8mm Forum: Question on Optical Sound Prints.

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Posted by Guy Taylor, Jr. (Member # 786) on August 07, 2008, 08:42 AM:

Was there ever a commercial source for film collectors to buy optical sound features and/or shorts?

I was wondering why Elmo, Eumig, or any other companies manufactured projectors that play optical sound.

The only source of films seems to be airline prints.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on August 07, 2008, 08:53 AM:

Derann and Dave Thomas Films marketed them for awhile. I don't think anyone for years actually officially marketed them, as they were to be destroyed after the month or two run of the films. It's still one of the most tragic posts to read, about having to watch as hundreds of perfectly good prints were destroyed in front of a collectors eyes!

Actually, Super 8 optical sound films were also marketed as educational films. I have three of them, mostly upon hunting Big game, hunter safety and such. I think that, though the optical sound features were out there, this was the main function of the optical sound on the different projectors.

That6's not to say that others didn't attempt to market optical prints. Disney released many a short subject cartoon in optical sound, and overseas, there were a number of digests produced in Mag and optical sound editions. Fellows over in the U.K. can give further verification on that.

So, film distributors tried to tackle it, probably on the basis of it being a little cheaper, (in thoery), as there was no need for a magnetic sound stripe.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on August 07, 2008, 04:09 PM:

Film Office in France released some of their content in optical sound.
I have a couple of Popeye titles and even a B/W Copy of Chaplins Easy Street with a piano sound track.

There were a number of German releases. I have Disney's 200ft extract from Bambi and an extract from the Love Bug. Also there were some German adverts and Train subjects so yes they are about if you keep your eyes open.

Kev.

Posted by Eberhard Nuffer (Member # 410) on August 07, 2008, 05:24 PM:

Kev,

you're right. There were a couple of optical sound releases in Germany in the beginning of the 1970's: Ullstein AV released full length features with what is called a "Lichtton"-soundtrack in Germany, the most attractive titles being "Kind Hearts and Coronets" and "Ladykillers" and a lot of titles nobody cared about. All of the features were preceded by typical 1970's commercials which are now great fun to watch. Ullstein AV offered also some educational and live action fairy tale half-hour shorts which were especially shot for the super 8 release as was the 13 part documentary (13x600') "Weltraum 2000" with the then very popular Professor Heinz Haber.
Initially, all Ullstein AV releases were intended for rental on a weekly basis only, but when it became obvious that the business idea was not that successful, prints were sold via Foto Quelle ("Revue Film").

The optical sound digests (mostly 400') offered by Piccolo Film (and following them "Revue Film" as their business partner) were especially made for collectors: "Lawrence of Arabia", "Bridge on the River Kwai", "Cat Ballou", "The Naked and the Dead" (2x400'), "The Errand Boy" (Jerry Lewis), "Our Relations" (L&H), Walt Disney's "Jungle Book" (220ft) and German classics like "The Congress Dances/Der Kongress tanzt" (1931) or "The Blue Angel/Der blaue Engel" (1930; 2x400').

And last but not least, there were educational shorts of the FWU (Institut für Film und Bild in Wissenschaft und Unterricht) in Super 8 with optical sound which were intended for use in schools.

Posted by Jose Artiles (Member # 471) on August 08, 2008, 08:11 AM:

In Spain there was a company called "claret films",that company was formed by priests like san pablo films in italy i think,they sell titles like samson and delilah full feature in both formats,optical and magnetic,they were in business from 1967 to 2000,in 1997 i made a trip to sevilla were there was the principal rental film library of them( they had five rental film librarys in differents place of spain) and i see the last titles for destroy,about 60 titles,i managed to buy all but the chief priest say that was imposible but they can sell me the magnetics versions so i ended buy them,i return to canary islands with three boxes full of features from them two box super 8 and one box 16mm with titles like shorth circuit,ice castles,death on the nile,ghosthbusters and a joy for me.. Samson and Delilah!

Posted by David Kilderry (Member # 549) on August 10, 2008, 02:25 AM:

An amazing story Jose; that is what I like to hear, classic films in a place that still rented them and you can buy the entire pile!

Here in Melbourne Fox had a Super 8 library with their 16mm titles, I am not sure where all of those prints went to, probably the bin.

David

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on August 10, 2008, 01:06 PM:

I'm always in my hopes that I will find an old camera shop that may have a bunch of Super 8's in storage in thier basement that they'd love to get rid of on some "sucker", as they might think.

When I do travel, I actually look up in the yellow pages of the city that I'm in, for local camera shops, just in the case that I will luck out and find a treasure trove!

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on August 10, 2008, 07:16 PM:

In addition to those mentioned above, I believe Powell films released one or two optical shorts in the UK. Also, in Germany, the Geyer Werke lab put out some optical shorts - I have one and there's another I've been trying to track down for years.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on August 10, 2008, 09:42 PM:

That's one of those strange things about the optical sound Super 8's. I was really excited about Kevin Faulkners optical sound Chaplin short, (and how good the image is). There's always going to be a new "lost" optical short or feature that we haven't heard about!

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