8mm Forum: Favourite 8mm 200" shorts.

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Posted by Mark Silvester (Member # 929) on June 06, 2015, 04:34 AM:

Hi all

I thought it would be nice to create a post and conversation point around our favourite "200 shorts.. (really the backbone of the 8mm hobby in the beginning). Some had the most remarkable editing - concise, yes but still very entertaining. I had many favourites and I would like to kick it off with the following - "Jaws" 200" Universal 8.

Fortunately some fellow enthusiast has posted the full length short on You Tube...enjoy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K62uYZ-3Ik0

Posted by Jean-Marc Toussaint (Member # 270) on June 06, 2015, 04:58 AM:

I'm with you , Mark. The Jaws 200ft is one serious piece of editing in condensing a story. And, brother, is that 200ft spool packed!
I still have a soft spot for "The Aristocats meet Scat-Cat", granted, this is more an extract than a cut-down but this was the very first colour/sound reel that I ever owned after years of collecting silent reels.

Posted by Mark Silvester (Member # 929) on June 06, 2015, 05:29 AM:

Hi

the "Scat-cat" 200 was superb and I always remember the lovely ..deep colours..The great thing about 200" was the challenge - you knew that you had a good editor on board if they could work the material..another of my favourites was "Abbott and Costello meet series"

I had all of the 400"s at one time 8mm and some 16mm...but the true test of an editor was to condense to 200"..got this from you tube "A and C meet Frankenstein" Castle 200...I was disappointed with the 400" that I had..but the 200" looked great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zNgiTmyHtI&list=PL-vD4cYAozxm2cWmYzHrALFZ_lH8pByZo&index=14

Posted by Steve Carter (Member # 4821) on June 06, 2015, 06:06 AM:

I have a soft spot for 'I Was a Teenage Werewolf' 200ft silent Ken Film, I have noticed that it runs better at 24fps in particular the 'gym scene' at 18fps it's almost slow motion, it was the same on my old Astro standard 8 projector when I had a standard 8 copy of the film... web page Teenage Werewolf

Posted by Vidar Olavesen (Member # 3354) on June 06, 2015, 07:02 AM:

I guess mine would be Island of Mystery, my first film ever. The film in full feature I found a bit boring. The 200' captures most of the action

Posted by Mark Silvester (Member # 929) on June 06, 2015, 07:40 AM:

Vidar that was one of my first too back around 1975 when I got that.

Nice little action-er..and good colour if I remember well. A 200" condense takes some ability to make it right!
[Smile]

Posted by Paul Spinks (Member # 573) on June 06, 2015, 09:27 AM:

I agree with Mark's choice of the "Jaws" 200ft being an excellent reel. It is so beautifully edited. Another favourite of mine is Castle's "The Creature From The Black Lagoon", it's a lovely edit. It's a shame Universal 8 didn't give us the option of a non 3D version of the 400 footer as I would have got that. A film I really appreciate is the Disney 200ft reel "Flight of the Hyperion". I have never seen another print of this for sale anywhere, it must be one of the rarest Disney digests ever. It is another extract from "The Island at the Top of the World". I show it with "Escape From Astragard", which is always available on dealers lists and ebay. Just why this reel is so hard to find and the other so easy I do not know. Perhaps they only printed a few prints and then decided against releasing it. It would have been a very popular title when you consider how many "Escape From Astragard" prints were sold.

Posted by Douglas Warren (Member # 1047) on June 06, 2015, 10:36 AM:

I watched my copy of "Jaws" last night.I fully agree,it's one of the best (if not the best) edited 200' reels of all time.Sadly,my copy has started to fade even more now.My personal favorite though for sentimental reasons (plus I simply enjoy it) is Abbot & Costello's "Midget Car Maniacs". My late Father had this one when I was a boy growing up in the 60's.I recently got a near mint copy (Standard 8)that appears to be from the mid 50's,in the original box.I also have the 50' foot version (Super-8) in the original box as well.

Posted by Joe Caruso (Member # 11) on June 06, 2015, 01:11 PM:

Castle's NEPTUNE'S PLAYLAND and AFRICA's VIVID VELDT - BTW, I am in need of a 200' MEET F, the A&C names on the box cover must be in red - Thanks, Shorty

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 67) on June 08, 2015, 06:59 AM:

For true creativity in editing a digest, I would give the Oscar to the unknown person who produced the Castle Frankenstein 200 footer. There are some who don't like it because it actually changes aspects of the film in order to save footage and to have it make sense to those who may never have seen the feature before.
' Titles are over the action of Henry and Fritz entering the graveyard. The editor cleverly removes everyone who comes to the tower to see the "creation'. And the first time viewer never knows they were there at all. The editor uses wonderful wipes and dissolves that were not in the original to speed things up. He..or she...takes the only music in the film, from the feature's opening credits and uses it as an iris type dissolve reveals the face of the monster. He had to do something to save footage because the feature's first reveal takes forever.
The escape of the monster is a bit odd. We don't see him killing Dr. Waldman...in fact we don't see Waldman at all..saving more footage. We see the maria lake scene ...her body carried into town by her father and the villagers going after the monster.
We see creator and creation meeting...Henry carried to the windmill...fire, death and end music over the scene of the windmill fully in flames. Just a clever, first class effort...not just cutting a positive print , but actually using great transitions and other tools to bring us a digest that, if you had not seen the film before, would still make perfect sense and give you a sense of the flow of the original feature.
Also...my first copy was a standard 8 sound print....which rivals 16mm in print quality.
One side note...in the early seventies I noted that Castle had been releasing Universal titles, but no Frankenstein. I wrote to Castle asking if they were planning on doing Frankenstein. I got a reply, which I still have. The person said they had tried it, but couldn't make it work as a silent.(they released silent versions of all their films at that time), but he said "we will have another go at it" or something like that. Within a year they released it. The box art wasn't bad, either.

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