Sep. 14—The film reel's origins are uncertain. It first turned up in a horse barn, buried under straw and mess from the horses, but how it ended up there is a mystery.
The man who found it, an employee at the property, hung it on the wall of his barn for several years, not knowing what the film showed. And it stayed there until it was added to the inventory at an estate sale.
That's where George Mihal, owner of the Office of Image Archaeology, spotted it.
"I've been doing this long enough my eye just kind of gravitates to anything that looks like a film reel," he said.
He purchased the reel, cleaned off the debris of years (including the remnants of its time in the horse's stall), then carefully cleaned the film several times.
While he could tell much of the film was beyond repair, he was hoping that portions of it might still carry the images recorded decades ago. And he was right.
"The footage is several years — two or three years — of Grape Festival and Lodi scenes," Mihal said.
Among the scenes he was able to restore are several of the Lodi Grape Festival's parades, once a centerpiece of the annual fair.
The first grape-themed parade in Lodi was actually held years before the Grape Festival's official start. The Tokay Carnival was held in 1907, an effort by Lodi table grape growers to draw visitors from all over to sample their products, especially the Flame Tokay grapes that city was known for at the time.
At the time, Lodi residents took any excuse to hold a parade, and the festival was no exception. Led by the Tokay City Band and carnival queen Bertha De Almada, the mile-long parade snaked through Downtown Lodi, passing through two arches (one, the Mission Arch, still stands on Pine Street), showing off wagons full of grapes and ornately decorated carriages full of festival-goers.
When the Grape Festival opened for the first time in 1934, it featured not one but three parades, one on each day. The opening parade, led by Grand Marshal Joey Brown, featured Festival Queen Marie Graffigna, and the festival was closed with the Grand Parade on Sunday.
Saturday's parade that year, however, was a different kind of spectacle: The Horribles Parade. The parade had its roots in the local Grand Army of the Republic post's participation in community events. The Union veterans of the Civil War and other veterans liked to dress up in costumes to "thrill" parade viewers.
The Horribles were no different. Led by members of the Mustachio Club, a group of city leaders that included Police Chief Clarence S. Jackson and Mayor George M. Steele, the "Horribles" dressed in bizarre, scary and sometimes ridiculous costumes. In 1934, member Bill Baird dressed as a baby and rode in the parade in a float made to look like a giant baby carriage. In 1935, he portrayed Lady Godiva. Other Horribles came from fraternal organizations and service clubs around the city.
By 1936, the Horribles — who had pushed the envelope perhaps a little too much for the family-friendly festival — were replaced by the Kiddie Parade, which was a beloved tradition until 2002. The Kiddie Parade even continued from 1942 to 1945, when the festival itself was on hiatus due to World War II.
At least one of those war-year Kiddie Parades is featured on the reel restored by Mihal. Advertisem*nts for war bonds can be seen along the parade route, behind the costumed children and their mini-floats, he said.
The found footage doesn't just include scenes from the Lodi Grape Festival, Mihal said. There are scenes of dancers at Native American powwows held during the 1930s, and footage from Coronado in southern California and from Oregon. Other Lodi scenes include the boat races held at Lodi Lake and the Lodi Municipal Baths, Lodi's public swimming pool for more than 30 years.
Restoring the reel was a painstaking process. While Mihal was able to restore a bit, the end result was many short scenes split by now-blank film. The reel was badly damaged by its time in the horse stall, and only some of it could be restored. Mihal compared the usable portion to a single wedge from a pie.
"It'll be like 15 frames that's actually decent, then it'll fade into nothingness for a while, then 15 frames that are decent," he said.
Mihal edited out those blank sections, then worked to smooth the transitions between the "good" scenes so that they're easier to watch.
Mihal first developed his passion for preserving images of history by restoring and digitizing still photographs and negatives, but it was only natural that he soon began applying those self-taught skills to film.
"The older and the worse off it is, the more intrigued I am," he said.
One of his fondest memories of his school days is watching the films they used to show in classes.
"I loved watching the educational 16mm films," he said. He's even bought several of them and has been restoring and digitizing them.
His collection also includes silent movies — including a few previously thought to be lost — and antique footage, including a few reels of rare 28mm film from a company once owned by Thomas Edison. He spends hours and days restoring and digitizing each film, and shares most of his work on his YouTube channel, which has about 1,500 films so far.
(Mihal believes strongly in sharing his work with the public. Photos he's restored or printed from rescued negatives can be seen on his website, too, along with some rescued letters and diaries, antique magazines and more. When he decided to share the photos online, he taught himself how to build the website that displays them.)
But Mihal doesn't stop at just restoring and sharing the movies he finds. He wants to learn everything he can about them, too. That's what led him to Lodi, to find out more about the festival and parades he found on the rescued film reel.
Mihal will give a copy of the movie to the Grape Festival, but he also plans to share the fully restored movie — as always — with anyone who has a connection and an interest.
"I'll put it on YouTube," he said.
