Tweet Nitrate Laurel & Hardy print on eBay

The squirrels ran out of their holes, grabbed the nuts, and then ran back into their holes again.

I bid on HIS WEDDING NIGHT but when I learned that the "lost material" wasn't lost I pulled out - lucky for the winner
I bet I know who got it though. Still, I am not keen on keeping nitrate in my house so I'd only go for it if it was of importance for what I'm working on - as in sharing it with everyone ! People who work with film tend to keep things secret for good reason btw. - I've learned that the hard way. Don't be hard on your fellow film enthusiasts, most of us probably just have to protect our work, we only want what is best for everyone in the end.

The ebay definition of "Rare" or "Lost" by some ebay sellers can be used loosely and may need an industry definition to clear up the confusion.

A 35mm nitrate print of a Laurel & Hardy film was rare enough to get a bunch of collectors to try to make deals to keep the auction price down. That qualifies as rare enough I guess.

There's only one known 35mm element on Why Girls Love Sailors; this will be the second. The same may go for You're Darn Tootin'. Preserving these is extremely important to the legacy of Laurel and Hardy.

The prints looks like shot from camera negative, and have very good dynamic range, judging by the photos took from the print.
These films prints need to be compared (homologated) to check if they have missing scens, alternated scenes, different camera angle (second negative), frames that was missing in the other print, or if the image quality its better.

Big Business was preserved from a fine grain shot from camera negative, am I right ?
If even the Golden AGe of Comedy used camera negative to shot fine grain stock for the Big Business scenes.

Why nobody from Laurel & Hardy restoration project was contacted ???

I'm in favor of get or preserve new prints, even if the ones already in archives have the same sharpness, frame area, and lenght and derived from the same version. Reasons :

-The new print can be richer in hightlighs details or shadow details, or just overal dynamic.
-The new print can have less grain, depending of the stock used.
-It can be, in theory (maybe near future) digitally combined with the archive print in order to mergue the best characteristics of both materials.
-There is algoritims today that allow combine frames tom extract more details, if the frames are very similar. It was used in restorations by Lowry Digital. This same technology could, in theory, allow to fuse two good prints (similar one to each other) to have details closer to the camera negative. For the future, cause it's still very expansive today.

I have a lost film. It's somewhere in my home. I don't remamber where I put it. It's a DVD disc.

The ebay definition of "Rare" or "Lost" by some ebay sellers is used loosely recently.

Since here are many film collectors her, I have a idea that may help find out some thing, in terms of 35mm findings, like if the image quality (resolution) is better or worse than material in archives.

Many shots they took from 35mm frames are using cell phones or cameras without resolution and lens to shot from very close and give a good idea of picture quality.

Maybe a digital microscope could solve that :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJHIzGDSKJ4

It's cheap and effective for very small details.
Ebay sellers could also have one. If a given film print it's better in image details than one from archive, it's enough to get it.

Already finished, but I imagine if some people from Nitrateville bought these Chaplin films :

City Light 35mm from 70's reissue : https://www.ebay.com/itm/Chaplin-s-1931 ... 3414873361

The Imigrant (with soundtrack) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Immigrant- ... 7675.l2557

What is a film cell strip ??? .... I mean... who create these ? Is just owners of a print cutting it into small pieces of frames to cash more, or studios did that since decades ago ?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Charlie-Chapli ... jgKxvkhl0g

Why nobody from Laurel & Hardy restoration project was contacted ???

The Laurel and Hardy restorations being done by UCLA only includes the sound shorts. The silents are under separate control by another owner and are not part of the current project.

I've contributed to this project several times and have never seen any indication the silents will be upcoming.

Prices realized.

Several points:

1. Without disclosing the buyer, the print of "Why Girls Love Sailors" has been shipped to Los Angeles from Europe and will be used for our ongoing Laurel & Hardy restoration project with UCLA in the near future.

2. I do not have any knowledge of where the other two L&H nitrates wound up.

3. The silent Laurel & Hardy's are indeed part of our restoration efforts. We recently finished doing a full restoration on "The Battle of the Century", going back to the nitrate Reel One and doing a full cleanup on the entire show. It will be shown at the Film Forum in NYC on Sunday, February 25th, on a double bill with our new "Sons of the Desert" restoration.

4. We do our digital work on top of UCLA's excellent film preservation and restoration efforts. But that has to come first, before we can do the digital work. To that end, UCLA desperately needs funding for this ongoing effort. Tax deductible donations can be made at:

http://www.savelaurelandhardy.com" target="_blank

5. We are currently working on Brats and Hog Wild. After they are finished, we will have completed work on 17 shorts and 3 features. All are available for theatrical booking on DCP in the U.S.

6. Please do let me know if any rare Laurel & Hardy material shows up on eBay or anywhere, for that matter.

Thanks,

Jeff Joseph
ex-SabuCat
[email protected]" target="_blank

Several points:

1. Without disclosing the buyer, the print of "Why Girls Love Sailors" has been shipped to Los Angeles from Europe and will be used for our ongoing Laurel & Hardy restoration project with UCLA in the near future.

2. I do not have any knowledge of where the other two L&H nitrates wound up.

3. The silent Laurel & Hardy's are indeed part of our restoration efforts. We recently finished doing a full restoration on "The Battle of the Century", going back to the nitrate Reel One and doing a full cleanup on the entire show. It will be shown at the Film Forum in NYC on Sunday, February 25th, on a double bill with our new "Sons of the Desert" restoration.

4. We do our digital work on top of UCLA's excellent film preservation and restoration efforts. But that has to come first, before we can do the digital work. To that end, UCLA desperately needs funding for this ongoing effort. Tax deductible donations can be made at:

http://www.savelaurelandhardy.com" target="_blank" target="_blank

5. We are currently working on Brats and Hog Wild. After they are finished, we will have completed work on 17 shorts and 3 features. All are available for theatrical booking on DCP in the U.S.

6. Please do let me know if any rare Laurel & Hardy material shows up on eBay or anywhere, for that matter.

Thanks,

Jeff Joseph
ex-SabuCat
[email protected]" target="_blank" target="_blank

Jeff, thanks for the update. As you can see from this thread, there's been a good deal of interest in these nitrate copies and given the public appeals made for cooperation here, your comments are, I believe, warranted and welcome.

Bob

Several points:

1. Without disclosing the buyer, the print of "Why Girls Love Sailors" has been shipped to Los Angeles from Europe and will be used for our ongoing Laurel & Hardy restoration project with UCLA in the near future.

2. I do not have any knowledge of where the other two L&H nitrates wound up.

3. The silent Laurel & Hardy's are indeed part of our restoration efforts. We recently finished doing a full restoration on "The Battle of the Century", going back to the nitrate Reel One and doing a full cleanup on the entire show. It will be shown at the Film Forum in NYC on Sunday, February 25th, on a double bill with our new "Sons of the Desert" restoration.

4. We do our digital work on top of UCLA's excellent film preservation and restoration efforts. But that has to come first, before we can do the digital work. To that end, UCLA desperately needs funding for this ongoing effort. Tax deductible donations can be made at:

http://www.savelaurelandhardy.com" target="_blank" target="_blank

5. We are currently working on Brats and Hog Wild. After they are finished, we will have completed work on 17 shorts and 3 features. All are available for theatrical booking on DCP in the U.S.

6. Please do let me know if any rare Laurel & Hardy material shows up on eBay or anywhere, for that matter.

Thanks,

Jeff Joseph
ex-SabuCat
[email protected]" target="_blank" target="_blank

Jeff, a personal plea from three generations of L&H adorers: please, please, please provide captions for the talkies.

Thanks.

Jim

About the seller... Does anybody knows from where he get these prints? Was hin a collector, or relative of a collector who passed aways ?

Hi Jeff,

Do you know if the 9.5 mm Pathex short "Restless Romance 1924" with Stan Laurel is rare or available everywhere? I had Jack Hardy transfer it for me last year @ 4.5 minutes of footage as flash titles lengthened. Can't be too rare if it is on 9.5 mm? Perhaps this was a home version under this title for a different film?

The film you have is the Roach-Pathe film MAN ABOUT TOWN (1923) with Stan Laurel. I believe this title does not exist in 35mm. I have this title in Super 8mm.

Brilliant Tommie......... thanks for the post.

I see part 1 and 2 are on YT and on DVD through Kino (The Stan Laurel Collection vol 2. in 2008). The 9.5 mm pathex short was labelled 1924, so probably just excerpts of the 1923 title you mentioned.

Thanks,
Dana

Friends,

I said I would send an update of the prints that I won from this auction after checking. I received the prints a few days ago, and here is what I have found in the prints I won.
- You're darn tootin" : Strangely, the same print that already survives in many archives, with the same defects. 1st generation off the neg, but on nitrate stock. Later print.
- Frozen hearts. Nothing special, 1st generation off the neg, lots of missing parts (bad splices), and end and beginning also missing. The only good news is the proof that the film was tinted. Otherwise, useless. Expensive for something we already knew from the stills on the auction link.
- His wedding night - this is the source from the only surviving preservation so far. And if the preservation looks very mediocre, that's because this print, which is a later printing on nitrate stock, is equally ugly. Too many generations far away from the neg. Nothing special.
- Big business. A wreck, 6 generations down from the neg, at least, and only half of the film (not only the beginning and the end were shorts, but the seller did not mention that 7 or 8 minutes are missing in the middle), and full of bad splices.

You cannot win all the time, but the way the items are described lead to confusion. I am not very happy with these items. All in all, a waste of money.

best Serge Bromberg

Thanks for the update, Serge. Too bad the copies weren't more useful, but we weren't seriously expecting them to be mislabeled lavender dupes of Hats Off.

Bob

Here we go again: https://www.ebay.com/sch/mirhop/m.html?item=302600527572&hash=item4674659ed4%3Ag%3AI00AAOSwMqBaWRgQ&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

Again what does the seller mean by "Very Rare" , "Rare", etc.

How can these be rare if they are already on DVD and there may be other prints in the world or in archives just like the ones for sale?

Again what does the seller mean by "Very Rare" , "Rare", etc.

Expensive.

Bob

Thanks for the update, Serge. Too bad the copies weren't more useful, but we weren't seriously expecting them to be mislabeled lavender dupes of Hats Off.

Bob

Sez you!

(A terribly disappointed) Jim

Again what does the seller mean by "Very Rare" , "Rare", etc.

How can these be rare if they are already on DVD and there may be other prints in the world or in archives just like the ones for sale?

When was the last time you could walk into Wal-Mart...or Cinefest for that matter...and consider buying a stack of 90 year old Chaplin, Keaton, Arbuckle, and Laurel & Hardy nitrate prints?

Home video availability and period prints in the films' native format are completely different animals.

Again what does the seller mean by "Very Rare" , "Rare", etc.

How can these be rare if they are already on DVD and there may be other prints in the world or in archives just like the ones for sale?

When was the last time you could walk into Wal-Mart...or Cinefest for that matter...and consider buying a stack of 90 year old Chaplin, Keaton, Arbuckle, and Laurel & Hardy nitrate prints?

Why, just the other day, as a matter of fact! And what a sweet dream it was! Gotta lay off that malbec...

Jim

It would be nice if there was a worldwide data base (to register the existence of the title) like the concept that the website "silent era.com" uses to list the status of a film (PD versus unknown, etc.) or even a version of the film in a different language. I don't know if that would solve the "rare" definition debate, but just an idea dumb or not.

Gotta lay off that malbec...

Have you gone mad? NEVER!

It would be nice if there was a worldwide data base (to register the existence of the title) like the concept that the website "silent era.com" uses to list the status of a film (PD versus unknown, etc.) or even a version of the film in a different language. I don't know if that would solve the "rare" definition debate, but just an idea dumb or not.

There is, FIAF, but it's never going to be complete ever as there's not enough resource to ID and register every single surviving title in the world. Also FIAF is not open to just anyone - that is the biggest flaw as far as I'm concerned. I think it would help a lot if everyone could access the website if only to look up titles. Surely we do not want something like Wiki where anyone can edit as they like - I can very well imagine how that would end up. FIAF is a database for archives to register what titles they have. Just google it for more info.

Thanks Annichen for the information. I agree there should be a better way of obtaining information.

I use very ocassionally for short silent films, "Treasures from the Film Archives by Magliozzi (1988), but it could use some updating and just gives the producer, director, country of origin, and perhaps the Archive if known.

Regards, Dana