Bank Freezes Action at Massive Film Vault

Reels of American pop culture--old Abbott & Costello and James Bond movies, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” even the original copy of the 1968 horror classic “Night of the Living Dead”--are stranded in a Pennsylvania laboratory that was suddenly shuttered last month when a Canadian bank foreclosed on the property.

The celluloid treasures are among 750,000 canisters of film inside the climate-controlled vault of WRS Motion Picture & Video Laboratory, on the outskirts of Pittsburgh.

Major Hollywood studios, including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. and Turner Broadcasting System Inc., and scores of East Coast independent producers have film at WRS, where it is duplicated, restored or safeguarded in a massive vault.

But since Aug. 3, no one has been able to take film from the company’s vault; its finances first will have to be untangled by a court-appointed trustee.

WRS Chief Executive Jack Napor declined to comment on the company’s woes, and the trustee, Stanley Makoroff, could not be reached.

Some of the films stored at WRS are the master negatives needed to make the best prints and duplicates or for transfer to other formats, such as DVD. Studio officials declined to discuss the situation or identify films they stored at WRS. Court papers, however, say copies of “Raging Bull” and the James Bond and Pink Panther series were among those archived in the massive vault.

The lab was processing $300,000 in orders for MGM, Paramount Pictures Corp., Sony Pictures Entertainment and Universal Studios when its doors closed, according to court documents. WRS handled much of Hollywood’s film transfers to formats used by airlines to show movies on long flights.

Business had increased at WRS in recent years as studios and producers withdrew old films from the vault for restoration so they could be made into DVDs. One WRS manager said WRS made prints of old Charlie Chaplin movies and “King Kong,” and restored “Bonanza” “Starsky and Hutch” and “Hart to Hart” episodes.

But officials at the National Bank of Canada, which precipitated the bankruptcy filing Aug. 24 when it foreclosed on $4.4 million in loans, say WRS’ financial troubles started two years ago.

The company’s financial records were “extremely poor” and “horrendous,” court papers say, and balance sheets showed more than $1 million in cash when WRS’ accounts were actually overdrawn.

Since Aug. 3, the lab and its satellite facilities, including one in Los Angeles, have been idle, leaving companies and film producers in limbo and, in the case of some, angst-ridden.

“I’ve had many a sleepless night thinking of three years of work locked in that vault,” said Bernie Wodzinski, an independent filmmaker in Pittsburgh who was months away from finishing his first project. “None of us saw this coming.”

‘Clients Were Calling in Panic’

Thursday night, in an emergency federal court hearing in Pittsburgh, General Motors Corp. agreed to finance the lab’s operations for 10 days. GM, which posted a $265,000 bond, hopes that will be enough time to retrieve its footage of car crash tests and videotapes needed for product-liability cases, according to court papers.

U.S. District Judge M. Bruce McCullough on Thursday also appointed the trustee, Makoroff, to manage WRS--which had long been the pillar of Pittsburgh’s small film community. Napor was named 47th on a 1999 list of Pittsburgh’s Top 50 Cultural Power Brokers by the Post-Gazette.

Some small and independent filmmakers said they were allowed to store their reels free in the company’s secure vault. And each year, Napor, the company’s CEO for 42 years, awarded thousands of dollars to local filmmakers as part of the Laura Napor Film Grant Awards, a program he had started to honor his mother, who had worked at WRS for two decades.

It was a different story 10 days ago when Napor told another federal judge he had become “impoverished” after the National Bank of Canada refused to advance his company more funds, which swiftly shut down WRS.

Napor maintains that the bank’s refusal to extend his line of credit July 31 “crippled” his ability to collect about $7 million in payments due the company. The bank, Napor maintains, destroyed WRS’ reputation, “butchered” its assets and triggered pandemonium Aug. 1, the day Napor tearfully told his employees the company would be closing its doors.

“Clients were calling in panic, wanting to remove their materials or to try to find a way we could stay open,” Napor wrote Aug. 23 in a response he filed with the court. “But we had no answers. No way to buy more raw materials. Or to pay our staff. Or to pay utilities, freight companies or all the other suppliers.”

Although the bank banished Napor from the facility in early August, McCullough ruled Thursday that Napor could return, in a limited capacity, to help the trustee organize the business.

“We have to figure out the finances,” Robert Lampl, Napor’s attorney in Pittsburgh, said Friday. “There has been a lot of disruption to the business because of the intervention action by the bank. We’re going to have to revamp things and move forward.”

The bank’s attorney, Bruce Fox, had a different view.

“It would be grossly optimistic to believe that anything other than a liquidation situation is in store for WRS,” said Fox, who described WRS’ situation as “dire.”

“Mr. Napor has proven to be incapable of responsibly managing WRS,” Fox alleged. And that “necessitated the appointment of a neutral third party . . . to take custody of and safeguard the company’s assets and prevent further abuse of its employees, customers and creditors.”

‘A Major Blow to Our Region’

Employees say they were not paid for the last three weeks they worked. Payments to health insurance and 401(k) accounts also had fallen behind, court records show. Some vendors already had filed lawsuits to collect past-due payments, and others, such as Federal Express, stopped making pickups at the lab.

“I don’t worry about the big studios; they’ve got resources,” said Charlie Humphrey, executive director of Pittsburgh Filmmakers, a nonprofit media arts center. “But for some of these independent producers, this is going to be really hard.”

Humphrey said he’s worried some independents might not have adequate records to retrieve their materials when the vault is cleared out. “This is not going to be like going to the dry cleaners to reclaim your laundry,” Humphrey said. “I don’t think there are going to be any second chances. What happens if someone gets home and discovers they’re missing the second scene?”

Some producers said if WRS closes its doors permanently, they will be forced to use facilities in New York, New Jersey, Florida or California.

“This is a major blow to our region and has left 260 people unemployed,” said Dawn Keezer, director of the Pittsburgh Film Office. “It’s not like we have another film lab around the corner.”

Russ Streiner, co-producer of “Night of the Living Dead,” said all of his valuable materials are stored in WRS’ vault.

“The camera negatives have been stored there, as well as all of the subsequent printing materials since we shot the picture in 1967,” said Streiner, who lives in Pittsburgh.

Nearly two years ago, the film was converted for release on DVD. “And all of the new digital materials are stored there as well,” he said. “Although we don’t have any immediate need, you cannot tell when you are going to have a request for prints. That film is still being shown.”