CineSea 29 in Pictures!

[Steve Klare]

Saturday: The Part with Dealer Tables
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The doors opened at 10AM and people seeking film met with people having it!
-Let’s go in and see what’s up!

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Of course there was a lot of good film-talk and smaller screens were getting lit up all day long.

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-both 8mm…
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-and 16mm were there.
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Goofy's Golden Gags and Pluto's Playful Pranks came home with me!

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4PM came and the time came to close the doors. press in the (metaphorical) clutch and shift gears to become a little movie theater.

-but first, we went downstairs and took the group photo. This is essential because back in the days when we did it Sunday morning, people tended to be on their way home before we started. CineSea does have its traditions though, and that picture being in the conclusion to this thread is among them!

Epilogue: After I went home, I commandeered an old file cabinet full of assorted nonsense from 20 years ago nobody needs anymore. (“This warrantee expires November 18^th, 1998.”) Film storage had reached critical mass and there was no more room!

Coming Up Next: Intermission!

[Dominique De Bast]

people seeking film met with people having it!

I love that sentence. And I'm looking forward to see the group picture.

[Steve Klare]

Intermission
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-now, this is not the same kind of intermission you might have experienced decades ago at a movie theater: the goal here is not for you to head for the Snack Bar or the restroom. By the same token you shouldn’t allow this fact to stop you if you feel the need! (Go!...We’ll still be here when you get back!)

The whole idea of CineSea in Pictures (-whatever the number) is to get a feel for what it’s like to be there. This helps those of us who were there to remember, and maybe encourages others who weren’t to join in some other time.

The time when the doors are closed between Dealer Hours and Saturday Night Show is kind of a natural break: time to get something to eat or even contemplate Life and the Nature of Existence if you want.

Maybe this isn’t so much about the Nature of Existence, but let’s have our own Intermission to contemplate some interesting people, and happenings in and around the main event! Please bear in mind too, these are only some of the people and some of what it takes to make CineSea what it is: there are many more people and many more stories.
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Many went out and got something to eat. My son and I borrowed a barbecue from the hotel: I grilled some steaks, and he made mac and cheese upstairs in the room!
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These are Evan and Dave. Evan is a film collector and a filmmaker too! (Not like me! -his have sound!) We have enjoyed his work on screen, too. Dave wears that “Dad Jokes” shirt in total sincerity. He and I trade them in-person when we are there.
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Dave is famed (-and appreciated!) for bringing popcorn, so much that he’s driven it there even when he could not stay and enjoy it himself!
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Dave also prints posters for us. (Cough!)

[Steve Klare]

(Part II)

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These are Todd and (another) Dave (CineSea has exceeded the attendance numbers required to become a multi-Dave event!). They are both long-time citizens of our little film-village
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Tammy and Todd always bring a cake for the group and Dave has entertained
us with a song more than once during Saturday Night Show.

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Claus is seen here with his camera. He provided the majority of the pictures we are enjoying right now (-yet not this one, obviously!). I always remember that this photo essay was his idea. This time he told me that he would contribute the pictures if I did the writing. Truth be told, the one with the camera does the “writing”. I just write down my own reactions to the pictures! (All the news that fits, we print!)
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Geoff and his portable 35mm machine are a formidable pair. I don’t need to describe the
contribution that they make to CineSea! (-it’s kind’a obvious!)

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Then again there are these two guys from Long Island.
(I didn’t catch their names…you know ‘em?)

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My son and I brought our bikes, and after breakfast Saturday, we rode up the Wildwood Boardwalk along the beach and the wide Atlantic. It’s a great ride: 7 miles round trip, but actually quite easy since it’s level and smooth. Near the top we found this wonderful place.

Now, to the grandest majority of people who don’t have a 16mm feature stuffed under their couch, this is some nice local amphitheater, and in truth that’s exactly what it is: they have public concerts all summer.

-and yet you show something like this to me and I see an outdoor movie theater with a projection house just begging to reach its full potential!

It’s like a Drive-In without cars: -a “Sit-In”! (-yet not in a 1960's sense!)

-All it needs is a couple of projectors, a couple of prints, a crowd and a screen!
(-and I KNOW some people, too!)

It’s the mindset of a film collector: we walk into some big public space like a restaurant and my wife’s thinking “I wonder if they have that appetizer I like?”. Meanwhile I’m thinking “I’d put the projectors up on that balcony and hang the screen on that big wall! The acoustics in this room are great!”.

(-yet sometimes we should just let the restaurant BE a restaurant! People are HUNGRY!)

So, Intermission is over now: time to get ready for the last show of CineSea 29. I’ll see you up on the third floor!

Coming Up Next: Saturday Night Show

[Janice Glesser]

I love your commentary Steve! Makes me feel like I'm actually there with you guys. What a treat!

[Steve Klare]

Thanks Janice!

-that's exactly the goal.

Sometimes I read old ones just for the nostalgia of it, and I know for a fact I'm not the only one that does!

[Brian Fretwell]

I love the VistaVision cake decoration!!!

[Ed Gordon]

Thanks Janice!

-that's exactly the goal.

Sometimes I read old ones just for the nostalgia of it, and I know for a fact I'm not the only one that does!

Mission accomplished Steve! I have never been to CineSea, but always enjoy reading your reports.

[Paul Adsett]

i find these CineSea reviews very inspiring. After reading them my immediate reaction is to fire up the GS1200 and run some reels on my home cinema screen. There's just something intangible about the joy of projecting and watching reel film. That picture of Geoff with his 35mm set up says it all - far better than I can!

[Osi Osgood]

Hey! Who's the buffed dude there? He must have a high impact workout doing "ELMO barbells! 😀

[Douglas Meltzer]

Osi, the dude is Dave Boland. He's been coming to CineSea for well over a decade.



Dave is more of a film fan than a collector. It's hard to imagine a show without him. Yup...he could do that Elmo workout of yours!

Now seems a good time to mention the folks who traveled pretty far to join us:

For his first CineSea visit, Mark Wagner came in from Illinois, about 900 miles away.

Al Warner made the trip from Georgia (over 800 miles), also for his first time.

It was Reggie Simpson's 2nd show and he traveled from South Carolina (700 miles!).


Longtime CineSea attendee Guy Taylor drove over 1500 miles from Galveston, Texas.



Both Guy and I are fashionably decked out in shirts from The Columbus Moving Picture Show.

[Steve Klare]

Sometimes I feel a little tired after my own 200 mile drive, and then I think about what people like this go through to be there and it gives me a little perspective!

[Douglas Meltzer]

No matter how short or long the trip, we're very glad everyone came!

[Steve Klare]

Saturday Night Show

-so it came to this! (-Of Course it did! -it was in the Schedule!)

Saturday Night Show is a unique night at the movies: hours and hours of just short films! In a way, it’s kind of an extension of what many of us do at home: grab some random pile of reels off the shelf and project them one after another. The difference here is we have many people and many shelves from all over the Eastern US and sometimes beyond, too. (We've even had a few reels join us by Media Mail!)
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The crowd looks ready for the show!

The key here for an audience member is comfort: comfortable clothes, comfortable chair. The need for…insulation has greatly decreased since we left the Ocean Holiday: we have heat now! Back in days of old, you could often figure out where somebody at Saturday Night Show came from: people from New England might be wearing a sweatshirt, yet the guys from south of Wildwood sometimes had wool hats and gloves!

There are already drinks and snacks in the kitchen, but you can bring your own too.
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Lou, Doug and Shorty always make some opening remarks thanking everybody for coming and talking about the weekend and what lies ahead for CineSea.

There are piles and piles of 35, 16 and S8 waiting on the tables, the machines are set up and checked out, so let’s begin!
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In Ghost of Honor, Casper pitches in in the Animation Department and becomes a Star!

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Building up a Sound-track with Eumig

We had what should be called a “moment” part way through the night. Them Thar Hills is very high on the Laurel and Hardy hit-parade in our house. You see, my family has been RV camping since the summer before I went to kindergarten. For Steven, it’s been since he was about 11 Months old. Naturally, when “Steven’s Dad” (...me!) got a Blackhawk print of his two favorite golden-era comedy stars going camping, it zoomed to the top of his personal list and is no worse than second or maybe third on mine! I brought my own print to CineSea, hoping to give him something special on screen!

-but that Saturday Night, the screen lit up with Them Thar Hills in 35mm! My own S8 print had been preempted! (-and that’s OK!)
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Ollie is suffering from gout and his doctor recommends he “go up into the High Mountains and get away from it all!”. In the next scene, Stan and Ollie are now motoring along a country road pulling a camping trailer with their Model T Ford: a car barely capable of pulling itself. In a series of Laurel and Hardian mishaps, they accidentally get blind-stinking drunk (-exactly the wrong therapy for gout!) and get innocent passerby Mrs. Hall Blind-Stinking drunk too.

Blind-Stinking Sober Mr. Hall on the other hand takes this very, very personally, so.....Let the Games Begin!

(Let’s just say I doubt either Laurel or Hardy got their security deposit back from the place that rented them that camper!)
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As they are making dinner:

Slightly drunk Ollie begins to sing:
“La da dahhhh deee dah-dahhhh dah dah ya-daaa“

Slightly Drunk Stan replies:
“Pom-Pommm!!!“ -and Steven, several others and I joined in too!

-by the end of “The Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor”, all of Saturday Night Show was singing! (It was great!)

(So whoever brought that 35mm print: Thanks! -We had a blast!)
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On screen a little later, I saw someone I hadn’t encountered since I was eight years old! He was The Marlboro Man!

There he was: around the campfire and then up on his Hoss ridin' across a mountain stream under a wide-blue sky! Even given the enhanced risk of cardiac and pulmonary diseases, who wouldn’t want to be him?!! (When I was a-strugglin' with addition, subtraction and spellin' I sure did!)

-but The Marlboro Man and Second Grade myself had a parting of the ways in early 1971. Congress had passed a ban on TV and radio advertising of cigarettes, right about then, he rode off into the sunset: proud, free, maybe wheezing a little!

In my imagination he’s still out there with that great hat, riding that palomino confident and steely-eyed, dragging an oxygen tank behind him on a little cart with a long handle!

Someone had a 16mm print of one of his commercials. It’s what makes these shows interesting: you never know what’s lurking in the collection of another collector!…(and it was nice to see The Man again!)

[Steve Klare]

(Part 2).

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Luncheon at Twelve with Charlie Chase
He is somebody I wish we had more from these days.

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Eivind Mork got to visit us at CineSea (-at least on screen). We saw his video about the 2022 Northern Film Convention in Blackpool, and got to see Shorty there too!
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There’s always some Three Stooges at CineSea! What’s different is this time it was mine! A few months ago, I was looking for an empty 400-foot reel and found Uncivil Warriors in my junk box! Since I have no memory of buying it, I count it as a free film! A little leader at the head and it’s joined the active-duty films on my shelves.

(Serious Civil War historians beware: this is not a scholarly resource! -but it is fun!)
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Tim joined us at CineSea with as great a film story as you might ever hear. Years ago, he was rummaging in his Aunt’s basement and found a crank-operated 35mm projector and a reel of film in a can. His Aunt encouraged him to take these finds home and when he projected it, he found out what he had was “Ambition” with Billy Ruge, who was Oliver Hardy’s first screen partner, well before Stan Laurel.

This turned out to be a sole known print of an otherwise lost film, and on Nitrate film, no less!
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He wrote to Blackhawk Films and Kent Eastin himself responded with a princely offer of $35 to strike 8 and 16mm prints off that 35mm Nitrate. Not very long afterwards he received a check and an early Super-8 print. Today that 35mm print is safely stored at the American Film Institute and we got to enjoy his Blackhawk print and the story it comes with.

Over the last decade or so, there has been an acknowledgement of the role that private collectors have played in the preservation of rare films. The book A Thousand Cuts is full of stories like this as well as the Peter Flynn documentary Film Is Dead. Long Live Film! The story of Tim, his aunt, Ambition and Blackhawk is yet another good example and we heard it in person!
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Special thanks to Doug for the Blackhawk catalog page!

Now, was this all we saw? Of course not! There was so much that if it was all commented on here you wouldn’t want to read it!

-but last call came and that was all for the night!

Most of the rooms are accessible by an open walkway facing the pool area. It’s amazing how still Wildwood is when you stay until that last film!

Coming Up Next: Pack Up, Head Out!