8mm Forum: Ken Films Numbering?

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Posted by Jan Adolfsson (Member # 3325) on December 27, 2012, 08:09 AM:

Hi everyone,
I'm compiling a list of Ken Films releases and hoping you can help me with their numbering system.
I know that:
* Three digit numbers are American Internation Pictures.
* P before a number stands for Paramount.
* F and PL- before a number is 20th Century Fox.
* UA- and UA before a number must be United Artists.

But what about:
One-, two- and four- digit numbers.
The kung fu movies whose number begin with the letter 'K'.
Science fiction movies whose number begin with SF-.
Captain Marvel movies whose number begin with CM-.
Numbers that begin with HA-, AW- and A-.

Can the production companies be deduced through the listed number combinations?

Your best
jan.

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on December 27, 2012, 11:07 AM:

Jan,

Ken Films absorbed a number of 8mm distributors (Republic, United Artists, AAP) and kept their numbering system for each company's releases, so the numbers are all over the place. The Republic inventory includes the "SF", "HA", "A", & "CM" prefixes. Some of the UA releases do not start with "UA". They instead have a 4 digit number begining with either 22 or 55. The 22 series are 200' in length and the 55 series are 50 footers.
"PL" was only for the 5 Planet of the Apes films. There are three digit numbers that are not part of the AIP library.
Ken also distributed the MGM releases, which fittingly started with an "M".

Doug

Posted by Joe Caruso (Member # 11) on December 27, 2012, 12:15 PM:

And that comes direct from Doug "The New Shorty" Meltzer

Posted by Jan Adolfsson (Member # 3325) on December 28, 2012, 11:30 AM:

Thanks,

That was great info but much annoying.

There are movies like The Adventures Of Robin Hood with number 2209. The box says United Artists but if I look it up on the web it was distributed (when released) by Warner Bros.

And then we have Rio Grande with number UA-213 (by it's number one would guess the distribution company to be United Artists) but then again when I look it up on the web I found it's distribution company (when released) to be Warner Bros.

And then we have those asian- and b-movies... I think I'll just exclude company information all together.

Thanks again!

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on December 28, 2012, 12:29 PM:

A lot of old Warner titles were owned by UA. Early Paramount by Universal. RKO were sold to other companies too. Now most are owned by just a few companies like Sony/Columbia, Turner I think bought MGM which bought UA which owned early Warners.

If you look at the Derann deal with UA they had both new UA and old Warner titles.

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