Watching Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film, ‘Vertigo,’ only takes a few hours, but it took Ohio State graduate James Katz more than two years to restore it.Katz, who graduated in 1960 with a journalism degree, said students who love movies have really been interested in the re-release of ‘Vertigo,’ starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak.’People are reacting very well,’ Katz said. ‘Many of them have never seen it’. Katz and his partner, Robert A. Harris, spent two and a half years on ‘Vertigo’ and restored it to about 90 percent of its original condition.’There was a lot of fading, a lot of negative damage,’ he said. ‘Time takes its toll on film kept in a warehouse without climate control.’Sound damage was so critical that Katz and Harris had to digitalize the soundtrack.’We managed to use all the new technology,’ he said. ‘It’s the first time ever a film that’s 38 years old has a CD-Rom soundtrack. It’s really a great marriage between new technology and a film that old.’One reason why the process takes so long is because a print may have some scenes that are in excellent condition, but others that are awful, said Morris Beja, OSU professor of English and film. Those scenes have to be found and brought together.’Vertigo’ has been shown in selected cities across the country from New York to San Francisco, where it broke a house record. Audience reception has been better with older people at the Uptown Theatre in Washington, D.C., said manager Tom Whittington, who heard a lot of groans from younger audiences at the end of the movie.’A lot of younger people didn’t like it because the ending is inconclusive, not at all like contemporary films,’ Whittington said. Katz said he did not want to change anything more than necessary to the film for fear of changing the spirit of it.’We have moral obligations to the people who made the film,’ he said. ‘We have no right to change anything.’ Katz said he realized the old film was in terrible condition in 1984. He was president of the classics department at Universal Studios at the time.’There’s a terrible problem with film deterioration,’ Katz said. ‘Almost half of the products made over the first 100 years (of film making) have been destroyed.”We put our heads together to find out how to save large format films,’ Katz said. What he and Harris came up with was Film Preserve Limited. ‘We take films that are fading and in disrepair because of neglect or chemical problems and create a new negative,’ Katz said. ‘We use the original as much as we can.’Katz’s future plans include restoring another Hitchcock classic, ‘Rear Window.”There’s much more awareness due to some of the work we do,’ Katz said. ‘Young people want to see classics in theaters in their original form.’