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Post by johnforbes on Jan 8, 2014 17:55:12 GMT
Actual evidence shows that stories were destroyed complete if all the eps were there and available. Eg Ep 2 of Power didn't expire any sooner or later than any of the other parts. The whole story would therefore be available to either walk off BBC premises with it (could say you were taking it to the BFI or other premises), or more or less, all together in the skip (eg Power 2 is hardly likely to be at the bottom of the skip and Power 5 at the top, they'd roughly be in the same place as they would have been thrown in at the same time). In such case, you are more likely to have a complete story than you are an orphan. You know the stories were made in parts, so if you spot Power 2 in there for yourself, nephew or w/e, it wouldn't take too long to quickly scrabble around and find the other parts. I know if it were me, I wouldn't be satisfied with getting just the 1 ep, I'd want the whole story  I'm a completionist  There is nothing to suggest people walking off with complete stories of anything. Forty years ago none of this was considered important. The actual evidence suggests that the physical destruction was done on an ad hoc basis. AFAIK we've only ever had a maximum of two episodes returned from a private collector which suggests that was what was "liberated" at the time. We don't know who actually took them but they may not have been a film collector or even a Dr Who fan - just someone with a magpie instinct who was in the right place at the right time. Based on the size and weight of 16mm reels in cans I doubt that many more than a couple could be carried away at one time. Remember, this was probably an opportunistic acquisition. Thing is though, that when you think of the literally tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of 16mm prints that were destroyed/junked/landfilled just from the BBC London premises. The amount of Doctor Who eps that survived that, is pretty high when you take into account the relatively miniscule amount of Doctor Who episodes in all that lot. Would have to be a damn lucky magpie to keep walking by at the right time and keep spotting Doctor Who on top of the skip pile. Therefore when that % is taken into account, it looks more like those magpies were pretty methodical and ordanised in what they took/looked for and what they didn't. Don't forget, the 2 eps of RoT that came from within England, were "sold" on different dates, but they will have more than likely been "acquired" on the same date. |
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Post by johnforbes on Jan 8, 2014 17:59:07 GMT
Over the years, a surprisingly large number of missing/better quality episodes have been recovered from either private hands or public sale. Crusade 1 (NZ) Reign of Terror 3, 6 Reign of Terror 1 (original suppressed field, NOT a dupe) Abominable Snowmen 2 Space Museum 1 & Moonbase 4 (both better quality) Invasion of Dinosaurs 1 Time Meddler 1 & 3 Wheel in Space 3 Faceless Ones 3 Evil of the Daleks 2 Dominators 5 (source or how it was returned, unknown) It would surely seem too good to be true to think that this is it, and these are an accurate 100% record of everything that wound up in private hands after supposedly being destroyed/junked. Faceless Ones 3 & EOTD 2 were supposedly bought at a film fair as late as 1982. That's quite a number of years after junkings/destruction stopped. What about the intervening years when stuff is more likely to have been offered for sale ? Do you believe that more currently missing stuff is out there in private hands (and I don't mean PM's). I'd say it is too good to be true that absolutely everything that went walkies was sold to the type of people who later decided to hand it back in for nothing rather than keep it and try to make a few bucks out of the BBC's stupidity. You've missed a few out, namely: Planet of Giants episode 3 The Romans episode 3 The Chase episode 1 The War Machines episode 2 The Faceless ones episode 1 It is annoying that when only 4 Troughton Season 4 eps existed 2 of those episodes turned up again before any missing ones did. I didn't miss them out. At least from those extra ones you mention, Chase 1 and Faceless 1 were found within ABC. I was primarily listing eps which made it out of TV station premises and then eventually found their way back. |
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Post by John Wall on Jan 8, 2014 18:05:49 GMT
There is nothing to suggest people walking off with complete stories of anything. Forty years ago none of this was considered important. The actual evidence suggests that the physical destruction was done on an ad hoc basis. AFAIK we've only ever had a maximum of two episodes returned from a private collector which suggests that was what was "liberated" at the time. We don't know who actually took them but they may not have been a film collector or even a Dr Who fan - just someone with a magpie instinct who was in the right place at the right time. Based on the size and weight of 16mm reels in cans I doubt that many more than a couple could be carried away at one time. Remember, this was probably an opportunistic acquisition. Thing is though, that when you think of the literally tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of 16mm prints that were destroyed/junked/landfilled just from the BBC London premises. The amount of Doctor Who eps that survived that, is pretty high when you take into account the relatively miniscule amount of Doctor Who episodes in all that lot. Would have to be a damn lucky magpie to keep walking by at the right time and keep spotting Doctor Who on top of the skip pile. Therefore when that % is taken into account, it looks more like those magpies were pretty methodical and ordanised in what they took/looked for and what they didn't. Don't forget, the 2 eps of RoT that came from within England, were "sold" on different dates, but they will have more than likely been "acquired" on the same date. Amazing how some can keep drawing the wrong conclusions from the evidence. The recoveries from private collectors show all the hallmarks of random acquisitions in small quantities - although a single magpie might be responsible. So, there are two episodes of ROT that might have originated from the same source. Simple, someone was passing by and took a couple of episodes of ROT off the top of the pile. Another time, someone took UM2 and Airlock from the top of the pile. It looks like a maximum of about two prints were taken each time which would be a reasonably bulky package weighing approaching 5Kg. Remember, these prints were going to be destroyed. Nobody is bothered about them being in order or even stacked the same way up. |
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Post by Crawford.P on Jan 8, 2014 18:09:34 GMT
You've missed a few out, namely: Planet of Giants episode 3 The Romans episode 3 The Chase episode 1 The War Machines episode 2 The Faceless ones episode 1 It is annoying that when only 4 Troughton Season 4 eps existed 2 of those episodes turned up again before any missing ones did. I didn't miss them out. At least from those extra ones you mention, Chase 1 and Faceless 1 were found within ABC. I was primarily listing eps which made it out of TV station premises and then eventually found their way back. The Faceless Ones episode 1 did escape the ABC, it was one of the episodes that David Gee had. It is curious that some stories have had more than one part returned by the same collector: Reign 3 & 6, Time Meddler 1 & 3 but we've never had 2 consecutive episodes returned. Maybe employees were allowed to take stuff but not so in a way that the story they took part of made any sense! Also curious is the lack of final episode returns by collectors, most returns are either the 1,2 or 3 parts of stories. |
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Post by John Wall on Jan 8, 2014 18:13:13 GMT
I didn't miss them out. At least from those extra ones you mention, Chase 1 and Faceless 1 were found within ABC. I was primarily listing eps which made it out of TV station premises and then eventually found their way back. The Faceless Ones episode 1 did escape the ABC, it was one of the episodes that David Gee had. It is curious that some stories have had more than one part returned by the same collector: Reign 3 & 6, Time Meddler 1 & 3 but we've never had 2 consecutive episodes returned. Maybe employees were allowed to take stuff but not so in a way that the story they took part of made any sense! Also curious is the lack of final episode returns by collectors, most returns are either the 1,2 or 3 parts of stories. I doubt that anybody was officially "allowed" to take anything. However, two episodes - as I've previously indicated - fits the passing magpie theory. |
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Post by johnforbes on Jan 8, 2014 18:41:30 GMT
Thing is though, that when you think of the literally tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of 16mm prints that were destroyed/junked/landfilled just from the BBC London premises. The amount of Doctor Who eps that survived that, is pretty high when you take into account the relatively miniscule amount of Doctor Who episodes in all that lot. Would have to be a damn lucky magpie to keep walking by at the right time and keep spotting Doctor Who on top of the skip pile. Therefore when that % is taken into account, it looks more like those magpies were pretty methodical and ordanised in what they took/looked for and what they didn't. Don't forget, the 2 eps of RoT that came from within England, were "sold" on different dates, but they will have more than likely been "acquired" on the same date. Amazing how some can keep drawing the wrong conclusions from the evidence. The recoveries from private collectors show all the hallmarks of random acquisitions in small quantities - although a single magpie might be responsible. So, there are two episodes of ROT that might have originated from the same source. Simple, someone was passing by and took a couple of episodes of ROT off the top of the pile. Another time, someone took UM2 and Airlock from the top of the pile. It looks like a maximum of about two prints were taken each time which would be a reasonably bulky package weighing approaching 5Kg. Remember, these prints were going to be destroyed. Nobody is bothered about them being in order or even stacked the same way up. Amazing how some people can think that out of the possibly hundreds of thousands of 16mm prints that were destroyed from BBC London premises, that an ep of Doctor Who always seemed to be on top of the pile in 100% condition for a magpie to take. In all, probably around less than 300-400 Doctor Who prints from various sources were scheduled for destruction of some sort from London. But yet magpies kept winning the lottery every week Looks more like organised taking imo than passing by at the right time to see a Dr Who ep within hand's reach with no one looking. The odds on Doctor Who being top of the pile so many times is miniscule. |
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Post by John Wall on Jan 8, 2014 18:51:49 GMT
Amazing how some can keep drawing the wrong conclusions from the evidence. The recoveries from private collectors show all the hallmarks of random acquisitions in small quantities - although a single magpie might be responsible. So, there are two episodes of ROT that might have originated from the same source. Simple, someone was passing by and took a couple of episodes of ROT off the top of the pile. Another time, someone took UM2 and Airlock from the top of the pile. It looks like a maximum of about two prints were taken each time which would be a reasonably bulky package weighing approaching 5Kg. Remember, these prints were going to be destroyed. Nobody is bothered about them being in order or even stacked the same way up. Amazing how some people can think that out of the possibly hundreds of thousands of 16mm prints that were destroyed from BBC London premises, that an ep of Doctor Who always seemed to be on top of the pile in 100% condition for a magpie to take. In all, probably around less than 300-400 Doctor Who prints from various sources were scheduled for destruction of some sort from London. But yet magpies kept winning the lottery every week Looks more like organised taking imo than passing by at the right time to see a Dr Who ep within hand's reach with no one looking. The odds on Doctor Who being top of the pile so many times is miniscule. Nope. A batch of prints comes back from, say, Australia and they're disposed of over a period of several days. Our magpie is on his/her journey to/from work at the same time every day which coincides with a pile of prints being out for destruction. Somebody at the BBC is putting prints out for disposal and they're always collected at the same time in the evening. Somebody walking past on their way home would also be passing at the same time. If that happens on three or four successive days you could easily end up with six to eight arbitrary Dr Who prints. If it was organised they'd be after complete stories as something complete would be more valuable but it wouldn't be organised in the 70s as they just weren't considered important or valuable then. |
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Post by scotttelfer on Jan 8, 2014 19:36:36 GMT
Amazing how some people can think that out of the possibly hundreds of thousands of 16mm prints that were destroyed from BBC London premises, that an ep of Doctor Who always seemed to be on top of the pile in 100% condition for a magpie to take. In all, probably around less than 300-400 Doctor Who prints from various sources were scheduled for destruction of some sort from London. But yet magpies kept winning the lottery every week Looks more like organised taking imo than passing by at the right time to see a Dr Who ep within hand's reach with no one looking. The odds on Doctor Who being top of the pile so many times is miniscule. Nope. A batch of prints comes back from, say, Australia and they're disposed of over a period of several days. Our magpie is on his/her journey to/from work at the same time every day which coincides with a pile of prints being out for destruction. Somebody at the BBC is putting prints out for disposal and they're always collected at the same time in the evening. Somebody walking past on their way home would also be passing at the same time. If that happens on three or four successive days you could easily end up with six to eight arbitrary Dr Who prints. If it was organised they'd be after complete stories as something complete would be more valuable but it wouldn't be organised in the 70s as they just weren't considered important or valuable then.
They aren't of much interest to most people, but some people no doubt were interested in television and were very happy to nab a few. Let's face it, Ian Levine can't have been the first person interested in acquiring old television films, although they might have been less picky about what they were getting, just so long as they had something.
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Post by John Wall on Jan 8, 2014 19:55:37 GMT
When you start looking back it's remarkable how rare some things actually are.
The number actively recording in the 60s/early 70s was very low. Bob Monkhouse wasn't quite unique but his collection seems to dwarf what anybody else managed.
We know Ian Levine tried to buy things in the 70s. In the very late 70s DWAS managed to buy some b&w prints. Those cost quite a lot - maybe £100s each - so they got the surviving two parters; the Edge of Destruction and the Rescue.
It really was a different world - we need to accept that and not impose our values on that period.
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Post by Ronnie McDevitt on Jan 8, 2014 20:01:39 GMT
Whilst there is no doubt a number of prints did find there way out of the Beeb I've always felt the thought of BBC employees taking home briefcases full of film cans has been more wishful thinking than anything else. When I was at school in the late 1960s-early '70s I was one of only two pupils in my class whose family had a film projector. And ours was Super8, the other being Standard 8. These were the most affordable gauges and although there are people on here far more qualified than me to put a figure on such a thing I would say it was a pretty safe bet a very amall percentage of BBC employees owned a 16mm projector - and not all of them would have access to film prints. Come to think of it I have still never met anyone who I know to own one. Film projectors were sometning of a luxury item then - remember not every family owned a television set or motor car. And then there was as has been mentioned the weight and size of a film print.
To suggest that fans were seeking and pilfering selected episodes is the stuff of nonsense.
In the early 'Seventies there was no definitive list of Dr Who stories other then the RT tenth anniversary special which would have been little help as it referred to each story by the title of the first episode and it gave no indication as to how many parts comprised a story from The War Machines onwards.
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Post by John Wall on Jan 8, 2014 20:08:19 GMT
Whilst there is no doubt a number of prints did find there way out of the Beeb I've always felt the thought of BBC employees taking home briefcases full of film cans has been more wishful thinking than anything else. When I was at school in the late 1960s-early '70s I was one of only two pupils in mmy class whose family had a film projector. And ours was Super8,the other being Standard 8. These were the most affordable gauges and although there are people on here far more qualified than me to put a figure on such a thing I would say it was a pretty safe bet a very amall percentage of BBC employees owned a 16mm projector. Come to think of it I have still never met anyone who I know to own one. Film projectors were sometning of a luxury item then - remember not every family owned a television set or motor car. And then there was as has been mentioned the weight and size of a film print. To suggest that fans were seeking and pilfering selected episodes is the stuff of nonsense. In the early 'Seventies there was no definitive list of Dr Who stories other then the RT tenth anniversary special which would have been little help as it referred to each story by the title of the first episode and there was no indication as to how many parts comprised a story from The War Machines onwards. I reluctantly agree  I didn't know anyone with even 8mm equipment - and we were far from paupers. My secondary school had a 16mm sound projector in the mid 70s but it wasn't used very often. If there was a film version of a book in the English Literature syllabus they'd try and get that to show. I remember seeing Brighton Rock and To Kill a Mocking Bird - I studied the latter for English Literature "O" level. |
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Post by andrewfrostick on Jan 8, 2014 21:14:22 GMT
It may be wrong to suggest that someone is hoarding film cans in full knowledge. As secretary of a film society I am currently helping an elderly lady who has received tens of 16 mm films and mostly home movies plus a 16mm projector from her deceased brother in law. She has no idea exactly what she has or how to view it. From the list there is DEFINiTELY NO WHO! Or TV unless on the home movies. This is an example of how many missing films and TV could easily just be sitting in an attic- hence the BBC calls for people to head into the loft. FYI the movies are confirmed by BFI unwanted Chaplin and similar, however the South West arm of BfI are keen to see the home movies taken from 1930s to 1960s.
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Post by John Wall on Jan 8, 2014 21:17:40 GMT
It may be wrong to suggest that someone is hoarding film cans in full knowledge. As secretary of a film society I am currently helping an elderly lady who has received tens of 16 mm films and mostly home movies plus a 16mm projector from her deceased brother in law. She has no idea exactly what she has or how to view it. From the list there is DEFINiTELY NO WHO! Or TV unless on the home movies. This is an example of how many missing films and TV could easily just be sitting in an attic- hence the BBC calls for people to head into the loft. FYI the movies are confirmed by BFI unwanted Chaplin and similar, however the South West arm of BfI are keen to see the home movies taken from 1930s to 1960s. You're totally right. The two episodes recovered in 2011 had been in a collection for several decades and the owner had no idea they were missing. |
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Post by edhipkiss on Jan 8, 2014 21:27:33 GMT
It's absolute rubbish to suggest that whole stories were junked at the same time everytime. Yes, some clearly were as Ian Levine mentioned saving all 7 positives and all 7 negatives of The Daleks from destruction which were all bundled up ready for destruction. But if it were always true we'd have, for example, all 4 episodes of The Moonbase in the archives rather than just episodes 2 & 4. The Ice Warriors 1, 4-6 wouldn't have ended up behind a filing cabinet, they'd have been safely destroyed with 2 & 3.
As was mentioned when Airlock and UWM2 turned up, these things tend to be found in pairs - 1 in each hand, taken by chancers. It wasn't systematic because, a) very few people had equipment to watch them on and had no foresight (like the beeb) to think they might be watchable at some indeterminate point in the future, and b) there was no pre-planning involved. If it was happening today, half this board would don their balaclavas and borrow their mate's white van for a midnight sortee. This clearly didn't happen, because NO ONE saw any monetary value in them.
I do think there are more out there sitting in private collections. But I'm afraid no one's going to produce all 7 Marco Polos or 6 Furys from these collections. Maybe one or two episodes of each. That said, you only have to look at the recent case of that German art collector who was sat on a pile of paintings stolen by the Nazis to see that people DO hoard stuff they know are worth something. There may well be someone out there sat on a stash of lost Whos, but it will be amongst other rare and lost TV and film stuff. You won't find someone with all 12 episodes of Daleks Masterplan any more than you'll find someone who has 12 lost Rembrandts.
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Post by John Wall on Jan 8, 2014 21:41:28 GMT
It's absolute rubbish to suggest that whole stories were junked at the same time everytime. Yes, some clearly were as Ian Levine mentioned saving all 7 positives and all 7 negatives of The Daleks from destruction which were all bundled up ready for destruction. But if it were always true we'd have, for example, all 4 episodes of The Moonbase in the archives rather than just episodes 2 & 4. The Ice Warriors 1, 4-6 wouldn't have ended up behind a filing cabinet, they'd have been safely destroyed with 2 & 3. As was mentioned when Airlock and UWM2 turned up, these things tend to be found in pairs - 1 in each hand, taken by chancers. It wasn't systematic because, a) very few people had equipment to watch them on and had no foresight (like the beeb) to think they might be watchable at some indeterminate point in the future, and b) there was no pre-planning involved. If it was happening today, half this board would don their balaclavas and borrow their mate's white van for a midnight sortee. This clearly didn't happen, because NO ONE saw any monetary value in them. I do think there are more out there sitting in private collections. But I'm afraid no one's going to produce all 7 Marco Polos or 6 Furys from these collections. Maybe one or two episodes of each. That said, you only have to look at the recent case of that German art collector who was sat on a pile of paintings stolen by the Nazis to see that people DO hoard stuff they know are worth something. There may well be someone out there sat on a stash of lost Whos, but it will be amongst other rare and lost TV and film stuff. You won't find someone with all 12 episodes of Daleks Masterplan any more than you'll find someone who has 12 lost Rembrandts. Again, I agree A minor point is the junking of masters and the junking of prints. As identified in various publications the wiping of master video tapes or the destruction of telerecording negatives was somewhat erratic. However, prints coming back from abroad would be destroyed together. |
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