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Topic: Fletcher Films 8mm & Video?

Lee Mannering
Film God

Posts: 3216
From: The Projection Box
Registered: Nov 2006

posted October 22, 2007 08:48 AM

Was in my local favourite vinyl record shop last week and spotted this video in it. I noticed it was from Fletcher Video who I knew more as Fletcher Films.

Does anyone have any more information on Fletcher as I would like to learn more about them?

It looks like Fletcher went along the lines of Walton and tried a hand at Video releases.

Here is part of the VHS video box.

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Dave Alligan
Film Handler

Posts: 47
From: Suffolk
Registered: Mar 2007

posted October 22, 2007 09:43 AM

Hi Lee

I have a Fletcher 8mm catalogue

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Mark Williams
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 846
From: West Sussex
Registered: Mar 2007

posted October 22, 2007 10:24 AM

Fletcher were a really penny pinching outfit,you usually got 300ft on a 400ft spool as per SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME,COME PLAY WITH ME,THE PLAYBIRDS etc,the quality of there prints was usually poor too,I believe they got there fingers burnt when the Video Recording Act came into play in 1984,which outlawed most of there imported video tapes,they also had a few issues with Video nasties such as DEEP RED.

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Lee Mannering
Film God

Posts: 3216
From: The Projection Box
Registered: Nov 2006

posted October 22, 2007 10:50 AM

Dave..That sound VERY interesting and I certainly would love to see that.

Mark.. If memory is still intact this end I think that was one of Dario Argento films. I used to like his work when I was wee bit younger and even took Dark Side magazine which was fun at that time.

Betty Boop is more my mark these days..

Do have a few Fletcher 8mm flicks and growing interest in the business which brought us true bootlace cinema releases.
Happy memories.

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Barry Attwood
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1411
From: Enfield, U.K.
Registered: Aug 2003

posted October 24, 2007 03:02 AM

Fletcher Films were a very funny outfit, some of there later releases like "The Shape of Things to Come" were crap films, but decent 8mm prints (for once), again as was usual for them, there 400's ran for about 13 minutes, but they ended abruptly, this was because about 3 months later they announced a part 2 was coming out, and guess what, it took up the story from where part 1 finished. They did this with the Mary Millington sex comedies "Come Play With Me" & "The Playbirds". They did quite a few Railway films, and some of those are quite good, especially the B/W ones. They also did some edited features from films that were in the public domain, notably the Sabu film "The Jungle Book" which was released under another title, but strangely has a better print than the F/L imported feature, as Fletcher's came from a decent non-faded print, and has quite good colour. Another film like this was the Fleischer animated "Gulliver's Travels" again there print was the match (or slightly better than Derann's print) for any print around. It's worth looking out for these 2 titles, as the colour has held up quite well on them.

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Mark Howard
Film Handler

Posts: 85
From: Manchester, U.K.
Registered: Jul 2007

posted October 24, 2007 07:53 AM

Lee, I'm glad there's someone else out there who used to partake in Dark Side magazine. Went a bit smutty and cheesy so I eventually dumped it. Deep Red was Argento, made many years ago when he was still good.

I used to have a print of Gulliver's Travels (2x400ft), which I think was a Fletcher film. I also had a couple of 'Fletcher Funnies', but got rid of them many years ago.

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