Here is what Film Collector/Author Edward Watz of New Jersey has to say:
The other day I was reminiscing about the golden age of film collecting. Thirty years ago, there were so many 16mm distributors catering to movie buffs - Blackhawk, Castle, Columbia, Thunderbird, Milestone, Griggs-Moviedrome, I could go on - that I don't think the average film collector ever thought his safety prints could become as vulnerable as the old nitrate film stock. The prints you bought were fresh out of the lab. Vinegar syndrome? Never heard of it. Must have been some culinary faux pas that new wave chefs were guilty of doing.
All that changed when i started writing my book on a totally forgotten movie comedy team of the 1930's, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey. Back in the mid-1970's videotape decks were still a newfangled phenomena in the family den. Sure, you could already see Laurel & Hardy or The Three Stooges on Beta. But - if you wanted to catch Wheeler & Woolsey's twenty-one RKO feature-length comedies, 16mm was the only way to do it.
Fortunately, nearly all of the team's films were released to television, so 16mm TV prints were available. It took a couple of years, but I managed to get everything I needed. It ended up costing me a bundle, but I got to finish my book and complete my Wheeler & Woolsey collection.
What I didn't know at the time was that back in 1955 when RKO Studios sold TV rights to it film library to C&C Movietime, the new others had 16mm prints struck at a discount lab located in South America. Prints were cheaply struck with sloppy lab work that would prove unable to stand the test of time.
By the 1980's, what I considered my carefully stored, climate-controlled W&W collection already began showing signs of deterioration - pungent odors that I soon learned was the virtually unknown vinegar syndrome. Soon afterwards, a film collector I know from Chicago named Maurice Terenzio tipped me off about the power of VitaFilm in eliminating VS.
Maurice told me that he had borrowed the 1920's and '30's 16mm home movies of actress Dorothy Lee, with the intention of making a reversal copy for himself. The original prints, however, were warped with buckled sprockets and would never pass through even the gentlest projector gate. To top it off, the prints downright stank - with an unpleasant vinegar odor.
Maurice decided to try soaking Dorothy Lee's 50 year-old home movies in Vitafilm for one whole week. To his amazement, the films were rejuvenated - and the vinegar scent was completely gone. going forward some 20 years later, to 2003, those restored home movies are still in fine shape - and still, without any trace of vinegar syndrome!
I decided to give Vitafilm a try on my Wheeler & Woolsey collection. There were about 45 reels of feature film to clean, and I had little patience for repeating the process... so I soaked each reel for only 48 hours in a Vitafilm bath. Would you believe that the Vitafilm solution immediately halted the vinegar syndrome process? Well, it did! An extra side benefit was that these old and somewhat shrunken prints, which used to make such a chatter going through my projector, were now quiet, smooth running, and behaving like new prints fresh from the lab!
When Vitafilm completely disappeared about ten years ago, there was a commotion among film collectors - what do we do now? There were many film cleaners, but all they simply did was remove dirt off the print. None of them had the ability to reinvigorate and restore a movie like Vitafilm. But now, thanks to the re-introduction of this outstanding product, film collectors can stop worrying - their precious films are safe and secure with Vitafilm back on the market!
And look at the big pictures: besides making your old prints pliant and supple, Vitafilm has helped preserve our movie heritage. I know from first-hand observation that film archivist Raymond Rohauer used Vitafilm to treat his 35mm dupe negative of the only existing material on THE THREE AGES, Buster Keaton's first great silent comedy feature. And when Moe Howard's daughter Joan Mauer recently wanted to salvage her father's personal home movies and theatrical prints of Stooge comedies, the entrusted their restoration to Vitafilm. Again, Vitafilm came through for Joan. And - Vitafilm will work for you.
Ed Watz (author, "Wheeler & Woolsey, The Vaudeville Comic Team & Their Films" and co-author of "The Columbia Comedy Short")