More Films Deteriorating Than Can Be Restored

I often think about this when someone comes into the store asking for an older film, out of print, that's never been released to DVD. Yes, even with 80,000 movies released to DVD, films like The African Queen, the original 1927 Jazz Singer, 1941's Sergeant York, or even 1951's The Incredible Shrinking Man still are not. Many people are oblivious to the fact that many movies are out of print on all formats, and may in fact never be released again. Did you know that half of all the movies made before 1950 are lost forever? Even films from as recent as the 1980s are in need of restoration. You may think the movie studios are doing a good job preserving their own films. But evidently this is not the case.The many film-preservation organizations channel their efforts into independent, foreign, or obscure films. It's assumed major Hollywood studios will take care of their own films. Click the link to read the entire article from Variety.

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