Busy in the lab he shares with Gerald “Bud” Willoughby, Dr. Linus Hobart goes about the business of restoring “lost” films. Dr. Hobart’s effort on the restoration of They Came in Outer Space were invaluable in the salvage of what many consider one of the most important films of the 1950s. When asked what the secret is to accurately bringing back to life an archival film, Hobart says, “Three things; first, you must like what you do. Second, finding a copy in mint condition is always good. And three, just hope that when you do make a mistake, you can blame it on the original productions lousy budget or editing or something like that.”
Willoughby and Hobart operate out of small garage/laboratory adjacent to the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, CA. At first their efforts started as a hobby. Gerald “Bud” Willoughby began his professional career as a DJ for armed servies radio. Later became film editor for the War Dept. After an undistinguished military career, what better place to look for work than Hollywood, USA? Moved there in early 50s. Worked as waiter, shoe salesman, car dealer, cabbie, many other odd jobs. Finally, found gainful employment at the Beverly Hills Public Library typing up the index cards. It was there that Willoughby became fascinated with the Dewey Decimal System, where he made several attempts to locate and meet its creator, H.D. Dewey.
Willoughby later became the chief assistant to the director of the audio-visual dept. at the library, where he perfected his skills in the preservation of film and audio tape. After nearly two decades of undistinguished service the Beverly Hills Library System, Willoughby was unceremoniously fired two weeks before he was to receive his 20-year pin for getting caught lighting farts in the chemical lab late one night, resulting in the incineration of 60% of the library’s archived works, which luckily they had duplicate copies of stored in public storage in nearby Culver City, no thanks to Willoughby.
Disgraced, Willoughby went back to being a waiter, shoe salesman, car dealer, cabbie, many other odd jobs. It was then, at the age of 81, that Willoughby was approached by Dr. Linus Hobart about a project the doctor had been desperately trying to get off the ground. Hobart had somehow stumbled upon the only surviving copy of the soundtrack of a heretofore thought lost motion picture, They Came in Outer Space. Hobart knew very little about the restoration process itself, but was acquainted with the film’s producer, Herbert W. Zoozman, because he had been working on a biography of one of the film’s stars — and ironically, the 5th, 7th, and 9th wife of producer Zoozman — Miss Mynx Devlin.
According to Hobart, “I was on one of my regular trips to Costa Rica, for reasons I can’t legally go into. It was there during one of my free afternoons, that I went to the local San Jose Swamp Meet, a combination Flea Market and Exhibition of local wildlife. As I rummaged through one of the bargain tables, I found what appeared to be a film cannister that had been made into a wall clock. I thought, how clever and paid the asking price. As it turned out, it was well worth. Because once I got home and discovered the clock didn’t work, being somewhat “handy” I opened it up to administer repairs and what I found has an actual movie!”
Hobart, who knew next to nothing about the preservation or restoration, did the only think he could think to do and promptly put the film in his refrigerator. Fast forward several months; Hobart finds out it is the only copy in existence of a classic 1950s outer space-exploitation film. He contacts as many technicians as he can find and winds up calling none other than Gerald Bud Willoughby. The two of them agree that this is an important discovery and to seek financial assistance from any and all possible sources. After nearly 3 years of begging, borrowing, and almost stealing money from public and private investors, the team has enough money to open a small lab and purchase the equipment needed to bring this film back into the public’s view.
Willoughby teaches Hobart everything he knows about restoring film. And Hobart in turn teaches Willoughby everything he knows about film research. The two become fast friends, even though Hobart is afraid Willoughby “won’t be with us much longer, as he’s getting quite forgetful and starting to smell really bad.”
Despite the team’s best efforts, nothing could be done to the save the film’s video portions. Except for several short sequences, the video is lost to the world forever. But remarkably, the audio portion of the soundtrack — the dialogue, the music, the sound effects, everything the audience “hears” — is still intact. “Except for a few nasty edits, some snapping and popping sounds, and a little signal dropout,” says Hobart, “the audio is now better than it was when the film was released in 1959 or 1961 or whenever the hell it was.”
Unfortunately, neither Willoughby nor Hobart have ever met the film’s producer Herbert W. Zoozman.
But according to Willoughby, “we intend to locate and find as many remaining Zoozman pictures as there are out there to be located and found and to restore them in no less a manner than we restored the one we already have.” Good news for us all, no doubt! And the good news doesn’t stop there. Just recently, Hobart received a call from one of Zoozman’s former employees. It seems he has one of the only complete copies of Zoozman’s 1958 teen classic Destroy All Teenagers. Willoughby and Hobart are currently in negotiations with the film’s owner to secure its rights and expect to have the deal completed by the beginning of next, unless the owner gets paroled earlier than expected.
