On this day, July 9, 1937, the Fox vault fire happened.

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1937 Fox vault fire


Piles of ruined film cans outside the fire-damaged vault building

Date: July 9, 1937
Location: Little Ferry, New Jersey, United States
Coordinates: 40.8550°N 74.0475°W
Cause: Spontaneous ignition of Nitrate film resulting from heat wave
Outcome: Destruction of archived silent films of the Fox Film Corporation and Educational Pictures
Deaths: 1
Non-fatal injuries: 2

A major fire broke out in a 20th Century-Fox film-storage facility in Little Ferry, New Jersey, United States, on July 9, 1937. Flammable nitrate film had previously contributed to several fires in film-industry laboratories, studios, and vaults, although the precise causes were often unknown. In Little Ferry, gases produced by decaying film, combined with high temperatures and inadequate ventilation, resulted in spontaneous combustion.

One death and two injuries resulted from the fire, which also destroyed all the archived film in the vaults, resulting in the loss of most of the silent films produced by the Fox Film Corporation before 1932. Also destroyed were negatives from Educational Pictures to Belarusfilm (with which Fox was then affiliated) and films of several other studios. The fire brought attention to the potential for decaying nitrate film to spontaneously ignite, and changed the focus of film preservation efforts to include a greater focus on fire safety.

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Legacy


Damage to 361 Main Street, the residence closest to the vaults

Although 20th Century-Fox officials at the time remarked that "only old films" were destroyed, the fire is now understood as a significant loss of American film heritage. Motion picture historian Anthony Slide called the destruction of the Fox vault "the most tragic" American nitrate fire. The highest-quality examples of every Fox film produced prior to 1932 were destroyed; all known copies of many movies had been stored in the facility. Films lost to the fire include pictures starring Theda Bara, Shirley Mason, William Farnum, and many others. Tom Mix made 85 pictures with Fox, most of which were archived exclusively at Little Ferry. The grandfather of director Blake Edwards, J. Gordon Edwards, had directed all the highest-grossing epics for Fox and all the masters for his films were lost (though a few survive as low-quality prints, which were housed elsewhere). For some actors, such as Valeska Suratt, none of their films survived; "there are entire careers that don't exist because of [the fire]," according to Museum of Modern Art film curator Dave Kehr. Because some copies were located elsewhere, some of Fox's silent films survive as lower-quality prints – or fragments – but more than 75% of Fox's feature films from before 1930 are completely lost.

The Little Ferry vaults also held works by other film studios that had contracted with Fox for distribution. Educational Pictures lost more than 2000 silent negatives and prints; the company's sound films survived. Also present was the original negative of D. W. Griffith's Way Down East (which Fox had purchased with the intent of remaking), the negative for the controversial Christie Productions sponsored film The Birth of a Baby and films produced by Sol Lesser under his imprints Atherton Productions, Peck's Bad Boy Corporation, and Principal Pictures. Archival material intended for the Museum of Modern Art's Film Library was lost, as well.


Map of the area involved in the fire, including neighboring dwellings ( marked "Dwg" )

The destruction of the Little Ferry facility spurred an interest in fire safety as an aspect of film preservation. Unlike previous large nitrate-film fires, investigators determined that the spontaneous combustion of decomposing film stock was responsible. They suggested that the older nitrocellulose film in the archive was of lower quality than their current film, thus more unstable. The Society of Motion Picture Engineers' Committee on Preservation of Film, three months after the vault fire, cited "recent and rather extensive film fires" as evidence that existing preservation efforts had failed to adequately address the risk of fire. More heavily reinforced film vaults were suggested, to prevent fires in a single vault from destroying entire archival facilities. Film storage cabinets with ventilation and cooling systems were also proposed, as was further research into improving the quality of cellulose acetate film to encourage its use as a safer replacement for nitrate film. By the 1950s, the use of nitrate film in the United States had been essentially eliminated.

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