Classic Film Prints Lost in Universal Fire

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In addition to the ruined “King Kong” attraction and the burned New York street scapes, the Universal Studios Hollywood fire has claimed another casualty: perhaps hundreds of classic 35-millimeter film prints, the studio said Tuesday, the L.A. Times reports.


The prints were high-quality copies of decades-old movies, not original masters, which are stored in a Philadelphia vault, the studio said. But the loss of the copies in Universal’s scorched vault building, which the studio had not yet quantified, could affect several upcoming screenings of classic films at museums, festivals and repertory theaters.


“It’s a real shame. The timing couldn’t be worse,” said Bernardo Rondeau, the coordinator of film programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. As part of July’s “The Discreet Charm of Charles Boyer” program, LACMA was scheduled to show the French-born actor’s 1941 film “Hold Back the Dawn.”


The print of that movie, which was originally released by Paramount but is part of Universal’s archival collection, was being transferred from New York’s Lincoln Center to the Los Angeles museum and may have been in the Universal vault when the predawn blaze broke out Sunday.


Making new film prints can cost $5,000 or more each and take months to produce.


The fire also claimed about 5% of Universal Music Group’s recordings, primarily big band and jazz recordings on the Decca label, and video copies of Universal movies and television shows. Universal Music Group is no longer part of the NBC conglomerate but rents storage space from the studio.


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