8mm Forum: Iver, Fletcher and Powell Films

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Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on April 27, 2007, 10:14 AM:

This is an appeal for a bit of help here. I'm working on an instalment of the history of the package movie for 'smallformat' and I need to compile a list of some well known titles and formats (i.e. 1x400ft etc.) from Iver Films, Fletcher Films and Powell Films.

I've already listed a few titles from each but if anyone can supply the titles they have in their collections it would be greatly appreciated.

Also, does anyone have a decent box cover image of 'A Night To Remember' they could scan for me?

Posted by Andrew Wilson (Member # 538) on April 27, 2007, 11:00 AM:

John,with ref.to the scan;Mike Peckham is your man.
Iver films released the likes of MURPHY'S WAR,THE VIRGIN AND THE GYPSY,DARK STAR,CALL OF THE WILD,CARQUAKE and The Texas chainsaw Massacre,as 400footers back in those good old days.
Powell Released HANDS OF THE RIPPER,A NIGHT TO REMEMBER,BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB,SANDS OF (YOU know the one),both in magnitic and optical soundtracks.Sorry John,that's all i can think off;the top of my head.Andy.
P.S.Better still have a word with Mike,he has most of the movie maker mags at his finger tips.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on April 27, 2007, 04:58 PM:

I'd love to find a copy of "Murphy's War", that was an interesting flick!

Posted by Barry Attwood (Member # 100) on April 28, 2007, 02:20 AM:

John,

Here are a few titles I can remember for each:

Iver Film Services:

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre F/L & 4x400' & 400'
My Name Is Nobody (Scope) 4x400'
Carquake F/L & 400'
Treasure Island F/L & 400' (Orson Welles vers.)
Dark Star F/L & 2x400'
The Call of the Wild F/L & 400'
Murphy's War 400' (officially but F/L prints surfaced)
Cross of Iron 400'
The Groove Tube 2 x 400'
Warlords of Atlantis 4x400'
Murder on the Orient Express 4x400' (Quite rare now)
All Creatures Great and Small 2x400'
Raid on Entebbe F/L & 400'
The Virgin and the Gypsy 400'
Gold F/L (50 prints in Scope, very rare find now) & 2x400' Scope
Shout at the Devil F/L (50 prints in Scope) & 2x400' Scope
Redneck 2x400'
The Giant Spider Invasion 2x400'
The Slipper and the Rose 2x400' Scope

Powell Films:

The Sands of Iwo Jima 5x400' & 400'
The Quiet Man 5x400' & 400'
Angels One Five 5x400' & 400'
A Night to Remember 5x400' & 400'
A&C: Jack and the Beanstalk 4x400' & 400'
Munsters Go Home 4x400' & 400'

Fletcher Films:

Loads of Railway Titles
Come Play with Me 2x400'
The Playbirds 2x400'
The shape of things to Come 2x400' (Jack Palance vers.)

They also did extracts from films like the animated "Gulliver's Travels" & Sabu's "The Jungle Book" but used a different title as they didn't really have the rights to them (although their prints were better than the licence holders, strange that)

If I think of more I'll update the list, I hope this helps you John.

Posted by Jean-Marc Toussaint (Member # 270) on April 28, 2007, 02:21 AM:

John,
from IFS, I have:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre(400ft)
Call of the Wild (400ft)
The Triple Echo (400ft)
My Name is Nobody 4x400ft scope

Dark Star will fill a good 600ft spool.

[edited message as I posted when Barry posted...]

I don't think I own Powell or Fletcher releases but then again I have many films in anonymous cardboard boxes and others which don't feature any leaders and titles.

Posted by Barry Attwood (Member # 100) on April 28, 2007, 02:27 AM:

Jean-Marc,

If you have a 4x400' of My Name is Nobody in Scope, then it is the Iver release, Ken Films brought out a slightly masked 400' edition in the U.S., not sure about the rest of Europe, as the 8mm distributors did there own deals for many titles.

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on April 28, 2007, 03:12 AM:

This is all a great help fellas. Keep 'em coming!

I think the box artwork to reel 1 of 'The Shape of Things To Come' is one of the best and worth having for that alone. After all, the film is so bloody awful there's no other reason to have it. I plan to include the box in the article.

Posted by Jean-Marc Toussaint (Member # 270) on April 28, 2007, 05:35 AM:

Barry, it's U8, not Ken - check out the review section where I explain how to splice U8 and Mkg versions together...

Posted by Paul Spinks (Member # 573) on April 28, 2007, 07:31 AM:

IFS released a 400ft horse racing documentary narrated by John Gregson called "The Sport of Kings". I have a 400ft digest of Hammer's "The Phantom of the Opera" with Herbert Lom which I think is one of Powell's.

Posted by Mark Williams (Member # 794) on April 28, 2007, 10:51 AM:

Here's a few more Powell Films releases..

TOUCH OF EVIL ORSON WELLES 5 X 400FT
WINCHESTER 73 JAMES STEWART 5 X 400FT B/W ONLY
THE FABULOUS DORSEYS 5 X 400FT
MUNSTER GO HOME 5 X 400FT B/W ONLY
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA-HAMMER 5 X 400FT B/W ONLY
ASSAULT SUZY KENDALL 4 X 400FT COLOUR
NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT CHRISTOPHER LEE 4 X 400FT COLOUR & B/W
VAMPYRES 4 X 400FT & 400FT DIGEST COLOUR
AN ELEPHANT CALLED SLOWLY 4 X 400FT COLOUR
THE IRON MAIDEN 4 X 400FT COLOUR
FALLEN IDOL 5 X 400FT
FIRST MAN INTO SPACE 5 X 400FT

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on April 28, 2007, 02:11 PM:

A few more titles, or formats not previously mentioned:

IVER
TOMMY 2 different 400' versions but with some duplication of scenes - both different to Coulmbia version
TINTORERA 2 x 400'
THE KLANSMAN 400'*
TEENAGE GRAFITTI 400'*

FLETCHER
PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES 400' (NOT the Hammer film; it's actually scenes from 'Astro Zombies')
Various dance/glamour 50' films with sound

POWELL
THE RAILWAY CHILDREN 4 x 400' and 400'
FIRST MAN INTO SPACE 400'

* Not quite 100% sure but I think these are Iver and 400'

I have the Powell 400' of Hammer's 'Phantom of the Opera' It's a great shame that they decided to only release this film in b/w, a colour version would have been a superb.

[ April 30, 2007, 06:43 PM: Message edited by: Adrian Winchester ]

Posted by Barry Attwood (Member # 100) on April 28, 2007, 04:08 PM:

Jean-Marc,

As I wrote it I thought I'd got it wrong, the trouble is I've never had the U8 400' through my hands (I don't think many were imported into the UK, due to the Iver release I suspect).

Posted by Barry Attwood (Member # 100) on April 29, 2007, 01:58 AM:

Just thought of another 4 Iver releases:

The Legend of Frenchie King F/L (rare) & 400'
The Hound of the Baskervilles (ultra rare) 4x400' (Peter Cooke & Dudley Moore vers.)
The Mad Mad Movie Makers (ultra rare) 2x400'
A Cinderella Story 2x400' (making of "The Slipper and the Rose")

[ April 29, 2007, 05:29 AM: Message edited by: Barry Attwood ]

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on April 29, 2007, 03:12 AM:

Looks like the lists are going to be fairly comprehensive now. Well done chaps!

Posted by Mark Williams (Member # 794) on April 29, 2007, 05:12 AM:

Here's some more Iver titles I have just remembered...

THE AMOUROUS MILKMAN 5 X 400FT
THE MAD,MAD MOVIEMAKERS 2 X 400FT
HUGO THE HIPPO 1 X 400FT
THE PASSAGE SCOPE PROMO 200FT
TEENAGE GRAFFITTI 1 X 400FT
THE KLANSMAN 1 X 400FT
THE VIRGIN & THE GYPSY 5 X 400FT ( UNOFFICAL LIBRARY RELEASE )
THE DIAMOND MERCENERIES 5 X 400FT & 2 X 400FT
ACES HIGH 1 X 400FT
CARRY ON EMMANUELLE 2 X 400FT
TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER 2 X 400FT ( LAST EVER IVER RELEASE?? )

Posted by Barry Attwood (Member # 100) on April 29, 2007, 05:33 AM:

Although not officially Iver releases, I did hear rumours of a couple of so-called video nasties being relased, shall I say, under the counter, these were "I Spit on your Grave" & "Driller Killer", I wonder how many prints were done, I have seen a print of "Driller Killer" once at a show, but I've never come accross the other, although I was reliably informed there were prints struck!

Posted by Mark Williams (Member # 794) on April 29, 2007, 08:30 AM:

Hi-Barry
Blimey!! thats a turn up for the books do you know which company put these out??

I see a few of the so called Nasties were released on German S8 such as Lucio Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD 1 X 400FT,Sergio Martino's MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL 3 X 400FT,THE WHITE GODDESS AKA CANNIBALS 3 X 400FT,EMMANUELLE & THE LAST CANNIBALS 2 X 400FT and the grandaddy of them all Joe D'Amato's ANTHROPOPHAGOUS BEAST AKA THE GRIM REAPER 2 X 400FT.

Derann also released a few 400ft extracts from the banned by the BBFC mondo movie BRUTES & SAVAGES here.

Posted by Barry Attwood (Member # 100) on April 29, 2007, 09:42 AM:

Mark,

It was rumoured to be IFS themselves, but of course these kind of releases are hard to advertise, how I know about it a friend of mine showed me a pamphlet that was included in an Iver film he had just bought direct from them in the late 70's, but apart from one sighting, I've never seen anymore of them, amazing really, perhaps when Iver's fortunes were nose diving they did things like this to bring some quick cash in, I don't think it worked though, do you!

Posted by Mark Williams (Member # 794) on April 29, 2007, 11:00 AM:

Barry,
Well that is a revelation!
It was probably one last desperate attempt to make money by Iver,though they must have made some cash when they diversified into the fledgling VHS market,bet they shifted a few VHS copies of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE!

Posted by Barry Attwood (Member # 100) on April 30, 2007, 08:06 AM:

Iver also did a 3x400' version of the slasher film "Knife for the Ladies" but this was for export only, as I believe PM Films brought a 4x400' out of this title in the UK.

Posted by Mark Williams (Member # 794) on April 30, 2007, 08:58 AM:

Yes,I used to have the Iver print of this title,PM's version was 3 x 400ft too I believe.

Posted by Paul Spinks (Member # 573) on April 30, 2007, 06:18 PM:

I've got the PM 3x400 footer. It's a great little film with Jack Elam and Ruth Roman and the colours have held up very well indeed.
"When the Ripper slashes...Grab your throats and pray!"

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on May 01, 2007, 02:41 AM:

Well the list is now very comprehensive. I'll be including it in the next 'history of the package movie' chapter in 'smallformat' so it should prove to be a good one.

Still haven't been offered a decent scan of 'A Night To Remember' though.

And whilst we're at it has anyone got a scan of 'Hands of the Ripper'?

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on May 02, 2007, 06:36 AM:

Iver also did -

"HELTER-SKELTER: The Manson Murders", 2 x 400 foot version.

James.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 04, 2007, 04:56 PM:

I was REALLY excited to hear that "TOUCH OF EVIL" was released on super 8. I just hope that it wasn't a horror movie with a changed title to that, but the classic Orson Welles film. At the time of release, this was a bomb, not doing much business, but it has become a classic.

Anybody have a print?

Posted by Mark Williams (Member # 794) on May 05, 2007, 09:25 AM:

Hi-Osi,Yes its the real Mccoy,I used to have three full length prints 5 x 400ft but sold them all in the late 70's-what a shame!!
These prints were released as part of Powell films deal with Universal pictures I think they had the rights for 2 years then all unsold prints had to be returned to Universal for destruction,so they are as rare as hens teeth these days.

Posted by David Kilderry (Member # 549) on May 06, 2007, 11:11 PM:

This reminds me I have a 400 ft Call Of The Wild that I have never viewed. It is in my pile of films that I have not gotten around to watching. I still have The Deep bought brand new in shrink wrap; the longer its gone on I just thought I'd keep it new!

David

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