8mm Forum: Castle or Ken?

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Posted by Timothy Duncan (Member # 4461) on October 22, 2014, 02:31 AM:

Mr. Duncan has chosen to delete his post.

[ February 01, 2015, 11:47 AM: Message edited by: Douglas Meltzer ]

Posted by Joe Caruso (Member # 11) on October 22, 2014, 08:23 AM:

Tim, I'd go with CASTLE, if only for the editing and they of course had access to the vaults at Universal - KEN, not sure where their pre-print was from, not bad, though somewhat slapdash, if you know what I mean - Suggest the adventures, westerns, thrillers and comedies from CASTLE FILMS - And wait till you have the SOUND ones! - Shorty

Posted by Jim Schrader (Member # 9) on October 22, 2014, 09:27 AM:

Tim,
Shorty said it best, the Castles were put together nicely go with those.

Posted by Douglas Warren (Member # 1047) on October 22, 2014, 09:37 AM:

Timothy,
My first two 200' reels many years ago were Castle's (in Universal 8 boxes by then) Frankenstein & House of Frankenstein.I remember buying some Ken Films shortly afterwards and was generally disappointed in them as compared to the Castle reels.I do collect both but Castle's quality remains supreme.
Cheers,
Douglas

Posted by Marshall Crist (Member # 1312) on October 22, 2014, 10:27 AM:

Honestly, the quality differs from title to title with both companies, but overall I would have to say Castle is superior. My biggest gripe about Ken is the narration on the sound digests.

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 67) on October 22, 2014, 11:21 AM:

There really is no comparison, Ken vs. Castle. The only Ken advantages were 1. They had more comptemporary releases, so if you liked modern films, Ken had the advantage. 2. Ken offered more than just 200ft versions. They had 400footers. BUT.....`beyond that, Castle wins hands down ...in terms of 1. the care involved in the editing. Ken usually just cut scenes together with no fade outs, lap dissolves or sound editing, making for a sometimes rag tag presentation. Castle editors for the most part had more leeway, more money to produce their own main titles and credits, to use clever sound editing and mixing to make for a better, clearer presentation. They used dissolves and wipes and any manner of transition tools to smooth things out and condense the story. They managed sometimes to make a nine minute one reel version of a film more of a complete experience than the Ken editors with their 400 footers. Find the Castle version of FRANKENSTEIN, for a prime example. 2. Print quality----Castle wins hands down. Castle usually had access to original 35mm materials and their cut-downs generally looked as good or better than the original features from which the Castle editions were derived. Ken films looked generally like they were made from 16mm prints that the editors simply cut up and then prints were made from those. Some were pretty good, most were just "ok".
So if you wanted comtemporary films , like Star Wars and Alien, etc., then Ken was king. If your tastes went to older classic films, mostly in black and white, Castle was king. In quality, Castle was totally the winner. In terms of editing prowess, Castle was king. They spent more money on each reel than Ken.
And in some cases, you could tell the person doing the cutting down and editing actually knew and respected the feature film they were slicing up. Just look at that Frankenstein reel....they superimposed the main titles over Dr. Frankenstein and Fritz sneaking into the cemetery, saving footage and time for later use. After the "it's alive" scene, bang...an iris type dissolve to the monster....and the editors used the music from the main title of the feature to punch that up. Just a very good job. A loving job. Now some people don't like it because it changed the original feature presentation...but to save footage, to make the film feel complete and whole on its own, they had to do it. And they did it well.

Posted by Guy Taylor, Jr. (Member # 786) on October 22, 2014, 11:32 AM:

These 200' silent digests can be a lot of fun to watch. Castle is definitely the better of the two on average from an editing stand point. It is best to just get the titles that appeal to you. Some of the Ken films are really great too; especially some of the cheesy horror and sci-fi titles.

Posted by John Hourigan (Member # 111) on October 22, 2014, 12:00 PM:

On the editing side, and generally on the quality side, Castle wins the competition. However, outside of the Universal horrors, I found the Castle library and box art a tad boring when compared to the "in yer face" title selection and box art from Ken. Granted, Ken's editing usually was subpar, but my biggest gripe with silent digests was the problem with the slowed down action on the screen. 18 fps resulted in the on-screen action being too slow and 24 fps was too fast. As result, I found it led to a certain "detachment" when viewing these silent digests.

Also, the B&W versions of color films led to a lower quality image on the screen.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on October 22, 2014, 12:10 PM:

Castle, most definitely. Ken films digests ranged from mildly grainy to in some cases, a very grainy mess. Castle films digests (I'm speaking specifically if the original castle Films digests and not the later Universal 8 printings), were incredibly sharp digests, incredibly sharp, especially the earlier standard 8mm digests! They were great.

The editing was pretty damned good as well! [Smile]

Posted by Joe Caruso (Member # 11) on October 22, 2014, 01:39 PM:

Gary Crawford, ever find out about that "squeak"? - Shorty people want to know

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on October 22, 2014, 02:43 PM:

Reading the post about 18fps & 24fps. What was a silent edition of a sound film meant to run at?

Posted by John Hourigan (Member # 111) on October 22, 2014, 03:20 PM:

Great question, David -- at 18 fps and 24 fps, I found the on-screen action to be too slow and too fast, respectively, in silent versions of digests. It was never clear to me what was the correct speed for silent digests. Also, the B&W digest of an originally color movie usually led to horrific print quality.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on October 22, 2014, 06:00 PM:

David, I always watched silent versions of sound films (I use the past tense as I tend to Watch only sound films or genuine silent ones but this thread may make me Watch some of my films again) at 18fps and I never found that was a problem.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on October 22, 2014, 06:15 PM:

Lately I've been watching silents at 24FPS, especially if I know they were originally shot that way.

-especially late at night I find the slower pace tends to put me to sleep!

Posted by Timothy Ramzyk (Member # 718) on October 23, 2014, 01:01 AM:

Ken stuff is still superior to say Columbia in my book, at least with sound 200ft.

The Columbia Straight-Jacket for instance is fun for getting all the mayhem in 8 minutes, but they made no attempt at smoothing out the reedited audio, though the silent version is probably smoother.

If you're into drive-in horror, Ken at least offeres some good American International and Hammer options whereas Castle is mostly classic 30s/40s.

Posted by Joe Caruso (Member # 11) on October 23, 2014, 05:43 AM:

Hey Tim, how did you make out with all 3 volumes of the card repros? - Shorty

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on October 23, 2014, 09:18 AM:

Although Castle generally had better quality prints & editing, I watch the Ken Films silents more often. I'm a big fan of those titles and they're lots of fun!

Doug

Posted by Joe Caruso (Member # 11) on October 23, 2014, 01:46 PM:

So are we all...

Posted by Timothy Ramzyk (Member # 718) on October 23, 2014, 04:28 PM:

quote:
Hey Tim, how did you make out with all 3 volumes of the card repros? - Shorty

I can't complained. They paid for themselves with some change left over, but also with a fair share still unsold, though volume one is getting closer to selling out.

The British film magazine. CINEMA RETRO is supposed to have a forthcoming feature on the golden age of home cinema collecting on film and asked for some input from me as well as some graphics. If it materializes in should prove a fun feature.

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on October 23, 2014, 08:30 PM:

My main complaint with silent editions from Columbia and Ken is that the sub-titles were never what was actually being spoken on the screen. Castle pretty much has it word for word in nearly every digest I own. I have several non-Castle silent titles from both Columbia and Ken and if I wasn't already extremely familiar with the movies the extracts are from I would have no clue what was going on. Some of the silent 3 Stooges titles are terrible with this offense. I run my silent digests at 18fps mostly because when I run them at the sound speed the films tend to suffer the jitters too much. Why this occurs I have no idea. Could it be because my Chinons were designed for films with mag stripes? I have a 6000 and a 7000 and on both a silent film ran at 24fps is very unstable.

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