8mm Forum: Why I Love Super 8mm Digests

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Posted by Laksmi Breathwaite (Member # 2320) on January 26, 2012, 01:56 PM:

Can you show pictures of the digest super 8 movies you love 200' or 400' ?I love digest Super 8mm because that is the only format other then a trailer that last a minute or to that shows all the fine points and best scenes. I don't have to watch a whole movie to enjoy. I can get a feature film from my collection of Blu-ray,DVD ,or VHS. But seating through a movie that is hours long is sometimes hard if you have seen the movie a number of times. With Super 8 digest I can see many titles in the time it takes to see one feature film. Super 8 is the only medium in the world that you can do that with. And that is why it is rare and special. And I love it!!

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on January 26, 2012, 02:05 PM:

I have to say that, as much as I enjoy film collecting, I've never shared the enthusiasm for digests or cutdowns. I want to see the whole feature or nothing. That's just me.
However, it must've been nice to be able to buy these back in the day when features were not as readily available as they are now on DVD, etc.

Posted by Laksmi Breathwaite (Member # 2320) on January 26, 2012, 05:05 PM:

Yes that is another plus for digest. It must've been nice to be able to buy these back in the day when features were not as readily available as they are now on DVD, etc.
That makes them even more special. I would go out on the streets, parks,beaches,school,and homes. I would show it on walls and sheets to people who could only see them on a small TV or theatre. Some times I would show them out in places where people could not see movies at all. Like in the far away spots like mountains,Islands, deserts,and boats at sea. And at that time you did not have the time or situation to see a whole feature. Plus I get tired and lazy taking all those reels on and of. It is a hassle waiting for reels to rewind on those feature films . And maybe I just wanted to watch a few good killer scenes.

[ January 26, 2012, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: Laksmi Breathwaite ]

Posted by Mal Brake (Member # 14) on January 26, 2012, 07:10 PM:

The abridged versions on super 8 were invaluable when I used to give shows for numerous Senior Citizen groups. With very few exceptions I would be given a 1 hour time slot so full features were out of the question.
However I could give the impression of a 'night at the movies' by mounting a programme on a 1200ft spool to include daysets, adverts, a couple of trailers, a 'Look At Life' or Pathe short, a Tom& Jerry and finally a 400ft/600ft cut-down. Sort of microwave cinema!

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on January 26, 2012, 10:56 PM:

I like them for nostalgic reasons. Takes me back to the 70's when I was a teenager and thrilled to see images of my favorite movies on a screen in my den with my family and friends.

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on January 27, 2012, 04:27 AM:

Years ago when I put on away film shows I used to place those digests onto either 800 ft or 1200ft reels. Done right you can have an interesting 40 to 50 minutes of "something for everyone" reel. Thats very hard with full features, some of the best of the longer digests for me were "Where Eagles Dare" 3/400ft, "Airplane", with a running time of around 50 minutes is another. Airport 75 as a 400 footer was a good one "wish I still had it" and of course a mix of Disney 200ft shorts with T/J cartoons " that have a bit of pace to it on 800/1200ft reels goes down well. To be honest watching full features more than a few times for me is not easy, [Roll Eyes]

but digests that are well edited with the padding removed are just right for most folk.

Graham. [Smile]

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on January 27, 2012, 09:34 AM:

Some digests are great, others are awful, and in many cases rhe boxes are far better than the film inside! I think the most successful digests are those of musical films where the songs and production numbers can be presented in their entirety. The Derann Busby Berkeley double album releases such as 42nd Street and Goldiggers of 1933 were particularly well edited, and the MGM musicals all made wonderful digests. One of the best digests is Universal's Physco, and one of the worst is MGM's Dr Zhyvago.
Today, nearly all my color digests have faded badly. What a shame, because they could have lasted a lifetime (or more) if they had been printed with stable dyes.
Like Mal, I like to sometimes insert a digest into a show. They are great to put people in the mood of the classic cinema.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on January 27, 2012, 09:53 AM:

I have very few digests myself, but when I was at Cinesea I learned that a lot of people appreciate them for the skill it takes to condense an entire feature down to one reel. The same people also get a chuckle out of the bad ones!

Given the choice I like extracts better, epsecially if the editors used sequences that stand on their own like Derann's Fantasia extracts.

Super-8 has such a reputation for these shorts that one day we had company and I told them we were going to watch "Toy Story". They said "Oh? Just a few short parts of it?" and were shocked when I told them I had the whole film.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on January 27, 2012, 11:10 AM:

I think you really had to be around in the 50's, 60's and 70's to really appreciate the impact that the super 8 digest movies had. Up until the 1960's all we had for the home cinema were 200ft silent reels from Castle Films. True, some people had 9.5mm and 16mm sound, but they were in the minority. When the major studios started to release 400ft color sound digests in the 1970's it was just incredibly exciting. Remember that video recording was not yet on the scene, so the idea that you could see say 20 minutes from The King and Ion a big screen in your own home was magical and really captured peoples imagination. Super 8 sound projectors and racks of sound digests were on display everywhere - Kmart, Sears, Montgomery Ward. Once a month a thick catalogue would arrive in the mail from Blackhawk, literally crammed with hundreds of sound titles available for purchase. Columbia, MGM, Paramount, and Warners, printed up lavish full color catalogues of their super 8 titles. Movies Unlimited started their business in the USA, and became the mail order warehouse for any super 8 titles on the planet. It was an amazing time for the film collector, which sadly lasted only for too short a period.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on January 27, 2012, 12:15 PM:

I remember those days, but from afar.

When I was 10 years old and less we used to go to a department store and there were always these wire spin-around racks of Castle digests in the photo department.

I was intrigued, but I'm the first person I knew that had a sound machine, and that happened in 2002! The lady across the street had movies, but she was strictly family films, and silent ones at that.

Oddly enough, I have package films in my blood. When I was growing up my Mom had a job at Universal on Park Avenue, processing shipments of Castle films using IBM keypunch equipment. A couple of years ago I got a Castle newsreel, and invited her out. I thought it was about time she actually got to see one of them.

A few years back when Derann was short staffed, I offered Gary Brocklehurst my Mom to help out...but only if he took (and kept!) my Mother in Law too!

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on January 27, 2012, 12:57 PM:

Paul, what is your assessment of the 3X400ft digest version of Dr. Zhivago? Were you referring to a 400ft version (if there is one) or the 3X400ft?

Posted by Laksmi Breathwaite (Member # 2320) on January 27, 2012, 02:53 PM:

Hey Paul I liked what you said" When the major studios started to release 400ft color sound digests in the 1970's it was just incredibly exciting. Remember that video recording was not yet on the scene, so the idea that you could see say 20 minutes from The King and Ion a big screen in your own home was magical and really captured peoples imagination. Super 8 sound projectors and racks of sound digests were on display everywhere - Kmart, Sears, Montgomery Ward" . Those were fun and exciting times when I could not wait to get my RED FOX catalog to see the new release I could afford. And then wait till it came in the mail. I had all my friends coming over to see a movie that they could not see anymore because it left the theatre and the small TV with all those bad commercials. I love what you said about being 10 anmd looking at the Castle films on the rack in the photo part of the department store. Wow that brings back fond memoirs Steve. Some of you say bad digest and good digest but in those days I didn't care . It was a special time for me to own a film and it is still like that today.

Posted by Gerald Santana (Member # 2362) on January 27, 2012, 04:06 PM:

My introduction to 8mm was through a Fisher Price Movie Viewer that cranked "Lonsome Ghosts" on one cartridge. My mother must have purchased it at a garage sale because that's where we usually shopped for neat stuff on the weekends.

I remember looking though the viewfinder and cranking the picture, going forward and rewinding it. I would often play it in reverse and look at the titles on a still. Then, crank it just enough so that you see in between the wipe from one scene into another.

I never saw anything like this on television since, I was a kid in the 80's:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv1hLNM7N7E

But wonder if there were any advertisements made for Castle Films, Columbia, or Ken Films. Anyway, that cartoon in the Fisher Price toy was sort of like an advertisement for the film, in a way it is a little digest. And I love digests because, they make me feel like a kid again, most of the digests in my collection are meant for children and for the family.

Posted by Terry Lagler (Member # 1110) on January 27, 2012, 07:43 PM:

Yep, nostalgia is a powerful thing - fond memories of going to our local Library and eventually borrowing every film they had. Mostly digests and lots of Blackhawk stuff. So this is what I collect.
OK, well I do have the 33 Kong feature...

Cheers
Terry

Posted by Carter Bradley (Member # 984) on January 28, 2012, 03:36 PM:

I had that Fischer Price handheld movie viewer also. I even purchased all of the film cassettes I could find in local toy stores and removed the super 8 film thinking I could show them on my projector. Unfortunately, the films when projected did not produce a smooth series of frames but what appeared to be jump cuts. I now wonder if these films were printed with about every other frame or so, since our hands would not have created a smooth turn each time. Oh well, I tried to add some footage anyway!

Posted by John Hourigan (Member # 111) on January 28, 2012, 03:56 PM:

Paul, both of your posts hit it right on the head. The 1970s were great years for film collecting, no doubt. Great memories.

Posted by Laksmi Breathwaite (Member # 2320) on January 28, 2012, 10:27 PM:

Thanks Terry for your picture it takes me back to my fond memories and collecting these films. And Osi yeah I had one of those Fischer Price and that is how I got started . Did anyone ever use parts to splice together with other films after brecking them up?

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