised this point on the RT forum recently (in terms of Hong Kong) etc...;

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It is interesting that some of these documents have been tracked down, while others pertaining to purchases/sales at the same time have been misplaced/destroyed/lost. Why would these “missing documents” have gone awol? Clearly there was some sense of order within that Kafkaesque nightmare of BBC filing and paperwork – otherwise we would not have any information at all. Pity they didn’t keep all their eggs in the one basket!
It would be most interesting to read about the research activities of Richard Molesworth in terms of compiling the “misstx” document. Was all of that information gathered from the BBC or was some of it sourced from foreign TV stations?

The comment you made about "pretty much irretrievable storage" is perhaps not quite as hopeless as it would appear. It may actually have a positive side to it. . .

Last year a friend put me in contact with the late Dr James Hawthorne. Dr Hawthorne was the former Director of Broadcasting in Hong Kong and Controller of BBC NI (1979-1989).

One of the things Dr Hawthorne wrote about was the sense of change and "transmogrification" he had witnessed in Hong Kong Broadcasting over the years. This can be said about any broadcasting company - the BBC has seen massive changes (particularly as you point out, during Birt's tenure). Television Singapura, NZB, African television, RTV - all these broadcasting companies have had their internal infrastructures regenerated, re-considered, and overhauled more often than the TARDIS interior has been redecorated! It's no wonder that things have gone missing amidst all that chaos and change. However "missing", as we know, does not always mean "lost forever". ‘Tomb of the Cybermen’ is an excellent example. In some instances chaos and dis-order might actually be preferable to order and routine. If everything had been done by the book with stopwatch military precision we probably would not have ANY vintage Dr Who to enjoy at all.

Is it possible that Hong Kong might have more missing television? Could there potentially be a haul of 3 complete Troughton stories in their archives?

How often does the BBC make an official call to these foreign stations? You know, just as a reminder in case something has turned up and the guys currently in charge are not aware of its value.

The baseline is - Does the BBC, at top level, really care about finding lost television? Is it viewed as ultimately profitable?

The writings of Chris Anderson (Wired magazine) suggest that in today’s world there is an increasing marketplace for niche products, such as old television. Anderson coined a marketing phrase in 2004 - the "Long Tail". An old economic concept. From Wiki;

The Long Tail has possible implications for culture and politics. Where the opportunity cost of inventory storage and distribution is high, only the most popular products are sold. But where the Long Tail works, minority tastes are catered to, and individuals are offered greater choice. In situations where popularity is currently determined by the lowest common denominator, a Long Tail model may lead to improvement in a society's level of culture. Television is a good example of this: TV stations have limited time slots, so the opportunity cost of each time slot is high; stations therefore choose programs that have the broadest appeal. But as the number of TV stations grows or TV programming is distributed through other digital channels, the choice of TV programs grows and the cultural diversity rises.

[/quote][/blockquote]

Links;

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail

www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html


In terms of archive retrieval Dr Hawthorne wrote the following;

"The Freedom of Information legislation opens up various possibilities but costs can be charged for retrieval. During my watch as BBC Controller we set up an excellent arrangement for archiving with the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum and that project grew spectacularly after I left. The archive is of course predominantly regional. I was commissioned to do a written archive (over 500,00 words) and even I am finding it difficult to access it!"

Well, we can thank John Birt for that! From Wiki;

"Birt's complex internal market reforms of the BBC resulted in sections of the BBC charging each other for internal services and even competing against each other when tendering contract submissions."

"Television playwright Dennis Potter, in particular, described Birt as a "croak-voiced Dalek" shortly before his death, and the allusion stuck for the rest of Birt's time at the BBC. His use of impenetrable jargon became known as 'Birtspeak'."

On missing Dr Who episodes the late Dr Hawthorne wrote,

“Dr Who seems to have become a major world religion – along with David Beckham and the Titanic! There must be thousands seeking material.”

Below is a link to a Dr Who related entry from Dr Hawthorne’s blogspot;

thornyissues.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_thornyissues_archive.html