What 8mm films did I watch last night?

[Osi Osgood]

We watched our newest acquisition again, "The Triumph of Lester Snapwell", more of a silent comedy than a history of photography, produced by the Kodak company. Quite entertaining! Has color fade, but extremely rare, and hey, Buster always looked better without color in the first place.

[Richard Bock]

Saw a Blackhawk Standard 8mm Print of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1922) Silent, Starring Lon Chaney. Incredible physical performance by Chaney with terrific makeup and costumes. Great crowd scenes and sets. Chaney inhabits the role of the Hunchback, his facial expressions and most of all the gymnastic physicality are something to marvel at. I was surprised, seeing this little Blackhawk 8mm print how engrossed emotionally I was with the story and the characters. On (5) 400' reels.

[Brian Fretwell]

Both of the Ken Films The Empire Strikes Back 400ft extracts (now rather red) and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother 400ft that strangely had the sound on the balance trck only which I copied to the main track on my Eumig 926 a long time ago.

[Brian Fretwell]

The two Walton film extracts from Vampire Circus, the 200ft pre creit and the 400ft cut-down, both on Fuji stock. Good colour though the 200ft has always been paler than the 400ft.

[Brian Fretwell]

After the video on Piccalo films history link I watched my 400ft of Silent Movies and was delighted to find, even though it is on Eastmancolor stock, that it still has good colours though rather brown in the shadows. I finished off my half hour show with trailers for A View to a Kill (Derann British FIlm Year logo release) and a rathe blue tinted Romancing the Stone and Jewl of the Nile.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Brian,

Years ago I purchased a used print of Silent Movie to find that the German language title cards had been cut out, resulting in bad audio jumps. I later bought another one and it had been cut up the same way!

[Steve Klare]

It took me a long time to assemble a good 'scope setup. It started with an anamorphic, but I had no mount. For a long time I made these absolutely awful jury-rigs with glued-together scrap lumber to hold the lens in good (enough) alignment, but the picture spilled off the screen unless I planted the machine in the middle of the dining room table. (-not good PR for the Film-Collecting Family Man!)

I solved the first problem in 2018. We went to Germany for Christmas. I took the opportunity to order a mount from FFR Filmtechnik and have it delivered to my Aunt and Uncle's house before we got there.

-I just had a feeling about it, so I ordered two!

That's problem #1 solved.

Problem #2 was solved when an auditorium lens arrived

So now I had one good setup to watch 'scope films that was easy to set up and kept the picture on screen even with the machine back where it belonged.

Gradually more pieces became available: a second anamorphic and only recently a second auditorium lens.

-for the very first time, I set them both up at the same time last night!

Three machines, three films, no threading up in the dark. (No awkward pauses either.)
.

For the show, I got out some old favorites in honor of the 4th of July, with an emphasis on Super-8 'scope!

Sounds of Arizona (S8 'scope)
Michigan Canoe Trails (16mm)
America from West Side Story (S8 'scope)
1776 (Projected Video)

[Graham Ritchie]

Nice line up of films Steve, if I remember right Derann released America as a 200 footer. Years ago at a convention the Super 8 feature came up for sale for $50 dollars on Elmo 800ft reels. The feature was sadly minus the first 20 minutes or so. I think it was a Kemski release. To be honest I was never really interested in watching the feature itself, but removing "America" onto one of my Scope mix reels I thought was better use of it, hence this Super 8 extract of it made its way to you-tube. I like the idea of a mix of shorts joined up onto larger reels and this one was an excellent addition.

[Steve Klare]

That's the one, Graham!

AMERICA And “Maria” From West Side Story 1 x 200`. SCOPE. Price code E

After "Maria", "America" starts where Bernardo says "Anita, Josefina..."

Doug showed it 14 feet wide Saturday Night at the last CineSea. Being that I only own the thing (-and it's NOT my projector and screen), I don't think it's too boastful to say I was impressed!

[Brian Fretwell]

A UK TV channel "That's '60's" has recently been showing an appearance of "The Nice" playing their intrumental version of America!

[Lee Mannering]

Completed a new Stereo sound track master for my vintage Ken 400 of Alien. What a difference it makes. Crystal clear and frights from both sides. Great fun.

[Graham Ritchie]

Price code "E" when I was looking through my old Derann newsletters price wise those 200 footers were good value.

[Graham Sinden]

that's a slightly earlier one than I remember which was £27.99 for a long time until the labs closed. Still amazing value for the time and even more so these days. We had it good then.

Graham S

[Graham Ritchie]

That's right Graham, the last new 200 footer I bought and sadly things was coming near the end of the Derann days was "One Froggy Evening". I always bought new prints in support of Derann as much as possible, to this day, I have never sold one of them and never will. What I tried to do, was buy one new feature a year, films like "Rescuers Down Under" was my first followed by "Beauty and The Beast" and "The Lion King". The quality of the Disney prints were, and still are really outstanding. My favourite new shorts were the Silly Symphony series, those color prints are to this day truly amazing to watch.

[Steve Klare]

I'm still set up for two-machine 'scope, so I decided to run 'scope extracts from "Grease".

So I started with this one:

SUMMER NIGHTS- (GREASE) 1 x 200ft. Col. SCOPE. Price Code E

-The very beginning at the beach, the opening title sequence and the song Summer Nights at Rydell High.

I also ran a second Derann Grease "extract" that is so rare that it's literally one of a kind! It's the last reel of the full feature, recorded in sync, so obviously it once had a leader, but somewhere before it was supposed to join the other 6 reels, it was involved in some mishap at Derann and the head was lost. (You might say it was "decapitated"!)

It was on Derann's used list as an orphaned reel and showed up here with no leader and an abrupt beginning in Principal McGee's office as she and Blanche bid the graduating class farewell over the PA system. It runs all the way to the end of the closing credits from there. I took pity on it and put some black leader at the head, and it's had a pretty successful career as kind of an accidental extract in the years since! (Accidental or not, it actually works this way.)