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

[Dominique De Bast]

I cannot complain, Terry 😉

[Terry Sills]

Some would say that you’ve already won the lottery Dom, ‘cos you have some beautiful projectors and a great film collection 😊

[Dominique De Bast]

I would have been happy to answer "many", Terry, but it's just that I'm trying keep the flat where my mum lived in addition to mine (which is only 40 m²) because I want to keep all the furnitures and other souvenirs. There are two bedrooms, so to make it financially reasonnable, I let the second room to a student. There are scaffolding at the moment because of works on the facade so I have two reasons to stay there to keep an eye. The living room is bigger than in the other place so projections are more comfortable there. But I'm still hoping to win the Euromillions (for members from other part of the World, it's the European lotery) to get a big house (I have films and projectors everywhere...)

[Terry Sills]

Hey Dom - how many houses have you got 😳😂

[Dominique De Bast]

I brought a few days ago one of my two Buckingham to the place I live the most at the moment. It's an heavy projector to carry by public transports but since it seems I will spend more timw for a while in this sencond place, it was the oly way to benefit from this great machine. I made a test (for the lens as the distance is different here) with "Fêtes arabes" (Arabic Festivals). The Encyclopaedia dates this film from 1937 but with a "unknown origin" mention so I wonder if it's when the film was relesed on 9.5 or when the film was shot as it looks more like an early sound film. It consists on footage of (as expected) Arabic events, with no dialogue or comment and intertitles. After the test with a 38 mm lens, I swaped it for a 25 mm one to get a large picture on the screen. Today, I've just watched another French sound film : "Quarante ans de cinéma" (Forty Years Of Cinema). As the title suggests it, the film is from 1935. Among other interesting parts, there is an interview of Louis Lumière I don't need to introduce 😀. There is also a demonstration of a "noises machine" (une machine à bruits) used in the silent era. It's capable of reproducing the sound of horses, cars...There are clips of films from the very beginning of the cinema.

[Dominique De Bast]

Two sound films. First one in English : "So This Is Ontario", a documentary from 1936. Among other interesting footage, there is a tram from that time and a train with a steam locomotive. Second film is in French : "Le rat des villes et le rat des champs" (The Town Rat And The Country Rat), a puppetoon orignaly silent, then sonorized (there are no dialogues but all the titles and the intertitles are in French).

[Dominique De Bast]

Two silent films : Ghost Pimples (from a 1939 film) and Beaucitron roi des pêcheurs (Hook, Line And Sinker), a Snub Pollar. My small Ligonie projector, although with a (spaceman, sadly) 50 watt bulb, performs well and gives a very big picture (thanks, of course, to the lens). The same machine with a, say, 150 watt lamp and 240 m/800 ft (instead of half that capacity) would have been a dream. André Ligonie has been unlucky with this model : when he started to sell those projectors, the production of the original super 8 machines from which the conversion to 9.5 was made, ended.

[Dominique De Bast]

I love that projector, Martin. It is design to handle notched films although Pathé gave up this system in 1934 (for the studio films, the amateurs could, of course, still notch their own films). The original bulb was brighter than the one found on Pathé Baby projectors (it's one of the three-!-models accepted on the Pathé Lux machines) but those lamps are harder to find now that the Pathé Baby bulbs so I"m happy the lighting system of my projector has been modified.

[Martin Davey]

I must say that is a beautiful machine Dominique has there!

[Terry Sills]

Thanks for that Dom. I have converted my Baby to a Halogen 10w already and like Janice, it would be nice to get a brighter led. I have a small 12v led torch that gives a blindingly bright light so there must be more powerful LED's available, just a matter of finding a suitable application I guess.

[Dominique De Bast]

Lee, it's the Coq d'or model (1937, I believe).

Terry, here is the Janice's original post : https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-b...=000353#000000

[Lee Mannering]

Dom Would you say the projector was reasonably late 30's ? I'm curious as it has the same feet as my Pathe Vox.

[Terry Sills]

Lovely projector Dom, only ever seen pictures of that model. What led bulb have you used in it?

[Lee Mannering]

Beautiful projector. Looking at those small tightly wound films reminded me when I landed the job of transferring a suitcase full onto DVD absolute nightmare with much curling.
A friend has also been watching some on his Bingoscope recently and I've been battling another Vox Sound projector conversion watching a few Betty Boops as you do.

[Dominique De Bast]

I let the projector set yesterday night and have just watched other notched films. In some travel ones, some words used to refer to locals and some comments would not ne accepted anymore. I didn't find the projection as dark as yesterday, so I assume you get used of what you have. Some films were made to be projected in classrooms (and at that time, 35 pupils was not an exception) so I wonder what the size of the picture was.