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1967 MGM vault fire. Please take a moment to review
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While this page seems very well put-together and is even cited on other websites online, I can find not a single supporting source for the claim that there was a fire of any kind at MGM in 1967, let alone one on this specific date which destroyed the films in question. The only link provided, in fact, gives the date of the supposed fire as 1965 instead of 1967 (1965 is also the year given specifically by Roger Mayer, though with no date, in an interview with David Pierce in FILM HISTORY). I can find no references of any kind, anywhere online to any fire on May 13, 1967 which is not clearly recycling the questionable information in this wikipedia article. If no one can come up with a reliable source for this incident, I will be forced to recommend this page be removed. I also note that the page itself was created by a now-banned sockpuppet account, for who knows what reason. Mr Subtlety ( talk) 20:00, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
Given the above discussion (and the unsourced change from 1965 to 1967, here), I have removed the tag. Prior to those contested edits, the article was just a stub. I'd think we'd need to verify virtually everything changed, back to just before them. [2] It's fairly amazing that so much material was added without anyone challenging the most basic facts in the article. Topping it all off, very little of the article is sourced.
I know virtually nothing of the topic here, but had heard of the fire previously, so I'm guessing the fire is widely known and, as a result, should be very easy to source. We likely have some editors who have a leg up on this. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I'm going to post a note to the film wikiproject and see if we can't get some more eyes on this. - SummerPhD v2.0
This source is written on the subdomain "fan" and is written by "lzcutter", which don't seem reliable to me but it depends upon if we can find the identity of the author. Furthermore this forum post doesn't suggest it is reliable either. It being the only source in nearly ten decades of this articles history makes me a bit reluctant to remove it though. Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 17:45, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm still not 100% confident that we have the right year and we clearly do not have a date. Emir of Wikipedia's note above had be a bit concerned we might have some basic confusion here to root out, as there seem to be some sources disagreeing on the date.
On a whim, I checked sources from articles on some of the films believed to have been lost. Many of them do not indicate the last known copy was destroyed in an MGM fire or cite a source that does not backup the claim. Here's what I came up with:
I have also run across various forum postings indicating others have been having problems researching the event. Others have been unable to find a specific date, have found conflicting dates, unsure if it is 1965 or 1967, hinting one of the dates may refer to a set fire at Universal or that there may have been two vault fires.
The reliability of the sources varies. Most of them are deliberately vague (even the best sources). - SummerPhD v2.0 04:21, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I found this NY Times article which reports on the fire. It dates to 1978 not 1965. In addition, the fire took place at the George Eastman vault, not MGM.
https://www.nytimes.com/1978/05/31/archives/fire-loss-at-film-museum-less-than-was-feared.html
There apparently was a 1967 fire on the MGM backlot, be it didn't destroy films. LittleJerry ( talk) 00:57, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
Has anyone checked VarietyInsight.com? It has a complete archive of Variety/Daily Variety and there is no way an event like this could have happened without them reporting on it. The archive requires a fee that I personally am not prepared to pay right now, but if someone else wants to dive in, this could provide a source. There is also a complete archive of Billboard on Google News Archive; although they don't focus on film they might have covered it too. 136.159.160.122 ( talk) 18:48, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
So far with all these discussions, I’ve seen people debating whether this fire happened in 1965/7, and all of them come to inconclusive results. So I only have one question: when did this fire occur? Or maybe I have two; did this fire even occur? Fakescientist8000 ( talk) 16:05, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
I happened to find an old newspaper clipping from August 11, 1965, mentioning a fire in the MGM vault at Culver City. ( https://www.newspapers.com/clip/89801403/evening-vanguard/) Aside from some minor differing details (the clipping says the explosion occurred in Lot 1, not Lot 3, and mentions no fatalities or injuries), it seems that this could be the same fire that this article is about. If this is the case, the date of the fire would be August 10, 1965.
However, despite extensive searching, this was the only contemporary article I could find mentioning the fire. It's possible the fire wasn't widely reported on due to it being contained to only one vault.
Gdeblois19 22:56, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
"...in the early 1960s, it began a preservation program led by Mayer..."
How's that possible if L.B.Mayer died in 1957? 2A02:AA1:1009:DE37:C8BA:83:A243:AB24 ( talk) 18:31, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
How many movies were destroyed and what were their titles 2604:2D80:DC84:D200:D14E:255C:2246:DB57 ( talk) 04:46, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
Based on discussions above, it seems more than reasonable there were two MGM fires, in 1965 and 1967. According to this source:
-- Green C 00:01, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
It is mysterious why there are so few sources about this fire, and I want to offer a theory. The fire happened, but there was a "coverup" The studios back then had fixers who could make bad stories about talent or shows disappear: bribes, threats, carrots, sticks. They used every method. Bad news did not benefit the studio, they were dream makers and narrative creators. Telling the world their favorite films and actors went up in smoke because the studio neglected to install sprinklers was not good story. And so, this story was rumor and faded memory and obscure news. It's why we don't know what was lost, or even sure when it happened, the cause, and who was injured if anyone. Not for lack of trying, the sources never existed, with some exceptions. -- Green C 04:45, 22 May 2024 (UTC)