My Adventures With Don Juan


Back when this writer was chasing 16mm film across the landscape, a magic beacon called IB Technicolor guided my path. IB prints would not fade. They were rich, luminous treasures. Few collectors had them. Those who did were known and respected among peers. To possess IB was to achieve status. You could run them for friends and fellow enthusiasts, knowing a better print could not exist elsewhere. Bragging rights varied according to title. It was one thing to tell friends (and rivals) of your IB Caine Mutiny --- quite another to announce a just located Adventures Of Robin Hood. The question was always rarity. How many Caines were around? Well, lots actually. It was a big rental title, and heavily syndicated on TV, so Columbia printed many 16mm IB’s. Titles like Robin Hood were something else. Also Vertigo, The Wizard Of Oz, The Searchers, Leave Her To Heaven… these were the Faberge eggs of collectible 16mm. To own one or more was to enter a state of grace among film hoarders. The dealer’s room at a collector’s convention would stand still if ever a seeker of celluloid came across likes of an IB Weekend In Havana, or maybe War Of The Worlds in Technicolor. Such moments were to be savored. It goes without saying that competition for these was fierce and unrelenting.


My own 16mm collecting days, now past, were spent largely in the company of august and well-regarded Robert M. Cline of Thornhill Entertainment, veteran of many years dealing in film, his name known to anyone who trafficked in 16mm. Mr. Cline and myself, along with a merry band of far-flung collecting comrades, were soldiers of fortune in the movie game, "knights without armor in a savage land," to quote Paladin’s theme song (calling cards might well have read, Want Films – Will Travel). Our idea of fun was to scarf up every good title in a dealer’s room before it even opened. We’d be in the parking lot ready to deal when collectors drove up. A lot of rarities got no further than the trunk of someone’s car before transition to our greedy hands. Thrill of the chase was its own reward. Knowing you scored a title everyone else wanted became an end in itself. I need not relive those days, but memories of them are stuff of great nostalgia for Mr. Cline and myself.


"Sugared thoughts and hopeful suppositions"--- those words Bing Crosby used to describe Ichabod Crane’s desire for the fair Katrina in Disney’s animated Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, the phrase summing up my fevered pursuit of the alleged sole existing 16mm IB Technicolor print of The Adventures Of Don Juan. Warner’s 1948 Errol Flynn costumer had always been a favorite. I had an Eastman print for years --- "straight eastman" we called them, because eventually, they would fade. Legends persisted of one Technicolor print. Could this be had? First, I needed to track it down. Like the Maltese Falcon, it had gone through many hands. I spoke to its current owner, but progress was forever delayed by assorted vagaries of a negotiating process. This could require months, sometimes years, of a dedicated collector’s time and patience. Our deal was eventually made by phone, final consummation to take place at the seller’s home in upstate New York (for the life of me, I can’t remember the name of that town anymore). Only coin of the realm would do --- no check, nor negotiable instrument of any kind. Casper Gutman himself would have smiled upon our enterprise. All that was left was to fly up and take delivery. Simple, right?


Robert Cline and I were driven to the collector’s house by an old friend and Jersey native Dan Mercer, him well versed in by-ways of the Empire state. By the time we reached our destination, I felt like Renfield at Borgo Pass. Our attempt to gain entrance at the given address on this bitterly cold winter’s day was met with silence. We knew our man was there ... the why of our not getting an answer at the door took longer becoming clear ... it wasn’t yet dark. By the time our host appeared, after an azure sun had given way to night, all was understood. There had been eccentric collectors before, we'd known lots, but never anyone like this. Since I’d given advance notice only of Mr. Cline as companion, our third party, and coachman, was told to remain outside. It might have been better at that point to garland our vehicle with wolf bane before leaving Dan to face the dark alone, but time did not permit. Don Juan was waiting! Our brief stop in the kitchen, heaven forbid to eat within, as the refrigerator still bore the seal of the Seven Jackals, revealed something I’d not seen before, to wit, no ceiling, barely a floor in the upstairs room above, only a few boards that seemed to be suspended in mid-air. One could but despair for whatever luckless individual might wander into such perilous space. Fortunately, as our 16mm quarry resided in the basement, we would not venture into harm’s way. Journey below ground was to accompany of asthmatic wheeze from a basement furnace, belching fumes over an Aladdin’s cave of filmic treasures likes of which few humans had beheld. I'll not belabor what lay within this mine of movies. Our poring however was rebuffed. The deal was for Adventures Of Don Juan --- no more, no less. Stuff we had to leave behind was enough to make grown men cry. It was the one time in my life I saw boxes filled to overflowing with untouched Technicolor Warner cartoons, still on cores, with their original lab stickers. Bittersweet memories. Adventures Of Don Juan that meant so much to me would be ultimate object of an Ebay auction conducted by Robert Cline’s Thornhill Entertainment. I never thought I’d see a day of departure from it, but times change, as do priorities. I hope whoever ended up with Don Juan enjoyed it. They can’t experience the same adventure of search and gather, but perhaps they are better off for that.