The Region : Search for Films at Dump Yields Offers

Volunteers who plowed through 150 tons of garbage seeking priceless old films found only three reels but received nationwide offers of information on old movies held elsewhere, a researcher said. The backhoe excavation at Scholl Canyon Landfill in Glendale yielded 12 empty film cans, two short industrial films on “screwing bolts, fixing typewriters, that sort of thing” and one 35-millimeter black-and- white Chinese film, said Paul Caruso of Los Angeles-based Archival Research Co. “We tried our best, we searched and searched, but we ran out of time,” Caruso said. “We were chewing up people’s money, and it wasn’t fair to continue.” The Chinese film may be valuable, he said, because only 10% of the movies made in China before 1940 still exist. On the plus side, Caruso said films being offered from New York, Arizona and elsewhere have been in some families for decades.