What 8mm films did I watch last night?

[Oliver Feld]

Once a year it has to be BUGSY MALONE; so, „If You want to be a boxer“ and have a great time, enjoy this musical Alan Parker masterpiece...

[Brian Fretwell]

A reel of flat James Bond trailers I bought at Big Screen Revivial a couple of years ago. Mainly very pink except the first few seconds of one I'll have to chec if that has been spliced in on the reel or if the master material is of mixed origin. It consists of Casino Royal (David Niven version) Nr No, From RUssia with Love, THuderball, You only live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Diamonds are Forever. This was followed by Betty Boop in Snow White (B&W) and Red Hot Mama (coloured).

[Lee Mannering]

Oliver did you see a genius banjo player in the band? Cough cough

[Oliver Feld]

Oh, Wow: this is YOU, Lee? Amazing!
I‘ve got You on Super-8?
I need to watch it again soon!!!!!!
Wowwww😃

[Oliver Feld]

The player in the center?

[Steve Klare]

Too Many Formats!

We had company over and my wife asked for a show. I was already rigged for 16mm, so I decided to use it. My wife requested a 'scope cartoon, so I rigged for S8 'scope. I chose an academy formatted cartoon, so I had a second S8 machine set up for spherical. The feature was digital, so I set up the VP.

The Line-Up:

Two beautiful 16mm Trailers: Knute Rockney, All American and Citizen Kane
Boundin', (Derann) 16:9, yet S8 anamorphic, Bud Luckey's Pixar Masterpiece
Minions, A wonderful, sharp S8 print with excellent (Literally: BOOMING!) sound
Feature: Star Trek, Generations

Sound award for the night: absolutely "Generations", yet being a projected DVD, the sharpness award was definitely with the 16mm.

I've taken this inter-format madness about as far as I should: every last channel on my audio mixer had a customer. I was reaching around and over machines to operate controls and clean gates: It took several minutes to rewind and turn all this on and off, and come to think of it, the DVD is still inside the player!

I have a personal philosophy of keeping things as simple as I can. Tonight I failed spectacularly.

(To quote Captain Kirk: It was FUN!)

[Lee Mannering]

We were a bit too many films Steve..

Ran a pile of Scope Fox shorts all really enjoyable. Calypso Cruise, Sounds of Arizona, Cowes Regatta, Midway Melodies, International Air Tatoo etc.
Followed by odd sections A New Hope, Romancing the Stone and more. Quite a long show with el Eumig.
Hello Dolly

Romancing the Eumig HID

A New Hope

Cowes Regatta



Ended with good old George No5 Spotlight on a star STANDARD 8 a print that is now 50 years old!

[Lee Mannering]

Yes Oliver its little me with a rather nice Jodie. Those were the days..

[Steve Klare]

I do 'scope nights myself, Lee.

Sounds of Arizona is kind of a special one for me. After I found out about Derann, I took the plunge and ordered a brand new print for the first time in about 20 years. It was Sounds of Arizona because my job had a factory out in Tucson, and I went there many times.

It was a learning experience for me: before that, I didn't understand what an anamorphic print was and what I needed to do about it. You might say it's one of the most expensive prints I own, because (at least so far) it's caused me to need a wider screen, two 'scope lenses, two brackets, an auditorium lens to keep it from spilling off the sides of the screen as well as many other 'scope films after I developed a taste for it .

It's been kind of adventuresome, too! In the campfire scene, Blais Wight is playing the guitar and singing. A couple of years ago he turned 90 and a friend of his wanted to assemble a tribute video. When he Googled this film he found the GOF and me! All of a sudden there was this message on my phone asking about my print!

I talked to the guy for a while, and I provided what little information I could about the film. He wanted to scan my print to use in his video, but we agreed getting a copyrighted, anamorphic, sound, super-8 print scanned in was a little beyond the scope of a "happy birthday" video.

-a week or so later, this showed up as thanks for my help:



(Blu-Ray and DVD are wonderful, but it's kind of hard to imagine them causing these kinds of adventures!)

[Oliver Feld]

Lee
please give me some film history:
how many takes did You all have to do until for example the „Fat Sams Grand Slam“ filming was finished? There are so many camera perspectives?

[Brian Fretwell]

I think you might mean set ups rather than takes there Oliver.

[Lee Mannering]

Don't want to hijack the films last night thread but here is just a little bit of insider info about filming and appearing in Bugsy as a boy and will keep it short :-)

I worked on it for around 6 weeks and a my first big job as a young entertainer. Filmed at Pinewood and even then making my own 8mm movies filming was fascinating enjoying time chatting to the cameraman also 'having a go' on a camera. Fat Sams number we probably spent the best part of a day filming but it was the in-between takes moments that stick for me walking around other studios in particular Slipper and the Rose which was being filmed opposite our studio doors. I was popping in and out chatting to Kenneth More quite a bit which was interesting and these moments happen quite a bit between shooting. Typically they filmed 3 or so takes of each shot but the close ups you see in the custard throwing took much longer. When filming was rapped we all though that was it but we were recalled just before Christmas to do some retakes for the end sequence 'You give a little love'. It was nice going back at the end of the year with a very quiet studio and I had a final wander around bumping into Christopher Lee for the first time but not the last as I literally walked into him at the BBC a couple of years alter.

One thing I was very taken with was the Carry on films corridor which led to the canteen. They lined it with posters and memorabilia really showing how proud the studio was to have them there, although I believe they are no longer on display.

A couple of years later I went back to Pinewood for the open day which was being filmed and as most will know this was made available on S8 as a 200ft reel PINEWOOD STUDIOS OPEN DAY in which Bugsy was featured along with what we called Pedal Sedan cars.
Memories.

[Richard Bock]

Fixed my St1200 Elmo and ran a test to see if I was moving at 24fps. What better voice than WC Fields in Hurry, Hurry. His voice was loud and clear with that distinctive WC Fields drawl and no distortion whatsoever. Basically this little Castle film are the frantic 30's car chase scenes from Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.

[Oliver Feld]

Thank You, Lee...
This is worth a book!
Absolutely amazing memories - and one more reason to watch BUGSY MALONE next weekend once more.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Lee, Thank you for sharing your memories.

Yesterday I took a look at two Universal 8 digests I hadn't seen in quite a while. The Incredible Hulk and The Island.



Both have faded yet a few colors are bravely hanging on.