Universal Studios' Mitchell Standard 35mm Camera; located and RESTORED!

Mitchell Standard 35mm camera #302. This historic camera was purchased by Universal Studios in 1930 from the Mitchell Camera Co.  After its long career with Universal International, working on every one of their classic monster films among other Universal motion pictures it found its way to another major motion picture studio where it shot many modern classic films for it's new studio.

Fortunately for me, this studio archives department does not know what they are doing.  There fore I Indiana Jonesed another major piece of Hollywood history away from them and was able to restore this major piece of Hollywood equipment back into complete condition.  It was missing many of its exterior parts, and its internal movement.  I located the correct magazine, hand crank, external door, camera sticks, matte box, director's view finder and lenses among many other parts to get it looking the way it does now.  I was fortunate enough to know several 35mm camera techs who were instrumental in helping me locate the missing pieces.  I did all the tech work myself.

Why do you ask, did this motion picture studio get rid of such a historic piece of Hollywood history?  The answer is simple: the studio archives departments do not know what they are doing.  Their staff are not qualified to be archivists or historians.   Yet the studios still pay these staff of hacks including  their head archivists over 150k a year to sit in their office and pose as an experts, getting newspaper articles written about them etc...   If the executives of the studios really knew how little their "trusted" archives departments knew, they would be very disapointed that

they have been paying these people to do nothing.  Here is to hoping they keep these hacks employed so I can continue to salvage Hollywood for my collection...