8mm Forum: That Valerie Bertinelli Moment

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Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on July 19, 2016, 09:05 AM:

One of the things I love about collecting films is I keep running into these moments where I get confronted with an opportunity that is so wonderful I don't believe it.

I had several at CineSea where a print I'd been looking for for years popped up right in front of me at a reasonable price and I absolutely couldn't believe it! You start to question if there is something disturbingly wrong with the film or maybe just your own grip on reality, but with trembling hands you fork over the cash and spend the rest of the day saying "yes!, yes!, yes!.." (at least to yourself...).

It's as if I was 16 years old and Mom yelled up the stairs "Valerie Bertinelli is here, she wants to go out on a date with you. The limo is waiting."

(Eddie Van Halen....don't make me laugh!)

It happened again the other day.

You see, right around the time I had that...certain interest in Miss Bertinelli, I was a fairly new film collector: all silents, all railroad films. Brand new prints were a check in an envelope away and with what resources a high school kid could scrape together I bought one or two every couple of months.

I decided one month to buy a print of "The Complete Silverton". This was a professionally produced film of the Denver and Rio Grande passenger excursion operating in the Canyon of the Animas River in Colorado. It's a steam powered narrow gauge train clinging to canyon walls 400 feet up. It's still there and riding it for real is definitely on my bucket list.

The choices were silent for about 30 bucks or sound for about 5 dollars more. I didn't have a sound projector: it seemed like a no-brainer.

About twenty years later I got into sound and I've been kicking my teenage brain ever since!

The other day it was E-bay, buy it now for 10 bucks...with SOUND!

I started to imaging all the things that could be wrong with it: "it's scratched, it's faded, it spent the last 20 years at the bottom of a chicken coop and it smells funny."

-but I forced myself to buy it anyway. I figured at least if I had the soundtrack I could stripe and record my silent.

Turns out to be a really spectacular print: better color than my silent and from the cut of the leader I think I may be the first to ever project it!

Yes!, yes!, yes!..

That's why I never discourage Osi in his eternal quest for Grizzly Adams. It just may happen someday, you just can't ever give up, and the day opportunity knocks, you have to stop yourself from making excuses and click that "Buy it Now" before somebody that wants it a tenth as much as you do beats you to it.

-you may even need to risk the chicken coop scenario!

As for Valerie Bertinelli: she had her chance! If she shows up now my wife will send her packing!

Carpe Diem!

Posted by Paul Suchy (Member # 80) on July 19, 2016, 11:12 AM:

Great story, Steve! When I was a lad, I intentionally put the horse before the cart by buying a few sound films in anticipation of getting a sound projector someday. I ran the sound prints through my silent projector until the magic day finally arrived and I had my GAF 2000S. It's a good thing I had a few sound films already because the balance due on the projector was a loan from Mom and there was no way I could squeeze any more out of her for a film. I'm not married, so I'll call Valarie up for a date (I can ask if she knows anyone with an optical sound print of Grizzly Adams).

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on July 19, 2016, 11:19 AM:

Great Story!

... and I never lose hope in my obsession and obtaining a decent print of "Grizzly Adams". As I've stated a number of times, it takes the right collector, and the right storage circumstances to have at least a decent print of the desired title, no matter the stock, (as my lovely print of "Conduct Becoming" is a testament to, and that one took nearly 7 years).

I'm sure that there is some wonderful ole grizzled collector who has one, or some young buck has obtained they're dead grandfathers collection, and they'll list it on ebay at the most unexpected time ...

(right when were on vacation for days on end ... EGAD!!! That happened to me once!)

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on July 19, 2016, 11:53 AM:

When I was that age, Super-8 Sound was like having a Lear Jet or...dating Valerie Bertinelli. (I think she's married again, Paul!)

-Yes, SOME people did these things, but nobody I knew did!

It was a little too exotic to even consider.

Really, everything worked out for the best: I got into sound anyway, and something is telling me if I actually DID date Valerie Bertinelli in my teens I may never have graduated High School!

Benny Hill once said "A woman like that could destroy a man...if he was lucky!"

-but then again there was my twenties and Terri Garr!

Posted by Melvin England (Member # 5270) on July 19, 2016, 05:32 PM:

..... you mean a Close Encounter with Terri Garr,Steve ??

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on July 19, 2016, 05:45 PM:

-Perhaapze ze roll in ze hay!

-at this stage in life, maybe a high fiber roll!

She always played the girl next door...unfortunately never the girl next door to ME! [Smile]

Posted by Barry Fritz (Member # 1865) on July 19, 2016, 06:39 PM:

A lot of folks knock and gripe about Ebay, but it can't be beat for collectors, no matter what their passion.

Posted by Janice Glesser (Member # 2758) on July 19, 2016, 07:42 PM:

Steve...I wasn't a Valerie Bertinelli fan....but I did enjoy Terri Garr (although probably not for the same reasons as you [Smile]

) Defiinitely Young Frankenstein ... but also Tootsie...Mr. Mom...and Let it Ride are among my favorites.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on July 19, 2016, 08:31 PM:

What can I say, I was a teenage boy and she was massively cute!

I stand by my words though: if I was dating her I would never have graduated from high school!

Imagine basically any teenage boy you know making this choice:

Go out to the Hamptons with Val this weekend and maybe hang out with Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley.

-OR-

Stay home and finish the Social Studies paper you need to turn in Monday morning.

I rest my case!

Terri Garr was a more refined, mature kind of thing. Didn't mean I'd grown any wiser, though!

-and my experience on E-bay has by and large been pretty good!

Let's face it: we are seekers of obscure stuff and there is no better place!

I've had some transactions there where the goods I've received were awful, but then again the seller always made it right.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on July 20, 2016, 11:35 AM:

GOSH! I swear that someone out there has a funny sense of humor! I was watching this morning a early 1960's black and white live concert film that was released to theaters with a stellar line-up. it's a classic, with The beach Boys, James Brown, The Rolling Stones, Jan and Dean, The Supremes, ect.

anyhow ... they had some great background dancers for the film and who was one of them?

YEP!! a very young Teri Garr, strutting her stuff!! The funny thing was that I never even knew she was an actress until i saw CE3K, and then remembered her brilliant work in "Young Frankenstein ...

" Puut ... Zee ... Candell ... Beck!!! "

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on July 20, 2016, 12:01 PM:

Did you catch her in Star Trek the Original Series?

-I've had cars that were older than she was!

Posted by Tom Spielman (Member # 5352) on July 20, 2016, 03:43 PM:

Teri Garr was also a dancer in several Elvis Presley movies. I learned that from an interview she did with somebody. Rumor has it that they dated or had some sort of fling.

I thought she was great in Star Trek.

Posted by Janice Glesser (Member # 2758) on July 20, 2016, 04:35 PM:

I had totally forgotten she was in a Star Trek episode Steve. That was one of my favorite ones too. I liked Robert Lansing. I always thought that episode seemed like a pilot for a spin-off show with Mr. Seven...his cat Isis...and his secretary Teri Garr.

Posted by Joe Caruso (Member # 11) on July 20, 2016, 05:39 PM:

Carpe Diem - I went to Montclair State, that's the motto - Shorty

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on July 21, 2016, 06:04 AM:

I went to the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

-motto: "Two, Four, Six, Eight: We spend much less to graduate! We're big, we're cheap, our lecturers will make you sleep!"

"Assignment Earth" actually was the pilot for a spin-off series, but the network didn't go for it.

"That Miss Lincoln, is simply my cat."

(Rowr!)

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