By BRIAN TAVES
The restoration of "With Williamson Beneath the Sea" was coordinated by James Cozart of the Library's Motion Picture Conservation Center, in Dayton, Ohio. The materials that arrived at the Library included separate recordings on film of both the musical score and an incomplete copy of the mixed soundtrack (combining music, sound effects and narration); a silent picture negative to be matched with the soundtrack; a workprint, marked up by Williamson for use by the film labs; and several release prints, none of them complete. Some of the prints had been cut into hundreds of rolls, probably for Williamson's use in lectures.
Much of the material the Library received had been recut when Williamson utilized portions of "With Williamson Beneath the Sea" to make the television version for the series "I Search for Adventure" (1955). At the same time, he had also edited his material into a new feature and several short films for a planned theatrical reissue (which never occurred).
After storage for many years in the warm, humid climate of the Bahamas, much of the footage had deteriorated and was no longer usable. An unusual aspect of the restoration was that the second reel of "With Williamson Beneath the Sea" included a minute-long insert of the earliest undersea technicolor scenes that Williamson had shot in the early 1920s. This insert was either missing or was faded in most of the copies.
The script originally submitted for copyright, and an original release print on combustible nitrate stock at the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, provided a comparison for what should have been in the original release. Much of the restoration involved patching together the best surviving copies of each scene by using pieces from most of the available material. As a result of the Library's efforts, some 11 minutes have been restored to the shortened versions, for a total of 57 minutes, the original length in 1932.