|
Courtesy of UCLA Film and Television
Archive
Bob Gitt spent 20 years restoring Charles Laughton’s “The
Night of the Hunter,” starring Robert Mitchum. |
PRESERVATIONIST'S LABOR OF LOVE
Exposing classic film to new audiences
BY KELLY GRAML
UCLA Today
Bob Gitt, preservation officer for the UCLA Film and Television Archive,
was 17 when he first saw the film “The Night of the Hunter”
(1955) on late-night television in Hanover, Pa. In the summer of 1959
it was still fairly rare to see a recent film on TV, and that novelty
— as well as the presence of big stars like Robert Mitchum, Shelley
Winters and the iconic Lillian Gish — provided some memorable entertainment
for his family.
“The film was a revelation,” Gitt recalled. “And what
a surprise it was that the legendary British actor Charles Laughton had
actually directed this frightening and astonishing film.”
“The Night of the Hunter” was initially a commercial and
critical flop. But Gitt never forgot the film, and Laughton’s inventive
work would later provide Gitt with a pivotal personal and professional
experience at UCLA.
In his youth, however, Gitt never considered a career in film preservation.
He majored in government at Dartmouth College and became involved in radio
production and engineering at the student-operated AM commercial radio
station, WDCR. He graduated in 1963 and began working for Dartmouth College
Films, where he presented a yearly series of classic films on campus.
 In
1970, Gitt joined the American Film Institute (AFI) in Washington, D.C.,
and began working on film restoration projects. While there, Gitt was
fortuitously assigned to visit Laughton’s widow, actress Elsa Lanchester,
to retrieve donated boxes of photographs and letters related to “The
Night of the Hunter.”
“When I declared my admiration for the film, she mentioned that
she was tired of storing box after cardboard box of the original rushes
(outtakes) for the film,” said Gitt.
The boxed material turned out to be more than 80,000 feet of picture
and sound trims, of various lengths, all confusingly wound together in
dozens of rolls. The task of identifying and compiling the material was
a daunting one, and Gitt managed to assemble only 20 minutes of footage
before he departed AFI in 1975.
The rushes remained in storage in D.C. until Gitt was able to arrange
for them to be sent to the UCLA Film and Television Archive in 1981.
Over the next 20 years, Gitt and his staff labored to reassemble the
rushes. “‘The Night of the Hunter’ is the only classic
film of its era for which the original rushes survived,” Gitt said.
He and fellow preservationist Nancy Mysel also took on the restoration
of the film itself.
In the summer of 2002, “The Night of the Hunter” screened
to rave reviews during the archive’s Festival of Preservation, and
Gitt has since screened the film to packed houses in Toronto, Amsterdam,
London, Bologna, Stockholm, Budapest, Edinburgh and New York.
“I’m honored if I’ve been able to help modern audiences
appreciate a truly great cinematic work and to experience some of its
creation,” noted Gitt. “It’s been a wonderful journey.” |
