8mm Forum: Films of the Golden Age

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Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on August 11, 2013, 11:40 AM:

In the current edition of the superb national magazine Films Of The Golden Age, 'reel' film collecting gets some real print space in terms of a great 7 page article by editor Bob King.
In his article, Mr. King describes his search, and eventual success, at getting hold of a 16mm print of Home Sweet Homicide, which stars Randolph Scott and Peggy Ann Garner, and is directed by LLoyd Bacon.
The print he eventually got was far from perfect, in fact it did not want to run through his projector at first. But he persisted and eventually was able to run the whole film.
He goes on to describe the "magic of film projection", and says there is nothing quite like it.
Here is the superb final paragraph of his articel:

And, finally, let me try to expalin why I am willing to put up with all the miseries of showing 16mm film. This may be like trying to explain the unexplainable, but I believe that film has a secret ingredient that no one ever talks about. Within that very thin and very fragile layer of light sensitive chemicals they call the film emulsion, there exists something precious. When cinematographer John Seitz set up his camera in front of LLoyd Bacon's house back in the spring of 1946, he caught this thing on film. I know he caught it because I can see it when the Carstairs kids step out into the bright sunlight of Mr. Bacon's San Fernando neighborhood. For some strange reason, you never see this thing on any other movie format- it appears only on film. Somehow the transfer of a photographic image to digital format kills it. I can't prove this, any more than I can tell you what it is. All I know is that it is a living thing and it is real, and I can see it on my film screen, radiating from the faces of people who are no longer with us. I can't explain it, except to say that it is something within the emulsion and it seems to have been created by the light that fell upon the earth that day.

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on August 11, 2013, 01:10 PM:

Excellent. That sums it up for me. Film has something that digital information does not. Call it Factor F, for want of a better description.

Posted by Panayotis A. Carayannis (Member # 1220) on August 11, 2013, 01:16 PM:

The only "mystery" in the film collecting pages of its parent magazine Classic Images is that even now,that they have bought out/absorbed The Big Reel, is that there is no mention at all about 8 mm. Neither in Bob King's and others' articles nor in the ads that take up lots of pages.Reading only this magazine one would think that americans collect only 16 mm and no other gauge.

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on August 11, 2013, 01:47 PM:

Well, the fact is that those magazines are aimed at the Classic Age enthusiast and the vast majority of those would have been collectors of 16mm rather than 8mm. There were, and still are, very many more classic age features available on 16mm than on any other gauge.

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