The source of the claim is largely the 'Apollo Detectives'. They've insisted that the film in the Lunar Orbiter needed to be pressurised in order to protect it, when in fact mininal pressure of 1-2 psi of Nitrogen was used to make sure the fllm stayed where it was supposed to during exposure.
They found a tame physicist with access to a vacuum, and duly exposed off the shelf film to vacuum several times. The end result was: perfectly acceptable photographs that could (in the hands of a skillful developer) have easily been colour balanced correctly. Nautrally they claimed victory, saying the film was ruined, but it really wasn't.
There's an Aulis article about it.
Didn't the guy doing the vacuum tests also come to the conclusion that it wasn't the vacuum itself that did the main damage but the repeated cycling in and out of a vacuum?
And from what I can recall, the original Lunar Orbiter also developed the photos in lunar orbit, scanned the result, and transmitted the picture back to Earth. Pretty sure you would need a pressurised vessel for that. Fortunately, Apollo waited until they got back to Earth, and left the developing to professional like Terry Slezak (first non astronaut to be 'contaminated' by lunar dust).