Does this film exist? (Victor Victrola manufacturing, 1914)

[yankmycrank]

The Talking Machine World
September 15, 1914

Movies For Victor Employees

Six Thousand Employees of Victor Talking Machine Company and Their Families See Films Showing Work in Every Department of Mammoth Plant at Private Exhibition

Camden, NJ August 30. Thousands of employees of the Victor Talking Machine Company filled the Plaza Theater here at two performances last week and immensely enjoyed a complete review of the process of making Victor talking machines and records. The company has 6000 employees, and in order to enable each of them and an additional member of their family to see the Victor pictures it rented for this entire week the Plaza Theater, and by giving two shows nightly, one at 8 and the other at 9, it was possible for each of the many Victor employees to have two tickets. This means that 12,000 in all saw the pictures in the twelve performances that followed.

The moving pictures, which were first shown at the convention of the National Association of Talking Machine Jobbers at Atlantic City last month, showed every department of the Victor Plant in action, even to the interesting detail of taking impressions of the music and the singers’ voices. The making of the records, the cabinets and every detail that enters into the completed Victrola were most interestingly illustrated in the moving pictures. There were seven reels of pictures, or about 6500 feet of film, and the show was interesting throughout the nearly two hours of continuous movement of the film. The last reel showed the 6000 Victor employees assembled outside the mammoth plant.

[Garret]

This would be quite the film to see if it still exists. However, since it is from the silent era, the odds of it surviving are rather low.

Garret

[Henry]

What Garret said. Film of that vintage is/was on a cellulose nitrate stock (see https://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/supp ... efault.htm) and is highly flammable; it also degrades over time into a gooey mess. Unless transferred to more stable film stock, old (before 1952) 35mm motion picture nitrate films are doomed to self-destruct.

[Wolfe]

Not really doomed / on a path to self-destruct, no matter what. Nitrate film can be kept stable under the right storage conditions. Un-climate controlled vaults or storage facilities in sunny Southern California wouldn't have been one of those places.

Seven reels is a impressive length for a documentary in 1914, many of what were considered feature length photoplays of the time were shorter. It would be something to see, but as already considered above, it's most likely a lost film.

[mick_vt]

If I were trying to track down if a copy of this survived I'd likely start with the Camden County Historical Society, their roots go back almost as far as Victor's... Unlikely they may have a copy, but they might know other places to look / ask

[Wolfe]

It seems that the film was made by the Lubin Company, which went out of business in 1917. They may at least have had the negative even if the print was somewhere else. Who knows whats happened to their holdings in the last 102 years. Not many Lubin films on YouTube. The uploader of this doc claims Lubin's films were destroyed.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blvBU8uzIGQ[/youtube]