What 8mm films did I watch last night?

[Douglas Meltzer]

In addition to the TV episodes, Red Fox also released the two theatrical Lone Ranger films with Clayton Moore, The Lone Ranger (1956) & The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958). One of the episodes is The Ghost of Coyote Canyon with John Hart as the Masked Man. He took over the role for one season and then Moore returned to the show.


From the 1981 Red Fox catalog.

[Osi Osgood]

I just received the first three, black and white Lone Ranger episodes. I'm pretty sure that these were released on Super 8 by Red Fox Films. The interesting thing about these three episodes, is that they were one continuous story over three episodes, w.hich was different from the normal episode of the show, as each episode was a self contained story. I bought them for 49.00 dollars, a good deal, especially since I saw just one of the three episodes on 16mm for 300.00! They are extremely sharp with excellent contrast. A fun, old school night of it. This was first shown on TV in 1949, which was just within a year or so of the "birth" of network TV. They didn't have they're commercials, but that's A OK.

[Brian Fretwell]

two 200ft extracts, Planet of the Apes and M*A*S*H plus the 4x400t The Quatermass (E)Xperiment. The E is missing on the censor certificate but present on the on screen film main title!

[Brian Fretwell]

After watching John Clancy's review of the new 4k Blu Ray I just had to rewatch my 1x400ft of Chinatown by Maketing on EKC32 stock. Sadly black is now a mid brown but all colours till present in daylight scenes.

[Larry Arpin]

Watch Alice in Wonderland digests, both digests on a 400 foot reel. Good color on both reels. Also, my old Steven Spielberg trailer reel. Still great color after all these years. Printed around 1982 when both Kodak stocks were available. I remember the low fade stock was a fraction more than regular Eastman stock. Here are some pics:

[Steve Klare]

Have you experienced this idea where all of a sudden your film collection has outgrown the space you have for it, and you need to get creative to fit it in? Well, a few years ago my 200 footers were starting to overflow their space, so I did something that I thought was kind of clever. I took a large group of 'em and gave them storage of their own.

I got a nice bin with a top that latched in place. When they were all in there, they were safe from harm and all together and organized. I was kind'a proud of myself, but I probably shouldn't have been. You see when you have a nice rectangular bin, the best place for it is on a closet floor. When you have a nice flat surface in a closet (like the top of a storage bin), the natural next step is to put something else on top of it. So in gaining storage, I lost ready access, and as a result I go months without seeing any of these films. It becomes something more intentional, and that means it may not happen without planning. At best, I had put these films in long-term storage: basically entombed them!

The films in the bin are Sunday River Productions prints. Sunday River is (-still is: they sell DVDs now) a company that specializes in what they call archival railroad films. The founder of the company had a hobby of seeking out rare 16mm footage of extinct railroads. His railfan friends kept talking him into getting dupes printed for them and eventually he figured out there was a business here and he started selling Super-8 (and some 16mm) prints.

I got into these when I was in high school, and a Sunday River print was the first anything "film" I ever owned. When I fell out of film during college, I had 9 prints. Since I got back in, and eBay became a thing, I now have about 70. It's unusual to find them, and many times when I do, it's one I already have, but I keep my hook in the water and every once in a while I catch one! Last year, after many dry months I caught two really nice ones I'd never heard of before.

I've found them as used prints all over the world: most from the US, five from the UK and four came from Australia.

These are wonderful films: basically a chance to experience railroads that may have gone under before WW2: alive and breathing. It's a little like having a model railroad on my screen, except these are the real trains.

As I said: I lost access. Last weekend I fixed it! I found I had this nice little cabinet with sliding drawers that was full of miscellaneous junk! (How many network cables and obsolete cell phone chargers does one family need?!).

-out with the junk, in with the Sunday Rivers. I slide open a drawer and there they are at my fingertips!

I've been getting reacquainted these last few days. So far all of them have been silent, so I leave my sound system off and downshift to 18FPS. This will change: roughly a quarter of mine have sound.

Tonight was an excursion on the Rio Grande Southern in 1947. This was a narrow gauge line in Colorado that basically clinged to the mountainsides. During the film, the train climbed so high they broke the snow line and despite it being May, it was Winter again!

The second film was about the Pennsylvania Railroad's famous GG1 electric locomotives. This was in the 1950s, and the last great days of a classic railroad. Everything is polished and beautiful and looks like it will last forever. It's good that they got it on film, because it didn't. I'd say this started out a Kodachrome: the color is spectacular!

[Brian Fretwell]

Mountain did two colour extracts from The Girl Most Likely, Mexican Hat Dance and Splish Splash. I have both and some of the B&W feature.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Melvin,

Barry Attwood asked about Mexican Hat Dance on the Grand Old Forum.
I believe the reel includes the song "All The Colors of the Rainbow" which does feature a sombrero or two.

[Melvin England]

It was a rare double bill up in the Man Cave this evening.

Starting off with....

Calamity Jane - 1x 50' Trailer

South Pacific - 1x 50' Trailer - An alternative version I bought recently that knocks spots off the teaser I possess.

The Girl Most Likely - 4x 400' - Jane Powell has to choose between 3 boyfriends! This was a Mountain black and white version of a colour film.

Bundle of Joy - 4x 400' - Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, who stumbles across an abandoned baby on some steps. This was colour and MUST have been on LPP as the colour is still stunning. No scratches either!

I also watched a 1x 400' entitled "Mexican Hat Dance" which had very good colour, too. Even though it had the MHD title, it looks like it was just one of the reels of The Girl Most Likely. Strange.

[Osi Osgood]

Lee, could you put up a screenshot, per chance? I had this service done to one of my prints as well, and would love to see another print resurrected from a slow pinkish death.

[Lee Mannering]

34 pages of S8 history well done everyone.

We watched the Ken Films Alien 17 minutes. Think I got this from Portland Christmas 1979, so had it a rather long time and a box full of memories.
The film stock is un marked and was pink/red ish, so I decided to chance a colour treatment with Movie Magnetic along with other material some time ago. It came back with much improved colour and so I decided to build a Stereo sound track for it in digital software. The end result is a face lift and nice to recall the memories every time we project it.
Still have the receipt in the box, £170 in todays money.

[Brian Fretwell]

As it is Easter some of you may have guessed that my Derann 'Scope Tom & Jerry "Happy go Ducky" went through the projector last night, for a change with the "new" ,scope lens I bought at Blackpool a couple of years ago. On Agfa, the colour has not noticably changed over the years.

[Graham Ritchie]

Ran a reel of shorts, didn't get far until the lamp blew, not surprising it was getting on. I have had a great run out of it. Once the lamp was changed it was on with the show of nine 200ft shorts. The egg cracker suite and the barber of Saville still looks good, I bought those two new back in the 70s as at that time it was still Castle not U8. The one gem on this very full 1200ft reel, is Tom and Jerry The Two Mouseketeers, this particular print I bought new also back in the 1970s from Walton. What stands out is the stunning color print, even after all these years it still looks as good today as when I bought it over 40 years ago.

[Ed Gordon]

Red prints can be digitally restored. I was watching John Clancy's Youtube channel last evening and his latest video is on 4k scans of 35mm film. Towards the end of the scanning discussion they mention that they are able to scan red prints that are considered lost and recover the color using DaVinci Resolve. If you have a red print that can not be replaced, it is possible to scan it and create a digital version that can be color-corrected to look like a new print.

The video is below. The discussion of red prints begins at the 20:35 time mark.

Scanners Inc. have been creating and supplying 4K video transfers from 35mm film to cinemas now for some time. In this video we meet Scanners Inc. founder Peter Aldanmaz as we attend a screening of their 4K DCP transfer of Roger Avary's 1993 classic 'Killing Zoe' at the Prince Charles Cinema just off Leicester Square in the West End of London. The Scanners Inc. ambition was to create digital video transfers that replicated the original look of a film print as closely as possible. This would facilitate authentic looking film screenings around the world for cinemas who have lost their 35mm film projection equipment. The Prince Charles Cinema still screens 35mm film on a daily basis (regular 70mm screenings are featured too), so this is the ideal location to test this new venture to an audience. Some of that audience give their opinions after the screening. We later speak with fellow Scanners Inc. team member Lincoln Barrett and Peter Aldanmaz to go through some of the issues they came across when creating this new, accurate version of 'Killing Zoe', what their plans are for the future and also take a look at the cine to video transfer scanning unit in action. Parts of this video were shot by Peter Aldanmaz. Lincoln Barrett re-processed the sound from the Zoom conference to eliminate unwanted echo and to equalize all the volumes.

[Brian Fretwell]

I think, like my copy, a lot of the Bridge on the River Kwai prints were made on 3M colour stock, which has not aged well.