What 8mm films did I watch last night?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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!

[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:

[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.

[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!

[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.

[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.

[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 !

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[Edward Nicielnik]

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