What 8mm films did I watch last night?

[Graham Ritchie]

Long long time ago the 1970s I bought my first "Look at Life" film, called "Village Of Violins" 1960 and still got it, however the print is fading but its still a interesting film to watch. This was one of three I joined together on a 600ft reel. The second L/L was "Holiday Camp" 1963. This film is very interesting, and a excellent color print bought new from Derann. The last L/L on this reel is "The Eagles Nest" 1962, once again a excellent Derann color print and very interesting.

The Look at Life films were always popular and in many ways a window to the past. Years ago putting on a film show you always started with a cartoon say a Tom and Jerry, then a Look at Life just before the feature. These days I have to admit I don't usually do that, but I really should.

Village Of Violins




Holiday Camp........



The Eagles Nest.......

[Joel Bleakley]

I have an interesting story, I was going through my film collection trying to do a stock take of films I have on 1200 ft reels since a lot of the reels are poor quality or have bad centre sections. I need to order some good quality elmo 1200 ft reels for some. In my stock take I came across a set containing 1 1200 ft reel along with a 400 ft reel but with no marking on it to know what the film was. So I loaded the smaller one first just to check and to my surprise The grease movie full feature! It's not scope but 4X3 with slight tinge of red but not terrible. I didn't even know I had it and cannot remember getting but one hell of a nice surprise indeed!

[Melvin England]

It's been a real super 8 day so far today!

This morning I attended the CHC January sale in Cleethorpes and had a good old rummage though the, literally, mountain of super 8 and 16mm films that were on display, a lot of them awaiting an official listing. Three hours of heaven ,as you can imagine.

This afternoon I decided was as good a time as ever to have a look at them all. So, here is what I watched / bought.


1x 50' Close Encounters of The Third Kind - Trailer (never come across THIS before)

1x200' His Mouse Friday - Tom and Jerry - A black and white version

1x200' Shots of Vengeance - Raquel Welch extract from Hannie Caulder.

1x 200' Ginger Knutt's Christmas Circus - Cartoon

1x 400' Clint Eastwood Trailer Reel........ The Gauntlet / Magnum Force / A Fistful of Dollars / The Enforcer / Thunderbolt and Lightfoot / Two Mules For Sister Sara / Joe Kidd (never come across THIS before, either !)

1x 2000' 16mm - The Towering Inferno. A nice long 55 minute extract with fairly good colour from the point where Richard Wagner's character and his secretary are alone in his room when they smell burning...... to the point where a line is fired though the glass windows of the top floor for use with the escape chair.


Yes, a very good day all told !

[Lee Mannering]

Joel I have much to thank my wife for she did a complete inventory for me, amazing I still have 2 prints of some films but rectifying that!

Glad you made it Melvin
Towering inferno I love and could watch anytime all those stars.

Long day of S8 dubbing but jobs completed including my own massive treat
You only live twice Scope Stereo. Beautiful reelly
Wound up with my vintage 70s Plan 9 from outer space 200ft with sound from a blu ray. That old purchase from Portland London has entertained the masses

[Melvin England]

Spot the clanger in my last post ?

For "Richard" Wagner read ROBERT Wagner.

Too late to edit.

(If I was still at school, that would have been 100 lines....!!)(or a 2 year ban from Blackpool!!!!! Ha Ha!)

[Mark Williams]

A good show last night on my trusty Elmo ST1200 returbished by Bill Parsons...

Black Beauty 200ft
Mickeys Trailer 200ft
The Old Mill 200ft
Over the Top 3 x 600ft Stallone
Martial Arts Trailer Reel 400ft
Mixed Stallone trailer/advert reel 400ft

[Brian Fretwell]

In memory of Peter Bogdanovich I showed the What's up Doc promo "Screwball comedies, remember them" in his honour. He appears, directing, quite a bit in this. Mainly red now as Eastmancolor, but the outside scenes have all colours.

[Oliver Feld]

After a too long time in the archive THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS aka DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES…
The feature needs no description; it’s a great stunning and funny classic!
Great to watch on the big screen.
The negative wasn’t perfect, but the print is!

[Lee Mannering]

Nothing quite like a bit of ROBOCOP to take you back a little bit. Bit of a late show ended with Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde 1920 silent feature tickling the ivories to accompany it, a nice 1200ft from the golden days.

[Melvin England]

Two shows on two consecutive nights for me!

Last Saturday evening the Man Cave was alive to the delights of......


1x 400' - The Deep

1x 400' - The Great Directors from Hollywood and The Stars

1x 400 - The Making of The Towering Inferno (after viewing my new 16mm 2000' chunk the night before)

2x 400' - Carrie. Not seen this for a while. Each reel held its original content (an un re-edited state) so the story jumped about a bit. Why on earth did they mess so much with this film ?

[Brian Fretwell]

2x 400' - Carrie. Not seen this for a while. Each reel held its original content (an un re-edited state) so the story jumped about a bit. Why on earth did they mess so much with this film ?

Because the contract with Warner was that they had to release two extracts that each told a complete story. They were not able, then, to produce two parts that formed a four reel digest - that came later.

[Oliver Feld]

I combined all the cutdowns from Derann and marketing-film (of course in right order😅) and made it a 48 minutes featurette with the german dubbing - and aside from the different material (marketing had this very thin polyester) and different kinds of sharpness it’s working great!

[Carter Bradley]

This past Saturday night I hosted my film club and presented a program of "Happy Endings." The movie marathon included: "The Sound of Music" (400' Ken Films - printed by Bucks Labs, distributed by Mountain Films in London with beautiful color!!), "Abbott and Costello in the Navy" (Universal 8 400' plus additional scenes from "Gobs in a Mess," Castle Films 200'), "A Walt Disney Christmas" (Disney Super 8 400' plus the unedited "Pluto's Christmas Tree," Derann with stunning color), "I'm No Angel" (600' comprised of Universal 8 400' and Castle Films 200'), "Dumbo" (Walt Disney Super 8 2 X 200' extracts, featuring a French edition of "Dumbo Makes the Big Top" (AKA "Le Clown Du Cirque") with sound, as this extract was never released in USA with sound, and "Dumbo, the Flying Elephant", and "Animal House" (Universal 8 2X400').

[Carter Bradley]

[Melvin England]

A black and white night in the Man Cave tonight.


2x 400' - The Maltese Falcon - Some kind soul had previously re-edited all of this in sequence before I bought it ( Warner Bros again, Brian) so now this classic film is almost comprehensible !

6x 400' - Tom Brown's Schooldays - The 1951 John Howard Davies / Robert Newton version.

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