What 8mm films did I watch last night?

[Steve Klare]

I took things in a little different way tonight...

There's this Blackhawk I've always wanted to have: Catskills Narrow Gauge. It's about a 3 foot gauge railroad that once was in the Hudson River Valley in a region of New York State that's actually pretty local to me and where I spent a lot of happy times as a kid when my family camped up there.

I found a print, but it was kind of a challenge: it's R8 and all of my active duty machines are Super-8 only.

It's not that I have no R8 machines, I have several around the house as displays.

Stepping up to the plate tonight was one Dejur 750: built sometime late 1940s through late 1950s and therefore older than me!
(-something that's getting rarer and rarer these days...)
.

I looked at the bulb: the envelope was clear and the filaments were in good shape: more than good enough to get me through a 200 foot reel. Everything was dusty since this one has stood as a display easily ten years, so I cleaned up as much as I could (-got the spiderwebs out of the lamp house!). Most important of all: the power cord was stowed in the cabinet underneath it!

I threw the switch and it just hummed for a couple of seconds, and then it slowly came up to speed. I threw the lamp switch and got light! It made that hot-dust smell we get every fall when the heat first operates. I slight trail of vapor arose from the lamp house and gradually burned-off. The lamp stayed bright, so we seemed good to go!

The film was 100+ year old footage of a 3-foot gauge passenger train operating upstate, and the connecting funicular that it met. It's a true black and white print and that's a good thing here: many of these that Blackhawk printed on color stock later are red and white at best!

This is not my usual kind of machine: I'm very into sound and run more in the Derann Direction most of the time. Still the same. I respect any machine that has been idle so long and comes back to life so easily: It's basically too simple not to work! (The fact that it's built like a battleship has to help out here too.)

So: It's returned to its usual post with my compliments!
(-and a little less dust!)
.

[Brian Fretwell]

The print of "Oh Mr Porter I bought from Phil at "Film is Fabulous" on Sunday. Good Walton B&W print. Tonight Derann's verson of Jubilee Day 1977 (going a bit pink, no edge markings) and the first two parts of Goldfinger on Agfa stock also from Derann. A little "dupy" looking and with some negative damage, but what a film!!

[Melvin England]

Tonight I watched a couple of films I purchased last weekend at the Big Screen Time Revival get together which, I must add, was very enjoyable.


World on Parade 1x 200' - An optical sound film in French, mostly about fast cars but other bits and pieces. Nice colour.

On The Town - 4x 600' - Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly are granted 24 hours shore leave from the navy, and they intend to enjoy themselves. Another musical with great colour.

.

[Steve Klare]

Something really simple:

-a Sunday River Productions silent 200 Footer called Across the Divide, about a Northern Pacific passenger train crossing the Continental Divide out in Montana. For a Flatlander such as myself, the Rocky Mountain scenery was awesome up on a big screen. This is a nice print in good condition and really comes into its own projected big. (-not half-bad for something I snagged cheap on E-Bay!)

-it's one of the things I've always loved about film: its ability to take me to other times and places I'd never get to experience any other way!

[Brian Fretwell]

My BSTR buys from Sunday, Swing Ding Amigos (Daffy Duck and Speedy late series cartoon) a bit faded (Techno print) and the Iver digest of The Virgin and the Gypsy good colour. Followed by some one I have had for a while a trailer and advert reel I made up wiht ABC intros The Fog, adverts including the Zulu style Silk Cut one, Kiora crows etc An American Tale, Batman, who Framed Roger Rabbit and 2 x Licence to Kill, Esqurie films (Walton) 2 x200 from Au Pair girls (faded) and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex 1 x 400ft, Derann, great colours though the edge marking is Eastman it looks more like LPP.

[Osi Osgood]

What a most interesting idea for a super 8 release! Please tell me that it would have "the rainbow connection"? Actually, you could have both versions! The first version to begin the reel, and then the final version, when the camera pulls back, to reveal all the muppets, to end the reel!

[Lee Mannering]

Muppets Musical Moments 11 minutes available later this year. Beautiful colour I have to say..

[Brian Fretwell]

The Technofilms 3x400ft of the ITC TV show Strange report - Shrapnell. It is on SP, bought at a derann open day just after they bought the old stock when Techno closed, now rather brown but all colours (just) there. I noticed this dhowing that thought it had two advert breaks when shown in the UK the reel changes didn't seem to line up with this (the cliffhangers were just at the start of the next reel!! I assume this was due to minor editing. Still enjoyable, despite having the whole series on DVD, just a pity Network went out of business before they could do a Blu-ray of this series which was shot on 35mm.

[Laim McKenzie]

The Amityville Horror on Super 8 by Ken Films.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Osi,

Very cool! The "Super Cinexin" I have is a toy projector. It came out in the early 70s, however it uses Standard 8mm instead of Super 8.

[Osi Osgood]

Just for the heck of it, I decided to buy a super 8 toy that I had from the 70's, "Pocket Flix" this was a little battery driven movie viewer that had a wide range of titles and unlike other super 8 toys, it was not "edited" down, that it, they take out two or three frames for every frame for those hand cranked cartridges. No, this was full 24 fps. They had everything from the 70's King Kong, 60's Star Trek, cartoons and 70's TV. I bought two cassettes, Spiderman and Happy Days. As expected, the film in the cassettes was highly scratched, ( those little viewers were not kind to film), what surprised me was that they were printed on Agfa 4S, so,e while the color appeared to have faded slightly, it was that bad. The little cassettes ran about 30 to 45 seconds at 24 fps. In the case of some of these 70's TV shows, this was they're only appearance on super 8!

[Osi Osgood]

When I first collected Super 8, I had both the Star Wars part 1, flat, and the part 2 in scope. As anyone can see, the beginning shot on part 1 is in scope, so I added that to the beginning of part 2, as it just seemed to belong there!

[Mike Newell]

Star Wars 2x400. Nice print with good amount of colour from Paul Foster.

[Brian Fretwell]

Carry on Cleao walton 400ft cut down plus a copy of reel 2 of the feature (4x400ft) I bought cheap, possibly at the closing down sale) as it had poor stripe and the sound hadn't been recorded. I did record it but the short cuts made it difficult to sync. Both on Agfa so good colouors.

[Osi Osgood]

They did release it flat.