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July 1967: The Anzac
Now, what in the bloody heck was this next mystery???
This was definitely not a BFI print, since this was a commercial booking.
This was not a Griggs Moviedrome 16mm print,
since Griggs could not offer public-exhibition rights in foreign countries where Metropolis was still in copyright.
This may have been the Nordwestdeutscher Filmverleih edition with English titles and the Konrad Elfers score.
This may have been Ray Rushmer’s nitrate from 15 years earlier, and, yes, in 1967 projectionists were still okay with running nitrate.
If I were backed against a wall and forced to gamble, I would place my bet on the Elfers edition.
Why?
Because Nordwestdeutscher would have been unaware of the previous Rushmer screenings
and could well have stipulated “for the first time on the large screen.”
Anyway, please note that the Anzac auditorium was now being leased by a commercial cinema outfit,
I presume
Dawson & Selleck Investments Pty. Ltd,
which would not have been aware of the film-club screening at the Anzac ten years earlier.
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It is totally insane to project nitrate.
Do not project nitrate. Ever. No matter what.
No matter how many safety mechanisms you have in place.
Do not attend a screening of a nitrate print.
I have seen a few myself, and maybe I just saw rejects, but what I saw did not look any better than safety prints.
On the contrary, they looked worse, much worse.
I refuse to watch any more.
Nitrate film was dangerous enough when it was new.
None of it is new anymore.
As it ages, it becomes less stable and more explosive.
Though the projectionists would probably survive a nitrate fire,
and though the audience would probably survive a nitrate fire,
the film would not survive a nitrate fire.
Why put the film at risk?
Once it goes up in smoke, it’s gone forever.
That’s a loss we cannot afford.
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Totally stumped.
My guess is that this was a private library that offered
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Mr Clarry Ashton was a composer and pianist who was well known in the movie world.
The British Board of Film Censors was founded in 1912,
but it was in 1926 that it expanded its list of objections.
I assume that Clarry saw the première without encountering any difficulties
but was turned away a few months later
when the film moved to a provincial house.
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16mm, likely from Janus.
SUB, UNM, Albuquerque, NM |