American Cinematographer - January 1989 - 82

Greater clarity of
image in this shot
of Fay Wray in the
ape's paw is evi¬
dent in the restora¬

tion (frame above

left)

compared
print
(below left). The
as

to an earlier

vertical scratches

remaining

were
"built in" from an¬

cestral

footage. Far
right: Fay Wray, in

costume for screen
test aboard
even

ship, is
prettier than

before in the

new

prints (new frame
at top right, old
at

bottom).

dim and shoddy. Since dupe 16mm TV
negatives could just as easily be made from
the nitrate fine grains, there was no thought
given to re-mastering those titles - the
important ones - which already existed in
nitrate form. A later and recent decision by
RKO management to cavalierly destroy a
large number of camera negatives to recov¬
were

much to be done we divided the work
between three laboratories: Guffanti in
New York, and YCM and Film Technology in
California. Converting these 300 pictures
will be a nice three-year project."
so

Of the three labs, YCM is most

geared to specialization, dealing primarily

ity we will have access to a first-rate
second-generation safety fine grain for

with difficult, custom restorations. It was
here that surviving elements on King Kong

Down to Their Last Yacht, but will never be
able to do better than a third-generation

were

means

dupe negative for Citizen Kane. That the
RKO product looks startlingly beautiful in

gathered and examined by Richard
Dayton. It became clear that the camera
negative for Kong no longer exists, and
evidence suggests that it hasn't been

Home Video and Cable TV formats is due to

around for many years.

the films

King Kong was a victim of its
An exceedingly popular film in
1933, it went into general reissue five years
later and, again, four years after that. The
large number of prints that were manufac¬
tured in this ten year period probably wore
out Kong's negative. The earliest surviving
material on Kong is a master positive made
from the camera negative in 1942. This print
was the backbone Richard Dayton relied on

having been mastered for video

from these nitrate masters. But the 270-line
resolution of VHS, or even the 525-line
resolution of T'-NTSC, coupled with archival
doubts about the long-term stability of vid¬

eotape, can't compare with the 2000-line
resolution of 35mm motion
the need to maintain the
masters on these titles than
in

picture film and
highest quality
can be provided
any format, including projection or future
This

inherited

American

was

own success.

in

high-definition video.

80

done," says Richard May. "Since there was

that for poster¬

er

their silver content

this over, we looked at what needed to be

the state of affairs

by TEC in 1988. "When

Cinematographer

we

took

preparing new master elements on Kong.
The history of heavy negative use is printed
right into this 1942 master.

January 1989

"One of the sad things were the
repairs built into the camera negative before
this master positive was made," says Dayton. "There was a lot of repair work. When
Kong falls from the Empire State Building,
there's a glitch because some of the frames
are missing and one frame is replaced; it
goes two generations farther down, then
back again rapidly." These printed-in imper¬
fections can't be subtracted. Additionally,
having mothered all subsequent editions of
King Kong, the master positive reflects 45
years of additional use.
"The perforations were pretty
heavily worn from a lot of copying and
handling," explains Dayton. "One reel was
marked 'NG' but luckily they hadn't thrown it
out! Though the perfs had seen a lot of
wear, the photographic quality was quite
good, and Richard Ryan was able to hand
feed it through our printer."
Dayton found the master posi¬
tive something of a curiosity. "It's supposed
to be a fine grain, but all signs point to it
being a print - a master print, obviously. It
not used for

projection at any time.
made, they were going
through a transition from lavenders to fine
grains; but the print's not a lavender, nor

was

When it

was
American Cinematographer - January 1989

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