What 9.5mm Silent or Sound film have you just watched?

[Dominique De Bast]

Two French amateur films in colours and with a soundtrack (mainly music). Two 250 m/800 FT spools consisting in travels around France. Well filmed, excellent colours, some scenes more intersting than others. The soundtrack on one of the film is great, the other has some weak sections. Several well realised intertitles.

[Lee Mannering]

At home with Sabrina. Sabby lived at Blackpool with her parents and the house is still there to see.

Watched a S8 film about a guy with a Specto 9.5 projector going out giving shows in the 50's which was a lovely watch.

Ended with Its a grand old world feature with the great Sandy Powell

[Dominique De Bast]

Lee, your posted the same message, yesterday 🤪

[Terry Sills]

Love the look of that projector Dom. Is that your favourite of choice?

[Dominique De Bast]

For silent and magnetic films, yes, Terry. I use or also for the few 16mm sound prints reperfored to 9.5 I have (or to be precise, I used it as the optical sound doesn't work anymore ; I have to bring the projector to France to have it fixed but the covid and the fact that it's an heavy machine has delayed me to do do). The projector is perfect for 16 to 9.5 prints since the picture is not reversed on the screen. To show original 9.5 optical sound films, you need to put a spécial accessory on the lens.

Yesterday, I watched Voyage au Dalsand (Travel To The Dalsand). The Dalsand is located in Sweden. My cooy has a magnetic track but there is no sound on it. The original title of this film is unknown so I have no idea if a sound version exists. I will probably add music on it.

[Dominique De Bast]

I watched two short musical extracts, one British but with French danse and one from a French film (Accusée, levez-vous). I had the idea at the end to spluce them together to make a longer "film". Ideal as a "filler" in a show. I also watched, since I had been inspirated for the two quoted extracts, another sound extract, the first minutes of A Day At The Soviet Front, but I can hardly do anything else with it that keeping it for testing a projector.

[Lee Mannering]

Dom that's what Covid brain does to you but its improving!

[Dominique De Bast]

As long as you enjoy watching 9.5 films, everything is fine, Lee 😁

Last night : a sound film : "No Rain At Timburi" (1954). It's a British/Kenyan exotic film.

[Dominique De Bast]

Another sound show. Two French documentaries from the '30s : La chasse aux caïmans (Caymans Hunting) and L'hippocampe (The Sea Horse). Then the british feature : Candelight In Algeria (1944), a war film with some sentences in French (sometimes with an Anglo-saxon accent, although the characters are suposed to be Frenchs 😁).

[Dominique De Bast]

The excellent British crime film Calling Paul Temple (1948).

[Dominique De Bast]

An early French talkie : I.F.1 ne répond plus (I.F.1 Doesn't Answer Anymore), 1932. I stands for Ile (Island) and F for flottante (floating). The film is about a plateform built in the middle of the ocean and an attempt to destroy it. As it often happened at that time, there is a German (F.P.1 antwortet nicht) and a British (F.P.1) one. Actors were of course different.

[Dominique De Bast]

An Italian film (dubbed into French) : La couronne de fer (La corona di ferro), The Iron Crown, 1941. Two of the actors of the film, stars of fascist cinema era were executed after mussolini's death. For a reason I don't know, Pathé decided to release the film in two different parts, called "époque" (with a summary of the first part at the beginning of the second one). Each "époque" is made up of two 250 m/800 ft parts. I wonder why they didn't just released the film as a four reelers. I used my Buckingham with a 25 mm lens that gives me a large picture.

[Dominique De Bast]

Another 9.5 sound evening with first two documentaries : Les papillons (The Butterflies), 1949, and Matin de France (Morning Of France, a film that shows three different French places in the Morning), 1942. Then, A Buster Keaton : Mixed Magic (1936). I like the circus films. And finally, a French feature : Les gosses mènent l'enquête (The Kids Investigate), 1947. Without surprise, it's a detective film. Unlike what the title may suggest, there is mainly one of the kids (of a school) who investigates, after a teacher is found hanged.

[Dominique De Bast]

Le journal tombe à cinq heures (The paper comes at 5 o'clock). A French 1942 film with some famous actors of that time, among them Pierre Fresnay who had some troubles at the end of the war for having worked for the German Continental film company. He was quickly released from prison for lack of evidences of collaboration but it appears later that he didn't had to make a big effort to work for the Nazis. He could, however keep on acting.

[Dominique De Bast]

Another Italian film with a French film : L'aigle noir (Aquila nera/The Black Eagle). It's the 1946 remake of The Eagle (1925). Sadly, the first reel of my copy is very damaged (the two others are ok).