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The Most Dangerous Hobby in the World: Film Collecting in the Digital Age

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  • The Most Dangerous Hobby in the World: Film Collecting in the Digital Age

    During his college days, John McElwee fell in with an avid movie collector known as Moon Mullins. By then an elderly man, Moon had for most of his life been accumulating 16 mm film prints. A lover of classic movies and an aspiring film collector himself, John heard about Moon from the small subculture of cinema buffs living in the town where he went to college and latched onto him as a mentor. At a time when most old films were still protected by copyright and studios were urging the FBI to prosecute individuals owning copyrighted films, movie collecting was a largely underground and somewhat dangerous activity. Indifferent to the risk and keen for a pristine print of The Wolf Man, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, or Red River, John enthusiastically entered Moon’s obscure world of celluloid intrigue. Within weeks of their first meeting, John was cutting classes to take excursions to condemned movie houses and backwoods barns, dank basements and rusted warehouses. John was on a fevered quest to recover the lost Edens of the Saturday matinee—the silvery cowboys on the prairie, sci-fi creatures untroubled by time, the dream-tortured monsters of horror.
    Credit: Eric G. Wilson

    The quotation above is the first paragraph of a fascinating article written by Eric G. Wilson for VQR from the spring of 2009 issue. You can read the full article at:

    http://www.vqronline.org/essay/most-...ng-digital-age




  • #2
    That was a really interesting read. Very well written. Check out the 2016 book 'A Thousand Cuts - The bizarre underground world of collectors and dealers who saved the movies'.

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    • #3
      Ed - that's a great read!

      Gary - I have that book and it's very good 🙂

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      • #4
        Gary and Ali, Glad you enjoyed the article. Funny how you searching for something else on the internet often leads to discovering little gems like this article.

        I followed up on your book recommendation and ordered the "Thousand Cuts..." book this morning. Thanks for the tip!

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