~ 계속되는 [The High and the Mighty] 복원 관련 기사. 겹치는 내용도 많지만, 올린다.
~ 그레첸 웨인이 연합 인터뷰라도 한게 아닐까.
~ 이 기사는 오늘 아침까지도 그냥 읽을 수 있었는데 오후 되니 로그인하라는 화면이 뜬다 --; 아침에 갈무리해놨기에 올릴 수 있었다.
--> 교훈: 뉴스 검색을 하루에 한 번은 해야 하며, 발견한 뉴스는 즉시 갈무리해 두어야 한다.

Akron Beacon Journal, OH - Jul 13, 2005
Keeping Duke's legend alive

Daughter-in-law running production company, overseeing restorations

By R.D. Heldenfels

BEVERLY HILLS - Not far from stores named Gucci, Versace and Tiffany is an office with a less known but still impressive name: Batjac.

Batjac was John Wayne's production company, long run by Wayne's son Michael and, since Michael's death in 2003, by Michael's wife, Gretchen.

Although he died in 1979, you can feel John Wayne's breath here, through posters on the wall, still photos in files, a battered hat from Hondo, a commemorative version of the 1892 Winchester he used in Stagecoach. Here, he is casually referred to as ``JW'' and, sometimes, ``Granddaddy.''

I visited Gretchen, a petite, vivacious former English teacher whose father was from Doylestown, at Batjac to talk about the restoration of two Wayne films from the early 1950s, The High and the Mighty and Island in the Sky.

AMC will air Island in the Sky at 8 p.m. Saturday and The High and the Mighty at 8 p.m. Sunday. Both movies come out on DVD Aug. 2.

The High and the Mighty's story of airline passengers on a dangerous journey inspired countless other movies. Gretchen remembers going to the premiere in a coral chiffon dress with shoes dyed to match. Still, she prefers Island in the Sky, with Wayne as a transport pilot trying to keep his crew alive after a crash in a snowy wilderness.

Although The High and the Mighty is still a favorite of many movie fans, neither film has been shown in public for more than 20 years. I wondered how such movies could get lost.

``They don't get lost,'' Gretchen Wayne said. ``They get put away.''

In the years before VHS and DVD, the only afterlife for movies was on television, she said. Once that market was exhausted, the movies were put in storage.

``Michael was so careful... not to overload the marketplace,'' Gretchen said. ``There was nothing he could do about the other studios (owning Wayne movies), but Michael could be very careful with (the Batjac films) and make people desirous of seeing them.''

As Michael began to put Wayne's Batjac movies on home video, he found the aging copies needed restoration. The High and the Mighty was especially damaged.

``There had been a flood in one of the film vaults,'' Gretchen said. Three reels of The High and the Mighty were ruined. ``Totally gone! There was just nothing you could do to salvage them.''

Michael Wayne went ahead with restoration of other films, planning to return to The High and the Mighty and Island in the Sky later. Armed with Michael's notes and a strong sense of organization, Gretchen took over the film restoration.

``It's something Michael wanted to do,'' she said, ``and I wanted to do it right.''

Cinetech, a California film-restoration company, went to work on the picture. Although some of the negative was lost, Michael had saved the separation masters -- separate color tracks -- which could be recombined. Once the film was in good shape, the image was transferred to digital format and cleaned up more for DVD. There's also a version set aside for use when HD-DVD becomes common.

Whatever the format, viewers may see it in different ways. Gretchen suspects younger audiences will find some of it quaint, because of its lack of computerized effects.

Still, she said, ``Michael's dad really felt strongly about a story. The first thing you had to have was a good story, and then you had to have great characters. And that's what The High and the Mighty has.''

Gretchen was fond of her father-in-law. ``He was just terrific,'' she said. ``I don't know whether people realize how sensitive a person he was, how bright he was.... He was very smart. He read at least a book a day. He was compulsive about that.''

When she watches the old films, she also sees glimpses of her husband. ``Michael had mannerisms of his father that he was unconscious about,'' she said. ``When I see Granddaddy on the screen, I see expressions that Michael had.''

As for that ``Granddaddy,'' Gretchen could never call her father-in-law by his first name. She met him when she was 14 and dating Michael, and she called him Mr. Wayne. Even after Gretchen married Michael, when Wayne asked her to call him ``Duke,'' she couldn't do it.

``Later on, he said, `Can't you call me Dad?' And I said, `I already have a father,' so I couldn't do that. When the children were born, he said, `I want to be called Granddaddy,' so I latched onto that, and he was always Granddaddy to me.''

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R.D. Heldenfels writes about television for the Beacon Journal and in an online blog through www.ohio.com. He is on assignment in California. Messages can be left at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.