There was a reason
movies were once poetically referred to as the silver screen. Audiences were
enchanted with images that looked as if they’d been etched in liquid silver.
Directors worked with 
cinematographers to paint the screen in light and shadows. Their brush
was a movie camera loaded with celluloid film and they created stunning images
with a look of argent fluidity that can’t be duplicated today; unfortunately,
there was a tragic side to their artistry. Like the oleander plant whose
flower has a dulcet fragrance and pleasing to the eye yet is poisonous in the
extreme, the film stock used from the 1880 to 1953 created stunning images in
shades of pewter, black and white that greatly enhanced the movie going
experience; unfortunately, the film was dangerous. The medium that made up the
film stock base was nitrate, a combustible compound used in guncotton and some
types of dynamite. Nitrate stock was not only inflammable if exposed to heat
or a direct flame, it had the potential to spontaneously combust.
Film projectionists and
negative cutters quickly became aware of the perils of working with nitrate.
Projection booth fires like the one dramatized in the Italian classic,
Cinema Paradiso, were commonplace
in picture palaces across the globe. In the early days of film, 
movie theatres were often slap-dash
affairs and projectionists were often ignorant about the inherent dangers of
handling nitrate film. An errant cigarette, improper storage or even an
overheated light bulb as the film passed through a projector’s film-gate could
cause a conflagration. Several incidents of resulted in audience deaths
from fire, smoke inhalation or being crushed by the stampede of people fleeing
the theater. In his book, Nitrate Won’t Wait: A History of Film
Preservation in the United States, film historian Anthony Slide details a
number of horrific episodes involving nitrate stock in places other than
theaters - film exchanges, schools and conflations started while screening
home movies. Undoubtedly, the most infamous case of a nitrate fire
catastrophe occurred in Quebec in January of 1927. A small fire in the
projection booth at the Laurier Palace Cinema in Montreal caused
pandemonium. Seventy-seven children died in the ensuing chaos either from
suffocation or by being crushed by the panicked crowd. The tragedy led Quebec
to a prohibition on children under sixteen from being allowed in cinemas, a
law that stayed in effect until 1967.
Once nitrate film
stock started burning, there was no way to stop it. Water, sand and foam were
useless since nitrate supplies its own 
oxygen and burns with abandon;
submerging the reel in water was no help since it burns under water. After
numerous accidents, fire departments in larger cities mandated that projection
booths be constructed of concrete and steel. Wooden furniture was strictly
verboten and no one other than the projectionist was allowed in the booth.
Safety doors were installed so that in the event of a nitrate fire, only the
poor projectionist would be incinerated.
In the early years
of film, movie studios had no way of knowing that as the nitrate stock
decayed, it transformed from glossy celluloid
into a foul-smelling gooey substance that
dried into a brown powder that intensified the likelihood of auto-ignition. Nitrate films were used in
the war effort during W.W.I. Because of its volatility,
recycled stock could be transformed into explosives and many films shot before
1917 were lost. Studio heads were negligent in preserving the
original negatives of their films in film libraries. Prior to television, VHS
and DVDs, movies were a disposable commodity to be tossed in the garbage like
a week-old casserole. Films would have an initial release then possibly a
second, third and sometimes, 
a fourth. The print would pick up more battle
scares with each successive screening and eventually would be destroyed to
reclaim its silver content. Some films were simply dumped in the ocean,
forgotten in trash heaps or even tossed into an abandoned Yukon swimming pool.
There were fatal nitrate fires in MGM's storage areas in 1955 and 1960. Those
conflagrations finally led the Culver City Fire Department to order MGM to
purge their lot of nitrate films. 1978 was the annus horribilis for
film archivists and made many question if nitrate stock could be stored
safely. The United States National Archives and Records
Administration and George Eastman
House both suffered devastating losses when their film vaults self-immolated.
Three hundred twenty nine original negatives stored at the Eastman House were
destroyed, while the National Archives lost millions of feet of newsreel
footage.
The clock
continues ticking on the fate of thousands of films. Negatives and
prints of countless movies have either been destroyed 
or have disappeared and not just those of
standard studio programmers; the original negative of classic, Citizen
Kane, perished years ago and more are in peril. Film archivists are
working at feverishly to transfer films into non-nitrate copies. Their efforts
have not yet caught up with the digital age yet and the copies are still made
from of cellulose. Everyone involved in film preservation is in a race
to prevent more treasures from the earlier years of filmmaking from vanishing.
Film preservationists estimate that 85% or more of films made prior to the
advent of sound are gone, though not forgotten.
Two authoritative books
on the subject of nitrate films are Nitrate Won’t Wait: A History of Film
Preservation in the United States written by film historian and archivist,
Anthony Slide, and This Film is Dangerous: A Celebration of Nitrate
Film, a compendium of articles and essays on
nitrate film and its dangers edited by Roger Smither, Catherine A. Surowiec et
al.
