The Roberto Pallme
Collection
Mr Fix-it
|
|
|
|
|
Mr FIX-IT (USA 1918, 65 mins, 35
mm)
Directed By: Allan Dwan;
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Wanda Hawley, Marjorie Daw,
Frank Campeau, Leslie Stuart,
George Eastman House (Roberto Pallme Collection).
This sparkling 1918 romantic comedy from director
Allan Dwan catches Douglas Fairbanks on the cusp of
superstardom. Fairbanks stars as Remington, aka Mr. Fix-It, a happy-go-lucky
American at Oxford whose school chum, Reginald Burroughs (Leslie Stuart), has
been called back to the States by his starchy, upper-crust aunts (Ida Waterman,
Alice Smith, Mrs. H.R. Hanckock) and uncle (Frank
Campeau) whom he hasn’t seen in 15 years. Reginald knows his snobbish family
will never approve of his English fiancée (Marjorie Daw),
so Remington offers to go in his place, impersonating Reginald long enough to
(hopefully) change everyone's minds. “Reginald” arrives in America to find his
aunts have arranged for his marriage to an unhappy debutante (Margaret Landis),
but he soon finds a true love of his own when meets Mary (Wanda Hawley), a poor
orphan who has been left to care for her much younger brothers and sisters. As
the irrepressible MR. FIX-IT sets about playing matchmaker while untangling
numerous romantic complications, what begins as a genteel comedy-of-manners
culminates in a fast-paced chase across tenement rooftops and down through the
city streets, showcasing just the kind of physical derring-do that would soon
make Fairbanks the biggest male movie star in the world.
George Eastman House’s preservation of MR. FIX-IT
began in the early 2000s using the only known copy of the film in existence: a
fully tinted nitrate print that had arrived at Eastman House as part of the
Roberto Palme Collection. From this rare element a duplicate negative and color
positive print of the film were made, but like many U.S. silent films exported
for international distribution, the original English language intertitles had been replaced with a foreign language
translation. Thanks to generous funding provided by William and Nancy Goessel,
the Goessel Family Foundation and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, all
160 titles have now been painstakingly restored to English and printed using
the original typeface and design. After remaining virtually unseen for decades,
MR. FIX-IT is once again ready for the big screen. —
Ken Fox, George Eastman House
(Sorce: http://strictly-vintage-hollywood.blogspot.com/)
For years the only known extant print of this
delightful romantic comedy belonged to Roberto Pallme,
a Neapolitan film lover who over the years amassed an important collection of
35mm nitrate and 9.5mm prints. In 1998, 14 years after Signor Pallme's death, the entire collection was donated to George
Eastman House where it has since provided invaluable material for a number of
recent preservations. Mr. Fix-It was originally transferred from the original
35mm nitrate stock to color safety film in 2001, but an important step was
still necessary before the film could be considered "restored." Like many
films in the Pallme Collection, this particular print
of Mr. Fix-It was designed for distribution in Italy; not surprisingly, all the
intertitles were in Italian. Complicating matters was
the absence of any surviving script that might have indicated what the actual
original English dialogue and text might have been. All Eastman House had to
work with were the Italian translations that had been edited into the Pallme print. With a careful ear to the timbre of the era,
Eastman House senior curator Paolo Cherchi Usai translated each title back into
English, thus recreating the missing script. However, it would not be until
nearly 10 years later that the funding -- always the biggest challenge when it
comes to film preservation -- necessary to transform that translation into
nearly 165 recreated intertitles and strike a new
negative and print would become available. Thanks to generous contributions
from William and Nancy Goessel and the Goessel Family Foundation, the plan for
a restored English-language Mr. Fix-Itfinally became
a reality.
(Sorce/Fonte:
http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2011/06/film-preservation-fridays-4-title-and.html;
Project summary by Ken Fox, Silent Film Preservation Fellow at the George
Eastman House)
Mr FIX-IT (USA 1918, 65 mins, 35
mm)
Directed By: Allan Dwan;
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Wanda Hawley, Marjorie Daw,
Frank Campeau, Leslie Stuart,
George Eastman House (Roberto Pallme Collection).
Testo in italiano non
disponibile
(Sorce/Fonte:)