8mm Forum: Canterbury Films?

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on July 30, 2007, 10:03 AM:

I was looking through my cartoon shorts and ran across "Back Alley Oproar" (excellent cartoon by the way), and I saw that it was distributed by "Canterbury films", my first reaction, "Ah, another British company I never heard of," until I looked further on the box and found it to be from New York!

Any info on this company and what they released?

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 67) on July 30, 2007, 02:05 PM:

I'm sure other collectors will have more concrete information for you, but Canterbury was created and run by a fellow named Leslie ( I think that's right) ...he was known for some really nice quality releases in Super 8 ...maybe also some 16mm. I have a number of his prints..including a really spectacular print of the trailer for the War of the Worlds. He released other public domain titles...like The Gorilla. As late as two years ago he was selling some films...cartoons...on Ebay . Not using the Canterbury name, however. He used to come to conventions like the Columbus Cinevent and was a pretty nice fellow.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on August 01, 2007, 04:03 PM:

Didnt he also specialise in releasing trailers on super8 Like Jeff films?

Kev.

Posted by Michael De Angelis (Member # 91) on August 01, 2007, 06:23 PM:

Kev,

Leslie Brooks, did specialize in
trailers.

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on August 01, 2007, 07:21 PM:

Canturbury Films was also well known for its many "Star Trek" episode releases on super 8. They also had excellent blooper reels for Star Trek and other shows.

The quality of their releases was consistent with their source of negative. But it seems they ALWAYS got the best results as anyone could. Sound was always strong and picture was always sharp.

James.

Posted by Steve Ellison (Member # 658) on August 03, 2007, 03:42 PM:

Some time in the seventies I bought Regent Films in Blackpool from Les Siddall...Derek Simmons was negotiating with Les for the business and when he pulled out Les offered Regent to me.Regent imported a lot of Canterbury Films, as well as Blackhawk,Jef, Niles and others. Les also sold the American Ken films, acquired from from 'secret' source in the US...much too the dismay(?) of my old mates Peter Burt and Aubrey Ross at Mountain Films(both really nice guys).When the business was handed over to me I also recieved a small envelope containing the address of the secret source in the US.Almost a case of read, memorise, and eat the note ! Unfortunately Regent suffered more than most from the onset of the video boom and closed....at that time Derran took over the Blackpool Convention, which had been started by Leslie Siddall, and continued by myself. Glad to see it's still going !!

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on August 03, 2007, 05:29 PM:

Steve

After the tantalising information about the "secret source", wouldn't it be possible, after all the years, to reveal what it was?

Adrian

PS I don't suppose there's any chance that I can ask you for a refund with regard to a 400' Kung Fu trailer reel that I returned in the early 1980s because it had no sound! I was told at the time that new stock was expected, but that's the last thing I ever heard...

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