What 16mm Films Did You See Last Night?

[Ed Gordon]

Steve, I watched it last night. That print posted on youtube is a standard definition copy which was probably made from a 16mm print like yours. That company, Periscope Films, is a name that seems to pop up often lately. When I searched for your film the youtube post on the Periscope came up first. I found more info on your film at the Periscope website:

76474 NASA HIGHLIGHTS OF 1967 NEWSREEL SATURN V ROCKET

Made in 1967, this Aeronautics and Space Report was produced by NASA. Just ten years after the launch of Sputnik, this film shows some of the preparations for the Apollo 11 moon landing. First, the Surveyor probes are shown landing on the Moon and making photographic surveys. The Lunar Orbiters are also shown — 3 of these craft circled the Moon to create photographic maps of the surface. The Apollo 4 mission is also shown, with a successful test of the Saturn V rocket. In the wake of the loss of the three Apollo 1 astronauts, this film shows (at the 4 minute mark) some of the safeguards put into place to prevent a future incident. Other unmanned space explorers shown include the Biosatellite, the Orbiting Solar Observatory series, and more. The Atlas-Agena rocket is shown launching communications and weather forecast satellites. This includes new satellites for communications with aircraft over the oceans, which were often out of range of ground signals for an hour or more. Also seen is the Mariner V program run through the Jet Propulsion Lab, with William Pickering shown discussing the probe at the 9 minute mark. The San Marco rocket is seen, with a launch platform from near Kenya, is seen at the 10 minute mark. Sounding rocket launches are seen as well from Wallops Island. The XB-70 supersonic aircraft is seen at the 10:40 mark, the F-111 with its variable shaped wings, and the hypersonic X-15 rocket plane which was retired in 1967. The X-15 was pushed toward Mach 7 in a specially-coated X-15 (which here appears white). An HL-10 Lifting Body is also seen being tested at Edwards Air Force Base. The film ends with studies of civil aviation including work to diminish noise from jet aircraft.

We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example like: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com

PeriscopeFilm.com is a great place to research older films. The "transportation" category includes a lot of films on old railroads. I noticed that you can sign up at their site and download digital copies of old films. Their business is selling stock footage. Which I assume is why the video includes an embedded counter so that customers can specify the footage they want.

Now if only I could find a website hosting those old Movietone and Universal newsreels.

[Melvin England]

I think today was probably a first for me! A case of a 16mm MORNING film show ! Cannot remember doing that before and I don't think I have even done one on super 8.

The reason being was that yesterday a film was delivered to my home that I had ordered earlier in the week from one of our colleagues here on the forum. So, as it was pouring down with rain outside and my eagerness to see it was getting the better of me..... come on, you know the feeling..... I gathered in my audience (Mrs. E) and we watched.

It was "Young Winston" starring Simon Ward and a host of other well known faces. 2x 2100' in scope !

The film was exactly as stated. Moderate fade but still some colour. Excellent sound and a very good quality print with the very minimal of scratches. Very pleased with the purchase.

However, this was the first time I used the 16mm scope lens and it seemed to have one or two issues. I will explain why, with an appeal for help, in another topic. Suffice to say it was nothing to do with the print and a very enjoyable, watchable film.

[Steve Klare]

Tonight was something a little bit special: a 1943 US Navy training film: The Precision Spin.

It began "This film is not classified." (-always good to know!)

In this film, student Aviators are shown how to put the US Navy T-6 Texan trainer aircraft into a spin and then pull out of it. For those of us that never fly higher off the ground than driving over a suspension bridge this seems like a really silly thing to do with a perfectly good airplane, but there is a really valuable lesson here: Getting the new guys out in the plane and inducing a spin and then pulling out of it a couple of dozen times might save their lives the day that the spin wasn't induced and they had to cope with an emergency.

It is a lively watch: my son rated it "N" for "Nauseating"! The Narrator/Instructor keeps telling us to "watch the horizon". The problem is that as horizons go, it doesn't stay very Horizontal!

There are all sorts of controls to operate and precision settings to configure: a lot to consider for someone who is several thousand feet in the air potentially plummeting towards their own death if they get it wrong!

"Don't fully close the throttle: vapors may accumulate in the intake manifold and cause the engine to explode." (Whattt? Can't they fix that in the software???)

Even setting the aerial hi-jinks aside: this is an 82-year-old film from a critical moment in World History, maybe a little window into life at a time a couple of decades before my own. (It also pays to consider that many young men who watched this film never lived to be very old.)

It's a nice print in wonderful shape too. The Navy continued to use the T-6 after the end of WW2, so there is no guarantee it is an 82 year old print, but by the same token it is probably a pretty impressive age!

I followed up with a film I recently found that I'd shot about 40 years ago, simply titled "Engines" It is Super-8 Kodachrome of antique engines operating at a county fair followed by an old friend and I operating a couple of my model steam engines out my parents' backyard (-back when it was MY yard too!). I had to operate the engines outside: Mom said they "stunk up the house" -a position adopted by my wife and maintained to this very day!

Kodachrome was so good, it is almost scary! The images on this film look like they were shot six months ago, even if the 20-year-olds on-screen are actually close to retirement age now!

The cut of the leader and the tail being anchored to the reel tell me I last watched this film on my Moviedeck, before I went into sound, which makes it a minimum of 23 years ago. It was like seeing it for the first time.

-but all of this is a part of the magic of film, that some reel of film can sit in darkness on a shelf for most of a lifetime and all of a sudden take us back in time.

All we have to do is give it the chance!
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