What 8mm films did I watch last night?

[Steve Klare]

Last Night:

Ski-Mania (16mm) Castle Films explores the "newest" (-in the late 1940s) US "fad" of alpine skiing. It's a lot of great action shots including downhill runs and ski-jumping. What I really like about this one is it's a nice presentation of black and white film in Wintertime scenery: it's a beautiful film.

A Train for Christmas (Super-8). The New Zealand National Film Unit rides the Kingston Flyer through a wonderful Southern Hemisphere summer. Shot like a film made by someone who really appreciates steam locomotives.

Shopping For a Queen (Look at Life, Super-8).: The Cunarder Queen Elizabeth has just docked in 1960s Southampton and the passengers from New York are debarking. There is no time for the crew to take shore leave: within only a few days, she needs to be ready to take on the westbound passengers and head back to sea. There are decks to be scrubbed, paint to be refreshed, rolls to be baked, lightbulbs to be changed, pianos to be tuned and conveyer belts loaded with every kind of food you could ever imagine, to be brought aboard and stored. The Mail is being hoisted aboard and the Boat Train has just arrived from London: let's board for New York City!

-multiple continents, multiple seasons, multiple formats: a lot to squeeze within less than 30 minutes!
(It's nice to run your own show!)

[Steve Klare]

I have all of those, Graham!

Last night, I watched a two-parter: Narrow Gauge in Portugal (2x200'). It's a great film, back when Sunday River Productions had some cash to spare and they sent a 16mm crew over to Portugal to film the Meter gauge trains operating in the mountains there. It's old (even back then) German-built steam equipment shown in beautiful scenery and architecture with good color, sharpness and sound. Part 1 was among the train films that made it on screen at CineSea.

I like the film(s) a lot, but they also remind me of a time. Back around 2008-2009, this eBay seller out in Iowa seemed to have this abundance of railroad films and other railroady stuff. Narrow Gauge in Portugal (Part 1) was the first film I bought from her. A couple of buys later, I wrote her and I asked what the back-story was with all these uncommon prints in such great condition. She told me that she and her sister were disposing of their father's estate. (I could sympathize.) I told her that her Dad's prints would be appreciated and well taken care of at my house.

Her father was the most...dangerous kind of hobbyist! He was a neurosurgeon and had the resources to gather a LOT of really cool stuff!

Not only did I buy many more from her, but I helped her out. If she had a film that I already had a print of, I'd write a description of it for her eBay pages. I taught her how to tell if a print had sound or not. She had a couple of 16mm prints (I wasn't there just yet...) and I publicized them in the 16mm Sales section of this Forum. (Now that I have 16mm, I count these as "ones that got away"!)

There came a day some months later and I had to tell her I'd lost my job and I'd have to stand down for a while. In response, she sent me a list of what she had left and let me pick out everything I wanted. A couple of months later when I was back on my feet, we arranged a Buy it Now at a predetermined time and a really good price!

[Graham Ritchie]

Melvin

Airport 75 was one of my favorite digests Airport was pretty good as well, I never had the Scope version of Airport 75, it would have been nice.

Tonight on one Elmo 800ft reel

1....Gone Nutty....stereo
2....For The Birds....stereo
3...."Madagascar Penguins" also stereo, what was interesting watching it tonight, was doing a bit of comparison with the 35mm print I have been screening a lot on the Westar at the Park of late and I must say, the Super 8 print looks as good if not slightly better color wise than the 35mm print.
4.... Finish with Wallace and Gromit "in A Grand Day Out"...mono

Some quick screen shots taken from a previous screening.

[Melvin England]

After enjoying watching this afternoon's F.A.Cup Final, I certainly had no intention of joining the rest of Europe this evening and watching the Eurovision Song Contest.

Instead, it was up to my Man Cave and on with the projector for a cinemascope night which included some recent purchases from CHC's sale last weekend.

So, in cinemascope, I enjoyed......


Ben Hur - 1x 100'- Cineavision trailer

My Fair Lady - 1x 100' - Trailer

Oliver - 1x 100' - Trailer

This is London - 1x 200' - A film presented by the Widescreen Center in London (Tony Shapps).

This is Pompei - 1x 200' - Documentary

Airport - 1x 400' - Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin.

Airport '75 - 1x 400' - Charlton Heston, for the second time tonight!!!!

Summer Holiday - 1x 400' - Cliff Richard. Lovely colour on this print.

Dr. Zhivago - 3x 400' - Omar Shariff, Alec Guinness and Julie Christie. I must say, this version is much sharper than the flat version and this print still had its colour.

.

[Graham Ritchie]

All Derann prints bought new at the time, they are stunning color prints with excellent sound, on one Elmo 800ft reel. When it came to Disney, Derann were the tops in quality prints.

1...."Flower and Trees" 1932.
2...."The Three Little Pigs" 1933, note the photo hanging on the wall of a string of sausages below says Father
3...."Musicland" 1935.
4...."Who Killed Cock Robin" 1935.
5...."Woodland Cafe" 1937 this one is one of my top favorites

[Larry Arpin]

I'm going to torture Osi. Watched my Sci-fi trailer reel. Also a new purchase Three Orphan Kittens. I think I will have to will my Spielberg and Sci-fi trailer reels to Osi when I pass. I once saw someone on Ebay trying to sell the Sci-fi reel for $700.

[Douglas Meltzer]

I watched the CHC release of Hostage, directed by John Woo. This was part of a series of action shorts produced by BMW Films in 2002 that starred Clive Owen as "The Driver", using BMW cars to accomplish the various missions he's been tasked with. The featured model in this one is the BMW Z4 3.0i. It's still a good looking print, however I need to get around to re-recording the audio.

[Melvin England]

Osi - in a nutshell..... Yes!

You can splice the 200' (which is the journey sequence) about three quarters of the way through the 400' at the point when they are setting off.
It is very effective as I have seen and done it. The story still flows beautifully.

[Osi Osgood]

How much does it add up to? Does the Muppet Movie need a 600ft reel now? By the way, does either the 200ft or 400ft have that short cameo with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy?

[Edward Nicielnik]

I have 200 foot and 400 feet extra footage not in 400 feet

[John Armer]

Working my way through my purchases from CHC's May event/sale at the weekend. We had very good weather in Cleethorpes. And great to see the old crowd there plus a couple of new faces.

Good to see you too Brian. I think the 200ft Muppet Movie is really rare - I have only seen it offered once.

[Brian Fretwell]

Working my way through my purchases from CHC's May event/sale at the weekend. We had very good weather in Cleethorpes. And great to see the old crowd there plus a couple of new faces.
1. Roger Rabbit in Tummy Trouble
2. Porky Pig, Dime to Retire
3. Eddie Cantor Kidd Millions
4. Flying Down to Rio 1x400ft
5. The Muppet Movie the 1x400ft, bought to go with my 1x200ft.
6. The Battle of britain 'scope trailer.

[Graham Ritchie]

Always a favorite reel to run, and tonight was one of them. Elmo 1200ft full of a collection of shorts from "Fantasia" very nice color/sound prints all spliced together, only slight fade with ""The Sorcerer's Apprentice" but still looks good. Although I have the full feature on blu-ray, I prefer this Super8 reel as the colors look more natural to me, a lot of depth to them

1...Fantasia trl
2...The Nutcracker Suite.
3...The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
4...Soundtrack Demo.
5....The Pastoral Symphony
6....Dance Of The Hours.
7....Night On Bald Mountain
finishing with Ave Maria

[Alan Paterson]

I watched the Disney 200 foot Super 8 version of 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' last night which I bought off a seller on EBay. I remember seeing when it was released and thinking it was okay but there were other films I preferred to buy, so it was nice to get it after all these yeas and to find it was a decent print with just a slight hint of red in the shadows. I removed a length of green 'Protect a Print' from its head as I recall how that abraded your sound heads back in the day. I gave it a clean with Filmguard and the colours brightened up nicely. There were no scratches to be seen at all. I'm delighted to have it in my collection and love the packaging where a clear outer emulates the effect of adding titles to a cel animation.

[John Fedko]

Winchester 73 .
Love this 400 ft digest of a Jimmy Stewart classic .
A time when westerns were sensational . A very underrated super 8 release . I could watch it every night . Americana at its best .
Great print. Well edited . Love Stewart in this !