An office high up in a glass-skinned build: as we talk, I’m aware of the vast, tumbling, debris-like profusion of the city below

 

I’d imagined this part of the story would begin somewhere sleek and modern, somewhere downtown and corporate. My quest, in other words, would have a front office with a reception desk. And a seemingly impenetrable façade.

     Ideally, for this whole business to dance to a resonant sort of tune, I’d have to begin with an unproductive or frustrating or confrontational encounter with The Keeper of the Keys and they’d deny me any further progress… only for The Assistant Keeper of the Keys to take pity on me (recognising my inherent virtue and the nobility of my cause, not right off, obviously, but in the nick of time) and they’d go behind the back of The Keeper of the Keys, telling me what I needed to know to reach square two.

     The office in question would probably be Carlton’s, because they owned the film, having acquired it when they bought the whole of the Rank Films library; and Carlton would be a great place to start because they also owned Technicolor, a company that knew a thing or two about celluloid.

     I’d call the company switchboard several times and pester lots of people and eventually I’d be granted an interview with a gaunt man in his early forties, stern, humourless, almost puritanical. He’d agree to see me in his office (austere, minimalist) high up in a glass-skinned building: as we talk, he’ll have his back to the light and I’ll be aware of the vast, tumbling, debris-like profusion of the city beyond.

     Except that it doesn't quite pan out this way. Turns out that The Keeper of the Keys is the managing director of Carlton’s film content ownership division. Her name is Fiona. She’s brisk, bright as a button, a real operator, full of fizz and highly approachable. There’s something infectious about her energy and optimism – and I’m saying this merely on the basis of a ten minute (if that) phone conversation.

     She has nothing for me. Genuinely. I know this because she says she’d love to see me – and that’s no way for The Keeper of the Keys to act. You see, Carlton merely owns the rights to the film. It acquired nothing physical. The film itself, the celluloid, doesn’t actually ever change hands. It exists, cryogenically suspended, in a temperature-controlled clean-room somewhere.

     “You’re welcome to come in and see me at any time. If you’re passing this way."

     “Passing this way?”

     Her office, as it happens, isn't even in central London.

     “No tall, glass-skinned building?”

     “No.”

     “Oh... No Assistant Keeper of the Keys, prepared eventually to betray you to help me?”

     “No, sadly. We had to let her go.”

     “Oh...”