8mm Forum: Worst Print on Super 8

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Posted by Christopher Quinn (Member # 831) on September 21, 2007, 01:45 PM:

Inspired by the 'Best Print on Super 8' thread, I would be interested to know which are some of the worst quality prints you’ve come across on Super-8? Which prints should you avoid spending a lot of money on?

I know it can sometimes be tempting to buy a film you really love, just to have it on the format – but even in this case it would still be useful to know in advance if the print is not up to scratch, at least to curtail your disappointment.

Prints which have faded to pink are excluded of course!

Posted by Bradford A Moore (Member # 426) on September 21, 2007, 03:45 PM:

Most Niles films. I have a Niles super 8 Cabinet Of Dr. Caligar and a Blackhawk one. The Niles is very washed out and The Blackhawk is very sharp and nice contrast. On the other hand though, I have a Niles print of M with Peter Lorre, which is very nice except the subtitles are hard to read being white on black. I have a Blackhawk super 8 print of Shadows, which lacks contrast. I just got a 8mm one, and I can't wait to see the difference between the two. Blackhawk was wierd that way. Some 8mm Blackhawk films are far better than there super 8 versions and vice versa. Good Example The super 8 Intolerance vs. 8mm. The super 8 is far brighter than the 8mm print, but the super 8 with sountrack is too fast. They should have recorded it at 18 frames instead of 24 frames like some Harold Lloyd films. Nice thread hope to hear more.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on September 21, 2007, 09:13 PM:

By far the worst print I have is the Blackhawk railroad film "When Steam was King". It's a good thing they titled the different sections, because the trains are just black blobs and pretty much indistinguishable.

Every so often I watch this turkey and soon realize I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel (... again! Why don't I just toss it?!). Even as a 200 footer it's tough to watch it all the way through!

The sad part is it had to come from a company that made so much other stuff that was so good.

The worse part is I've talked to other collectors that also have this one, and it's not an isolated incident.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on September 21, 2007, 09:51 PM:

Niles films "Of Human Bondage" (1934) was the worst print I have ever seen, feature wise.

Carnival's assorted 200ft. releases look like they went thru a meat grinder.

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on September 21, 2007, 11:03 PM:

Many Atlas Films releases were very poor, but I think the worst prints in my collection are two sets of "Star Trek Bloopers" from Thunderbird. Granted, the source material must've stunk but I've never seen a grainier print.

Doug

Posted by Graham Sinden (Member # 431) on September 22, 2007, 05:40 AM:

I would nominate Waltons print of "laurel and hardys musical moments". I have seen two prints and they are diabolical. I would never show it to a 'non super 8 collectors' audience.

In general I never found any of Waltons prints that good when compared the the blackhawk equivalent, but I feel Walton served the super 8 market well with a lot of different films including train documentries. There was something for everyone with walton, and the boxes were nice.

Graham S

Posted by Mark Todd (Member # 96) on September 22, 2007, 08:19 AM:

A decent Walton County Hospital and Laughing Gravy beat the B, Hawks of those usually.
The early one stripe waltons have a few Belters among them but as you say there are plenty of stinkers around from them as well.
Best Mark.
I see a chap on ebay shops UK compares his minty 16mm Blackhawk copies to DVD and says they are as good or almost as good as the UK dvd set video projected.

PS worst std 8 silent I ever saw was a Perrys Wax Works origional silent feature. I bought a copy but then gave it away, just had to and no way I could have sold it on.Unbelievably bad and also washed out etc, and like watching fog.

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 67) on September 22, 2007, 08:43 AM:

Worst super 8 print I had was The Gorilla. It appeared to have been duped from a Canterbury dupe. the Canterbury print was ok...but this thing.,,,was unwatchable....looked like a bad xerox copy....black black blobs against bright washed out blobs. I finally got a decent 16mm print of it , but don't have the heart to foist that super 8 monstrosity off on anyone.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on September 22, 2007, 08:44 AM:

In another realm altogether:

Once when a friend organized her aunt's attic I found myself the recipient of her late uncle's stash of R8 porn.

Now, even setting the "plots" aside, this was some really BAD film. At one point the framing actually goes out for a couple of seconds and the frame line hangs mid-screen and then goes back to the bottom.

Grain?! Like a swarm of locusts!

I guess viewers of these weren't too big on quality!

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on September 22, 2007, 10:02 AM:

I had forgotten to mention ... "Satan's Satellites", a Niles print of the feature version of the movie serial, "Zombies of the Stratosphere". It was horrible. There was a long night scene that takes place at night, when there was no picture, just completely black!! (at least a good 6 minutes of one reel,
) incredibly dupey!

Your right Doug, those Atlas film releases were a real scream, they were so bad, they were the "Plan 9 of Outer Space" of Super 8mm film prints ...

So incredibly bad ... and yet, you are sadly, perversely, drawn to the screen, screaming within ...

"I'm wasting a frickin lamp on this s**t?!"

Posted by John Hourigan (Member # 111) on September 22, 2007, 11:07 AM:

Worst print on Super 8? -- Holy cow, there are so many that it would merit its own forum let alone its own thread. While I'm a big fan of collecting Super 8 films, I'm afraid there's been more bad/marginal prints (e.g., print quality; sound quality, etc.) than good ones.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on September 22, 2007, 11:43 AM:

It's the bad ones that make the good ones seem more special!

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 67) on September 22, 2007, 08:35 PM:

Yes..osi, I forgot Satan's Satellites.....sound was nasty , too. Not as bad as the 'Gorilla...but just about. Even Universal 8 had a few bad ones. The Incredible Shrinking Woman...was out of focus..had bad color....grainy ....only ran that thing once. and i t's sa t on the shelve ever since I bought it......and that was when it was first released. ugh.
Also..yes..Carnival and Atlas films were horrid...but for kids like me, 1959 and 60,...they were a dollar less than Castle's and they offered titles unavailable elsewhere at that time.

Posted by Patrick Walsh (Member # 637) on September 23, 2007, 01:01 AM:

for me THE DIAMOND MERCENARIES released by Iver films on a 2x400ft version, poor focus and bad sound [Frown]

Pat

Posted by Stuart Fyvie (Member # 38) on September 23, 2007, 03:59 AM:

I recall Columbias 400ft 'Guns of navarone' this resembled a tinted B&W image.
Absolutely dreadful.

Stuart

Posted by Eric Baucher (Member # 809) on September 23, 2007, 03:25 PM:

I know I might just have a bad copy, but my 200' sound copy of Castle films Frenzy, is supposed to be B&W, but it should say BW&LG (Bright White and Light Grey [Smile]

) I have seen washed out looking color prints, but this one is the only washed out B%W I have.

Posted by Xavier Gascon (Member # 381) on September 23, 2007, 04:18 PM:

Well to add a niles, I can said metropolis, with focus problems, definition problems...

I saw that people of this forum haven't buied italian prints [Wink]

An italian copy of raging bull, with sepia tone, but a lot of sepia...

Or Rocky III another italian print, excellent colors and definition, but with hundreds of splices and some scractches, but the seller said 'good condition'....

Best regards
Xavier

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on September 23, 2007, 08:13 PM:

Yay!! Dog pile on Italian prints!!

"and the winner for "Most "flecks" on the print" goes to
"The Rescuers" (Disney) which is almost unwatchable.

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 892) on September 27, 2007, 12:41 PM:

I don't know who distributed MGM titles, but the cartoon "Tale of Two Kitties" (now faded) looked like someone had used the negative to do housecleaning before the print was struck. Fat white specks galore!

Posted by Lee Mannering (Member # 728) on September 28, 2007, 04:06 AM:

Hey Osi !
You cant go knocking The Rescuers matey. My son as a lad used to watch that forever and loved it. Now in his 20's we no longer watch it but fond memories.

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on September 28, 2007, 07:38 AM:

i must have went thru about 6 copys of Jason and the argonauts part 4 the Golden fleece and to this day never got a good one, they were either crap sound or crap picture or both. Focus was too soft.
Anyone got a decent one they want to sell [Wink]

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on September 28, 2007, 04:43 PM:

Hey Lee!

I'll knoeck that darn print as I have been spoiled by great prints from CHc and Derann (among others) and shoddy workmanship is still shoddy.

Don't get me wrong. We've watched it and enjoyed it somewhat, but when you have so many negative scratches plus
many assorted flecks, you attention is taken away from the film thereby taking away from your pleasure.

Posted by Trevor Adams (Member # 42) on January 27, 2008, 01:12 PM:

Gorga....but it could be the worst movie on any gauge!

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on January 27, 2008, 01:45 PM:

All Color CASTLE/U-8 titles are crap! Not one has decent color anymore. Mine are all a nice magenta. NILES' "March Of The Wooden Soldiers" - Crap - can't see a damned thing. Ken's color stuff - crap - mine are all red except for "Crimson Cult" which still has some blues and greens, but the editing is awful and that narration - whoa - what the hell were they thinking?!

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on January 27, 2008, 02:50 PM:

One of the worst must be an obscure 2x400' release of a Beatles concert - filmed in Japan I think. Many years ago at UK film collecting event, a dealer had a stack of new copies being sold off very cheap, so I decided to buy one. The prints were apparently so bad that the dealer tried - and succeeded - in talking me out of buying one!

Posted by Steve Carter (Member # 4821) on May 26, 2015, 02:55 PM:

My worst print is Walton's 'Busy Bodies' Laurel & Hardy, with new box art, it's so out of focus...almost no features on faces...

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 26, 2015, 03:07 PM:

That's a shame: "Busy Bodies" is a great film!

I count the moment where Stan tries to unglue the paintbrush from Ollie's face using the bench-vice as my favorite Laurel and Hardy moment.

I described it an audience once as "perhaps the worst industrial safety film ever made".

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on May 26, 2015, 03:57 PM:

I think most companies released a couple of erm...shall we say "less than perfect" prints.

One of the factors that causes me particular cause of concern nowadays, is shrunken acetate prints.
They do tend to cause excess vertical movement and noise through the gate. Couple this with often poor definition and lots of grain on older B/W prints...and you do sometimes have to question if a title is worth purchasing in this era no matter how nostalgic and desirable.

polyester prints despite their problems beyond pre striped stock,will always be my preference choice when choosing second hand prints nowadays.

My print of W.O.W. though I love it to pieces, does as Steve C says, suffer from the same lack of definition in around the faces on anything but the close ups. [Frown]

[ May 26, 2015, 07:05 PM: Message edited by: Andrew Woodcock ]

Posted by Steve Carter (Member # 4821) on May 27, 2015, 05:03 AM:

Collectors say that the Columbia 200ft Jason & the Argonauts series has turned pink, but my copy of 'Triton Lord of the Deep' has held up well still has blues and greens and is about as good as it was when new,maybe my silicone/wax lube has helped who knows?...

Posted by Alan Rik (Member # 73) on May 27, 2015, 07:01 PM:

I think this one print of a Godzilla film from UFA films. It is the only Super 8 film I have ever seen that has vinegar syndrome, and only one mag track. If i use the projector to rewind the film the normal 400ft expands to almost a 600fter! The picture is decent though.
For print quality it has to be this strange Bruce Lee film that I got off a member here. It looks like someone filmed off of the TV but its released by a film company. Absolutely terrible quality and......silent!!

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on May 28, 2015, 06:37 AM:

I'm not sure that it got out of the lab when it was open, but my worst is reel 1 of "The Great St Trinnian's Train Robbery". I had a maximum density of brightish red, but all the greens and blues are there in sunlit scenes so it doesn't look like it has faded to pink. I bought it unboxed and the reel has a £1.50p price sticker on it. I suspect it was bought by the seller in a bulk lot when Buck Labs stopped producing Super 8.

Posted by Steve Carter (Member # 4821) on May 28, 2015, 07:02 AM:

Olly 'What are you doing?',Stan 'I was looking at the blue-print trying to open the window', Olly 'Why that's the blue-print of the Boulder Dam!'...

Posted by Kurt Gardner (Member # 440) on May 28, 2015, 10:24 AM:

Niles again -- "Beatles in Concert" 400' B&W. Obviously the original material wasn't very good (the screaming of the crowd drowns out the music), but the print quality exacerbates the awfulness.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 28, 2015, 11:54 AM:

I agree, Niles takes the title! The funny thing is that Niles, depending on the title, could put out a great product, if they happened to get a good negative. I remember that "It's A Wonderful Life" was a better than average super 8 print, comparing it to other super 8 companies ...

They're print of "The Little Princess" was pretty good as well, nice and sharp, which was unfortunately printed on fadey Eastman.

... but boy, how awful some prints could be! I remember "Reefer Madness" was one of those washed out messes that had to be dupe number #20 or worse!

The great thing about Niles (on the positive end of things), is that they released a great number of rare titles that no one even came close to touching, and they are to be commended for that!

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