Here is a short clip taken from a large collection of home movies belonging to the family of famous British actress Vivien Leigh. Vivien Leigh won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Alive Studios are proud to have been chosen to handle the large archive of 16mm films covering the private life of Vivien Leigh with friends and family.
The films were in quite poor condition, clearly having been well watched over the years. Some were suffering from water damage, others were caked in mould. Two of the reels even had what appeared to be paint spilled on them, as shown in the photos below. Careful, painstaking efforts were made by the Alive Studios team to clean and restore every inch of film. Amazingly, we didn’t lose any footage, and even the paint-covered films survived.