HISTORY:
I am not a 'film buff' and my "world" is 'the arts' and more specifically, music, artwork and hand crafted/decorated chinaware's.
An extremely unwell associate has asked me to find new owners for THEIR large collection of photographic and film items ... this is one of those items. I am often asked "THE QUESTION"
So how many films do you have, Russ?
My response is ... boxes and boxes of them, perhaps 500+
I have been honoured with the trust and care of these films, to the owner they are an important part of his life and I respect that. Each film is VERY SLOWLY (I have a lot of other things to do as well!) being evaluated, run through the projector (currently an ELMO ST1200D) and if needed, addition packing added to protect the film more.
ALL film stock is safely away in my storage units, nice n cool and out of harms way while I look (and smell!) each film ... NO ONE can just casually "browse" the collection. My associate wouldn't like that and neither do I.
Due to my previous working life in technical fields, I tend to be quite detailed in my item descriptions, please READ all the details to decide if this item may interest you.
Vinegar Syndrome: my nose came up NEGATIVE on this reel ...however, keep the following in mind
From time to time I have noticed a "vinegar smell" coming off some films that I have been checking. I have been contacted by a learned ex film professional who has provided some pointers about this vinegar smell. Thank you kind Sir!
It seems that the presence of this odour indicates a chemical reaction is underway which will affect the base material of the film - over time. Most of these films are already around 50 years old, how much longer will they "survive" I wonder? No-one can provide a definitive answer to that one ... it's a bit like "the earth WILL be hit by a comet, one day, but no-one knows when"
This chemical reaction which is indicated by the Vinegar odour can (over time) affect both colour and black & white films equally, gradually becoming worse as time passes although I could not find a reliable guide as to how much time we are talking about - months? years? No-one seems confident enough to commit to a time frame.
If you "click" on the CAVEAT EMPTOR (Buyer Beware) in Red above, buried there is a link will take you to the esteemed National Film And Sound Archive Of Australia page which talks about this Vinegar Syndrome problem. These people at NFSA know their stuff ... the most disturbing aspect which jumped out at me is the possible effects of this chemical reaction on HUMAN health. Be careful when handling one of the "vinegar beasties", even just breathing the vapours is apparently not a good idea for sustained periods!
Having said all of this, I will ALWAYS indicate film stock that is producing this Vinegar odour in my description - although "aged", my nose still works (sort of!). I will still run the film through the projector for "testing" but have no way of knowing how advanced the chemical reaction may already be - unless the film stock crumbles in my hands! Hmmm ... not a good sign!
I still have a ton of films to investigate (the owner of these films was a BIG film buff in the 1960's ~ 1980's) and so far only a small percentage have proven to have the air of Vinegar about them ...
I have also been advised that even if NO smells are being produced, chemical reactions may still be underway but as yet undetectable by the human nose.
It really comes down to ... these films are OLD, probably they were never intended to be viewed up to 75 years later ... everything eventually fails
Please be realistic and keep all of this in mind.
Now, on with the description ...
LAUREL & HARDY (1933) - Dirty Work
Hal Roach Studios
Super 8 Short Film
Distributed through Walton Home Movies
Single 400 foot (7 Inch) Grasso (Italy) clear reel
Commercial release for the Home Movie market
Old EASTMAN KODAK metal (Tin) canister - suits the age of the original film release!
Dirty Work (Laurel & Hardy) 1933
This film is a 'bit' before my time but apparently is considered a classic amongst the Laurel & Hardy fans. In a nutshell, there is a mad professor who has created a "rejuvenation" formula (looks a lot like Creaming Soda) and Stanley accidentally knocks Ollie into the mad professor's rejuvenation formula. That's what you get when a couple of idiots fun free in a mad professor's lab...silliness to take the audience minds off the everyday doom & gloom of the Depression Years.
Leader film is fitted
Black & White
Sound
COSMETIC CONDITION:
USED
CLEAN
Film stock is undamaged and I suspect this was not the original reel, a little "well used" looking but not damaged.
The outer EASTMAN KODAK metal two part canister is undamaged BUT it has pretty obviously been near or in the midst of moisture at some stage of it's life, rust on around 30% of the top section but NO rust inside! I have no idea how long or whether this reel was inside the can when this rust was developing.
The reel and outer Eastman Kodak metal canister have simple typed White labels attached, this tends to suggest the reel and can were labelled some 50 odd years ago - the "Golden Age" of the manual typewriter, these are definitely not home printer created labels.
NO personal writing at all
Vinegar odour was NOT detected
TESTING:
Test machine: ELMO 1200ST
Leader film is fitted and it fed into the projector no problems (sprocket holes look good and undamaged)
The film begins ...
Picture contrast and quality are watchable BUT I get distinct impression that the picture looks more "washed out" than other Black & Whites I have been viewing. The overall tones look more like a Sephia/Yellowish colouring and the White areas (faces etc) look "too White" and the darker areas less defined. Perhaps this is the Black & White equivalent of slow dye degradation ... I don't know.
The sound is also a little below par, it sounds to me like the high end's have been shaved off (lack of high frequencies) which although still understandable, makes listening to the dialogue just slightly more difficult.
SPECIAL NOTE: I felt I needed to add this little note ... whilst viewing the film on the screen, it actually looks "reasonable" but it has become apparent to me that my antiquated digital camera (very old, one of the very first 'point n shoot' models!) just isn't up to the task in regard to colour representation nor the ability to deal with high contrast properly. Any decent area of White tends to flood the whole image taken by the camera, it doesn't deal well with "bright lights". The screen shots I take are while the film is running too, that doesn't help provide a good image. The photographs are only a very rough guide for what to expect but in reality the film is not as bad as in the photographs. I work with what equipment I have, room lighting etc ... if anything, at least you can see that the films have actually been run through the projector and any special points (such as the film aspect ratio) can be seen. In my humble opinion, this movie remains watchable, but certainly not brilliant.
After test playing this reel for around 5 minutes or so, I am satisfied that this reel does indeed contain the contents as marked and that it is in fairly reasonable technical condition. I especially liked the old Eastman Kodak canister, nice blast from the past!
After viewing, I packed the reel with a couple of Silica Gel satchels and then packed the outer canister into sealed clear plastic so that everything is "sealed" from the environment and it is now stored in a temperature/humidity controlled, cool area.
