8mm Forum: Buffalo Bills Wild West Show! Blackhawk.

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on March 22, 2007, 04:48 PM:

The "Great Train Robbery" has inspired me to write about some true history on Super 8, released by Blackhawk, entitled,

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show

This is almost amatuer film-making, but then again, everybody was pretty new to this medium, and so, you don't expect, "Gone With The Wind".

A Good deal of the footage deals with a parade down the main street, with Buffalo Bill himself directing the parade, waving his hat about to the applause of the crowd, with periodic titles by Blackhawk, giving commentary.

There was also some footage of the actual wild west show.

These were shot between the years of 1895 and 1908, (approximately), and the very fact that this footage still exists to this day is amazing! This is an actual piece of
real history itself! This wasn't an actor, (well, B BIll did ham it up a lot but that was his job.) and he had started this in the 1880's I believe, a good deal of time before the Wild west itself was dead. Already, as of the 1890's the Old West that we read about, was already close to gone. The Bufallo was close to extinct about that time, (having come back to an extant these days) and the indian fighters were nearly out of a job by then. Buffalo Bill would go to the largely metropolitan areas that were highly civilized by this time and would bring them a taste of the Old West.

As to be expected, with film this old, there a lot of jerky moments and embarassing cuts in the film. The film looks beautiful however. Blackhawk has a wonderful print of this that, while it doesn't come up for sale all that often, still appears on ebay. It has been awhile since I last saw it.

If you get a chance to catch this on standard 8mm or Super 8, buy it!

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on March 22, 2007, 07:25 PM:

Both amazing and cool!

Blackhawk had a touch for extremely old footage, and this is the oldest I've ever heard of.

I have a number of ones like this myself:

1911 Indianapolis 500:(The very first Indy 500) Most People drive faster on their way to work these days. This is the only Blackhawk I ever bought new. (Silver Box)

Charles Lindbergh's Trans-Atlantic Flight: Begins at Roosevelt Field, 2 miles from where I grew up.

Model T: Rise and Fall of the Tin Lizzie: Excellent parade of old cars and shots inside the assembly plant. It's nice to see a Model T in a film without Stan or Ollie reducing it to scrap metal.

This is not to even mention all the railroad films, nor all the excellent Laurel and Hardies and the Charlie Chaplins I haven't even started to collect.

These are the kinds of films that just don't translate on video. For some reason whenever you do encounter ones like them they tend to have a dubbed soundtrack. I've only ever seen one video of old footage they had the decency to leave silent. People walk in the room and say "Why do you have the sound turned off?"

Buffalo Bill would be impressed that Folks in 2007 could still watch his show!

Posted by Joe Caruso (Member # 11) on March 24, 2007, 04:15 PM:

Just scnning through an old Blackhawk Bulletin clearly shows how well-versed they were in historical, western, dramatic, specialty and pioneer film efforts - THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR is one, have a Std 8 Silent, this is the earliest recorded war on film - Only part missing is the main Blackhawk title and I'll gladly swap it for one that has - FROM THE FIRST AIRMAIL TO THE JETS, another aviation beauty, also RAILROADING IN THE EAST (1897-1906), no other company ever did release anything remotely like these and many others - And when it comes to shorts, especially comedies, Blackhawk was unsurpassed - I know - Shorty

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