Walt Disney 8mm films, London?

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Hi!

The German company „Globus“ claimed in its catalogs that its Walt Disney movies have been taken over from „Walt Disney 8mm films, London“ (see attached photo from their 1968 catalog). But I haven’t found any details about this British company. And according to various sources on the internet, Disney didn’t create digests itself and didn’t distribute its own films on 8mm/S8 before the foundation of „Walt Disney Home Movies“.

So: Was this „Walt Disney 8mm films, London“ a real distributor that created its own digests? Or was it just a contact address for European companies who wanted to buy a license for creating their own Disney digests? Or are the statements about WDHM incorrect or only valid for the USA?

[Douglas Meltzer]

Joerg,

I'm not sure about WD 8mm Films, London. Before WDHM, a number of Walt Disney titles were available in Standard 8mm & 16mm from Carmel-Hollywood Films. In 8mm, the reel sizes varied from 25 ft. to 200 ft.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

This is an interesting article about WDHM. But it only covers the situation in the USA:

https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/disney-on-8mm/

[Brian Fretwell]

Perhaps it was just a company registration address before the company was fully set up. An address has to be registered at Companies House for legal reasons. It could be an accountants address even.

[Winbert Hutahaean]

This is a bit slightly off from the main topic, but in France I found two different WD releases. The first one seems a bit older with most of them with generic boxes and the later ones are exactly the same artwork with WDHM but with French.

Did the same case also happen in France?

[Rob Young]

Joerg, my thoughts are that this address is a UK office for WDHM. Disney printed WDHM releases for the UK at labs here, so it would make sense to have an office for handling distribution.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Source: http://www.super8rezensionen.de/k-globus.htm
translated with Google translate

Globus-Film was one of the first 8mm (Normal 8) and 16mm narrow film manufacturers and was based in Munich. Various short films were released as early as the early 1950s, which were available until the early 1970s. The soundtrack on these 8mm films was located next to the perforation. At the end of the 1960s, Globus-Film also released many films on Super 8. What's particularly interesting is that Globus-Film owned the rights to Walt Disney films, so they ordered them from France and England and distributed them in Germany. When these cut versions were distributed in Germany, only the cardboard boxes were provided with a German title sticker.

It wasn't until the early 1970s that "German" cardboard boxes were produced. Nature, travel, fairy tale, and slapstick films were released in abundance. Also included was the highly sought-after "Globus-Weltspiegel," which documented current events month by month from 1953 onwards and showed the best scenes from the newsreel "Blick in die Welt."

With the advent of the Super 8 format, most of the Normal 8 films disappeared from the program, and Globus-Film increasingly released animated films. Thus, not only Walt Disney films could be found here, but also some "Tom & Jerry," "Popeye," "Lucky Luke," and "Asterix." However, as already mentioned, all edited versions were taken over by Film Office or Walt Disney Home Movies. Only the title panels were translated into German. Unfortunately, no one at the time considered that the cardboard boxes were not particularly suitable for storage, and thus, today, one rarely finds a colorful film produced by Globus.

Around 1974, piccolo-film obtained the exclusive rights to Walt Disney films for the Super 8 market. Here again, it's interesting to note that piccolo-film, long before they produced their own Walt Disney versions, first took over Globus films and released them with new covers. They simply pre-cut and re-copied the piccolo-film logo (e.g., "Bambi's First Love," "Peter Pan," "The Sensational Football Match," "Dumbo," "Donald and the Lion," "Goofy the Proud Knight," "Goofy's Merry Olympics," etc.). However, some Globus films were not released by piccolo, but by REVUE-Film (which, in turn, were produced by piccolo-film). These included "Pinocchio - Monstro the Whale," "Sleeping Beauty - The Prince and the Dragon," and "Alice in Wonderland." Unfortunately, some Walt Disney 45m cuts were not included at all (including "The Aristocats," "Pongo, the Clever Dalmatian," and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," among others), and can often only be found on eBay today. Only years later did piccolo-film release its own cuts. Globus-Film still exists today.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

In their catalog from 1964, they stated that the Disney movies were taken over from FilmOffice:
http://www.super8rezensionen.de/k-gf64.htm
So it’s strange that they list a British Disney company in 1968.

[Steve Lee]

This Pall Mall address was Disney's original distribution office address, before being taken over by Buena Vista for distribution in the U.K. This then moved up into Wardour Street.