8mm Forum: Soundies

This is topic Soundies in forum 16mm Forum at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Robert Crewdson (Member # 3790) on October 02, 2013, 06:25 AM:

Just acquired a Soundie from the 1940s. I know that these were made to show on special jukeboxes. Some I have seen advertised have the titles in mirror image, this has titles the correct way round. Usually on a commercial print, the edges of the film are clear, and you can read what stock it is printed on. The edges of my film are black, similar to home produced films, and no stock name is visible. Is this usual for these films.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on October 04, 2013, 04:40 PM:

I didn't know anything about that. I have just readed about soundies, it looks like they are the ancestors of the scopitones, although most of the soundies were not musical.

Posted by Robert Crewdson (Member # 3790) on October 04, 2013, 04:50 PM:

I found some info and help outside of the forum. The Soundies were shown on special jukeboxes and were printed in a mirror image. They went out of favour in 1947. Copies were made for home use and these were printed the correct way round.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on October 04, 2013, 04:55 PM:

That's very interesting. The "home prints" are for sure what to look for. Maybe be I will be lucky to find some at the BFCC.

Posted by Gerald Santana (Member # 2362) on October 05, 2013, 02:31 AM:

I love Soundies and Scopitones, played on my magnetic/optical projector, it's a fun way to start/end your program or I often put together a few reels of them and show them all together based on a theme. Once you start collecting, you'll get hooked, I know because I buy them often trying to get a better copy of another.

Soundies with reverse titles were later purchased by Castle and Official films, and couple of other distributors like Joe Bonica and Pictoreel. The original films are printed on Kodak Positive film stock are far superior to the dupes made later with could still be printed on Kodak stock. I have for instance many reverse titles and mirrored re-issues that have better source -- or cleaned up, source materials.

They were shown first in Panorams through WW2 were later, Studio Films and Snader Telescritions and the like took over. Much before this, Paramount, Columbia and other studios were releasing short film "soundies" featuring personalities like the great Richard Himber, I'm lucky to have one called "The Magic of Music" from 1935 and it is brilliant.

I also have my collection of Scopitones, there were at least 500 machines out there by the late 60's. I don't have the jukebox but there are about 5 of them for sale in New Jersey at the moment, I think most need to be refurbished. The titles of the Scopitones are great, many are campy and very sexy, and all have great pop tunes from the era.

Scopitones went out of business when they were sued by an act that won a settlement, when the music video finished. Without their knowing Scopitones had filmed "saucy girls" in bikinis shaking their stuff separately and it was edited into the content. I have the film and this wasn't unusual for Scopitone but, the lawsuit ruined their business. I'm starting to slim down my own collection, these are harder to find than the Soundies.

[ October 05, 2013, 12:55 PM: Message edited by: Gerald Santana ]

Posted by Robert Crewdson (Member # 3790) on October 05, 2013, 06:14 AM:

Gerald, I haven't been able to find out why on my copy the edges of the film are black instead of transparent. No film stock name appears; also the film is very high contrast compared to normal projection prints.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on October 05, 2013, 07:26 AM:

Gerald, I have never seen any soundy but scopitones are easy to find in France (most with French singers). Sadly, the prices were up these last years.

Posted by Robert Crewdson (Member # 3790) on October 05, 2013, 09:45 AM:

Dominique, you can find Soundies on Ebay.com; doubt if you will find any at the BFCC as they were probably not seen in the UK.

Posted by Gerald Santana (Member # 2362) on October 05, 2013, 12:42 PM:

Robert, it could be that your copy is a dupe...that's why the perforation side is black and higher contrast. All originals are printed on Kodak or Dupont that I've seen or the stock is marked.

Here is an example of an orignal and a reissue:

Scopitones are scarce, more so than reissued soundies and just as valuable as original reverse Soundies. It really depends on the content and whether or not the seller really wants to let go of it. But some buyers will go for the item at a high price because the product is almost irreplaceable, again depending on the content.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on October 05, 2013, 12:52 PM:

Thanks for the info. I will probably start to look for them in November as I will try to save money for the BFCC.

Posted by Gerald Santana (Member # 2362) on October 05, 2013, 01:00 PM:

You're welcome Dominique, I have many available if you can not find any.

Posted by Robert Crewdson (Member # 3790) on October 05, 2013, 02:22 PM:

Thank you very much Gerald, I think you supplied all the answers I was looking for. I suspected it was a copy because the film stock does not look old, and looking at some frames through a jewellers eyeglass it looks like the scratches are on the pre print material. I have seen a few Scopitones advertised on Ebay recently, and all but one had turned red, which is a shame. I have seen for sale one or two Soundie types from the 60s that featured British artists, but never saw a visual jukebox in Britain. Thanks again Gerald, and taking the time to make photos.

Dominique; if you want to see a few soundies, here is a link.
http://archive.org/search.php?query=soundies

P.S. Been doing a bit of researching and found that my film would have been printed on Reversal Stock. How did this come about?

[ October 05, 2013, 03:23 PM: Message edited by: Robert Crewdson ]

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