What 16mm Films Did You See Last Night?

[Melvin England]

Tonight's wander through my 16mm collection was a little like watching a very big 1.33:1 television screen as you will see.......


Sgt. Bilko 1x1000' - "Bilko's Formula Seven." I know.... I watched it three weeks ago......but it IS Bilko....!


M*A*S*H 1x1000' - Not sure of the episode title as it certainly wasn't the one mentioned on the box (Best of Enemies), and no mention on the film leader itself. It was the one where there was a rumour that another MASH unit would be setting up nearby.

The Waltons 1x 1600' - "The Beguiled" - A posh female student runs John Boy off the road, steals his essay notes and plants them in the case of a friend of Jim Bob's who is known to be excellent at sleight of hand. Season 3 Episode 18

The Waltons 1x 1600' - "The Outsider" - Ben arrives home with someone in tow...... his new wife, Cindy. Series 7 Episode 20. Interesting to watch these two episodes together as there are so many differences. By Series 7 all the children are growing up, Grand-father has died, Grandma has had her stroke, Mary Ellen is widowed with a child, and Mrs.Walton wasn't in the series (although there was a phone call to her).


No film show next Saturday evening.

Actually, that is not strictly true. The film show I WILL be attending will be one in the presence of many members of this forum after tucking into a hearty meal in a hotel in a seaside town on the Western coast of England. The name escapes me................ !!!!!!

[Steve Klare]

Well!,

It's getting to be that time of the year. I picked up this little Castle Films jewel on E-Bay this week. It's all of maybe 3 minutes: the shortest 16mm print I have. Along with Christmas Trailer Reel#1 from The Reel Image and many others including the Christmas movies I shot as a teenager, we'll have the Spirit of the Season on screen for sure!

I watched "Silent Night" yesterday: my wife decided she wanted to wait until Christmas to see it for real, so it was no major sound system and broad daylight while she was at the store: it was still really great! (She doesn't even know about Christmas Trailer Reel#1 yet!)

[Janice Glesser]

Watched "The Russians are Coming ..." (1966) with my grandson. My copy is a little faded but always a fun movie to watch.

[Janice Glesser]

I love that it is getting darker earlier now. Last night I watched reel 1 of "Once Upon a Crime (1992) and tonight I'll watch reel 2. Quality is great on this print.

[Melvin England]

Back to 16mm this evening. Since having both machines repaired I promised myself that I would project all my 16mm films in the coming weeks.

Tonight it was......

1x 200' - Local newsreel I rescued from being dumped many years ago featuring our local ferry service

3x 1600' ( more like 3x 1200' ) Kramer vs Kramer - Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. Can't have projected this copy in 20 years. The colour has certainly moved towards pink since the last time, but some colour still there and still good to watch.

.

[Steve Klare]

Wellll...

I guess if there weren't foreign languages, I'd just take piano lessons!

(-I've always wanted to!)

The nice thing about studying German is if I ever washed out of it I wouldn't have a piano to get rid of!

Last night in 16mm: Two Fractured Fairy Tales cartoons. I don't think I've seen one of these since I was 10 years old. They are a little short for all the fuss involved in showing them. I might just put them together on one 400 foot reel.

[Dominique De Bast]

If only the Babel Tower people hadn't existed, Steve...

Last night, a French film (with Danish subtitles) : the classical Le marginal (I don't know how the title was translated in English, "marginal" means non conformist) with Jean-Paul Belmondo, recently dead at the age of 88. Jean-Paul Belmondo (nicknamed "Bebel" in French) was known for realising all the stunts himself.

[Steve Klare]

I had a language adventure last night!

I've been attending German class one night a week for five years now. I'm a descendant of about 10 generations of German speakers including my Dad, who was born here but spoke only German until he was five years old. I found an adult German course that wasn't expensive, wasn't very demanding (1.5 Hours per week, and on Zoom since the lockdown, with no tests and no grades), so I said "Why not?".

Well, I said there were no tests, but last night 16mm gave me one!

Die Kuh showed up from E-bay a couple of days ago, labeled for the West German Embassy to Canada in Ottawa. It has the look of early 1960s television.

Now here's the thing about learning foreign languages: for most of us, real fluency is kind of elusive. Native Speakers started learning when they were babies, it's a pretty faint hope to catch up with them for somebody that started in their fifties! Yes, you can learn many words and the grammar, and I seem to be getting fairly good at reading it, but decoding a native speaker going full tilt is hard! Last night I had the same reaction I often do: "We don't speak this fast in class: please slow down!" (It's all processing speed.)

Then they hit you with some word or phrase you don't know and after that, it's like going down a flight of stairs on roller skates!

(I had the same problems with Spanish when I worked in Mexico...)

-so the smallest details of conversations ran past me like fence pickets in a tornado, but I got the basic idea. An advertising agency is doing a campaign for a dairy company featuring a cow out in a field. They are having trouble drawing her because they don't know which of the front or back legs a cow stands up with first. They go visit a farm and all they see is a cow fertilizing the pasture! -So they ask the Ad. executives: they don't know. -So the Ad. Execs ask the president of the company: he doesn't know. -So he gets on the phone and calls the Ministry of Agriculture. By the end of the movie this question is swirling around the top echelons of the German government!

-so despite me missing the lurid details of whatever the Boss was saying to that stunning blonde secretary (she smiled...), I got the basic gist!

I'm giving myself a "C+", and maybe putting "Die Kuh" on the shelf for a few months! (I might injure myself!)

[Melvin England]

Still ploughing through my 16mm collection at the moment.

So tonight's delight's were......


The Making of A Hard Day's Night - 1x 200' - Brief newsreel going behind the scenes of the well known Beatles film. Also available in super 8.

Let It Be - 1x 1600' - The last 40 minutes of the Beatles film featuring the famous rooftop concert. I wanted to see this again before I get to see Peter Jackson's new version of events, soon to be released.

M*A*S*H* - 1x 1000' - An episode from the TV series entitled "Officer of The Day." (Season 3 Episode 3)


Sgt. Bilko - 1x 1000' - Phil Silvers in an episode "Bilko's Formula Seven" where he discovers moonshine drained through a car's cooling system provides an antidote to ageing when rubbed on the face. (Season 4 Episode 22 or episode 129 overall)

The Beverly Hillbillies - 1x 1000' - An episode "Teenage Idol" when a pop star relative is forced to make a visit. (Season 3 Episode 8)


An enjoyable evenings entertainment.

[Ken Souza]

I watched a super nice print of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein. I think it's A&C best!

[Paul Browning]

Watched one of my twilight zone episodes, "the monster are due on maple street", and what a beauty it is, real blacks and superb contrast, there is a fifth dimension.........

[Lee Mannering]

I See Ice 1938
Good old George Kay Walsh was quite a beauty

[Tom Photiou]

The Blues Brothers, A new addition, requires a little bit of work and in a few days will be all joined up on two 2000ft reels. Great colours and a modern,(1980) musical made for the big screen. I thought this was going to be a film to return to sender but its turned out alright on the night.

[Oliver Feld]

SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS in Cinemascope… Sadly on the red side but beautiful, funny and entertaining anyway.

[Steve Klare]

That's cool, Melvin!

Wildwood seems to have hosted more than it's share of 16mm films. We've seen at least two at CineSea. The most recent was a week ago tonight. It was some Chamber of Commerce film about why you should bring your family to Wildwood for next Summer's Vacation. It's classic 1960s stuff: happy looking families arriving in immense station wagons and splashing in the blue surf. Dad and junior go fishing on a party boat and everyone meets later for a lobster dinner. You look at it with modern eyes and you wonder if life was ever really that perfect!

I have one that arrived from a completely unexpected direction. I E-bayed a Super-8 Blackhawk railroad film about the Budd Rail Diesel Car in the 1950s. One of the lines they showed these operating on was the Pennsylvania-Reading Seshore Lines branch to Cape May. The second to last stop was called "Wildwood Junction".

-up until the moment I first projected this, I had no idea that Wildwood had ever had railroads.