Columbia Pictures features

[Douglas Meltzer]

Brian,

Thank you. I also misunderstood William's reference at first, thinking "What film company was IIRC?"

[Brian Fretwell]

To explain, IIRC = If I Recall Correctly.

[Eberhard Nuffer]

Never heard of IIRC; on the leaders of those MGM prints you can read "Ken Films."

[William Ferry]

Didn't 20th Century Fox do that embossing as well?

Yes, that's right. They were distributed by the same company; IIRC, it was a latter-day variant of the old Ken Films company.

[Osi Osgood]

Didn't 20th Century Fox do that embossing as well?

[Paul Adsett]

I agree Michael, the Columbia reels were the best of any supplier of film prints, very sturdy design and very smart with the Columbia Pictures gold lettering. I have about 4 of these in my collection.
So lets see now, Columbia had the best reels, who had the best boxes? (My vote is MGM - love that embossed Lion on the inside cover!)

[Michael O’Regan]

Those Columbia Pictures reels look great.

[Adrian Winchester]

Brian - in fact that FBI warning mentioning video also appears on the Columbia clamshell boxes for 400' releases. I can only guess when these appeared for certain releases, but I find them surprising as I don't suppose they thought Super 8 and video would co-exist for long. Perhaps they were using similar boxes for video releases and it was quite easy for the manufacturer to produce a modified Super 8 version.

[Osi Osgood]

Sadly, these color features suffered from having different labs do the reels for each feature. In the case of "Cat Ballou", reel 1 was Agfa, while the rest of the feature was quick fade Eastman, sadly. A shame, as this was a very sharp print.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Edward sent me these photos to upload.

[Brian Fretwell]

I would think they would have been pretty late due to the warning about video tapes as well as film in the FBI warning in that box. However I don't know how quickly video (and its piracy) caught on in the USA.

[Adrian Winchester]

Doug - Thanks for the images. They must be the most sturdy Super 8 feature boxes ever made!

Edward - It's a surprise if these were released in 1984, as I'd guess the final Columbia 400' release might have been 1980?

[Osi Osgood]

There you go, Doug! Now I don't have to post the picture, as the only difference is the title of the film!

[Douglas Meltzer]

That sounds just like the box I have for Dr. Strangelove.

[Osi Osgood]

They had lovely box setups. I had "Cat Ballou" and it was in a blue box with separate boxes that slid in and out. I'll get a photo of it soon for you guys.