[The High and the Mighty]가 물에 잠겨 필름이 손상되었다는 얘기를 본 적이 있다. 조금 자세한 이야기가 있길래 올린다.

John Wayne films saved from watery grave

Article Published: Sunday, July 03, 2005 - 9:34:31 PM PST

By Marilyn Beck and Stacey Jenel Smith

While TV crews caught the action of landslides and flooding during one of Los Angeles' torrential storms eight years ago, another gut-wrenching drama was playing out quietly. John Wayne's eldest son, the late Michael Wayne, "went into our film vaults and discovered there was a leak. The negative for this film was sitting in water," recalls Michael's widow, Gretchen Wayne, speaking of the Duke's 1954 aviation classic, "The High and the Mighty."
"He literally took it out in a bucket of water. Reels 3 and 5 were destroyed." Also damaged was another Wayne picture about pilots, the 1953 "Island in the Sky."

Michael Wayne made it his mission to restore those films, which could be done "because, fortunately, we still had all the elements, the separation masters, to fill in the blank spots that were missing. When the flood happened, the technology wasn't in place to restore a film as it is today," Gretchen adds. When her husband died of heart failure in 2003, Gretchen determined that she would complete what Michael had started, that "I wanted to do that for him - restore the film and the sound."

The result: July 16-18, American Movie Classics will have a John Wayne marathon - including "The High and the Mighty" and "Island in the Sky." Now digitally remastered, they'll be around for posterity. On Aug. 2, they'll be released on DVD. Fans of the Duke drove "The High and the Mighty" up to No. 3 on Amazon.com's DVD best-seller list weeks ago with advance orders. More Duke DVDs are coming, including "Hondo" in October and "McLintock!" later in the year.