What 8mm films did I watch last night?

[Lee Mannering]

Symphony Hour Disney.
Fond memories of this as friend used to give talks on Disney over here so i used to project the S8 films for him.
We got this one new old stock at Blackpool £19.95 when new £20 last weekend. I think today that would be £72 ish for a around 120ft film.
So much fun and detail we watched it three times very much linked to Fantasia.

Surprised sometimes how short some of the Derann prints were.

[Osi Osgood]

Is your Sorcerers Apprentice the Derann re-release, Graham? Could you be so kind as to put up some shots of that? I have been looking for that one for years and would love to see some shots from it. I believe it was slightly letterboxed, like the Fantasia 2000. I have the original WDHM version of this, and while the color is OK, the negative source was already partially faded, ironic, as it came straight from Disney.

[Graham Ritchie]

Sorry Osi I should have added, its the original WDHM and not a Derann release. Long ago I should have taken the opportunity to buy the last reel of "Fantasia 2000" from Derann. As at the time, you could buy the reels separate, included in the final reel was The Sorcerer's Apprentice as well.

I do have some past screen shots from WDHM, its still not to bad, it color seems to be hanging in there

[Brian Fretwell]

A few Blackpool purchases, the Mountain 2 reeler of Top Hat, Little Roquefort & Percy cartoon Haunted Cat and Tom & Jerry Baby Puss.
On Standard 8 a Charlie Chaplin shot named by Mountain as "Last Tram Home".

[Melvin England]

After all the shenanigans that went on last weekend in a certain seaside town in north west England, I thought it was about time to actually sit down and view some of my haul !

So tonight, Saturday, with an audience of Mrs. E., we viewed the following.....


Little Quacker - 1x 200' - Tom & Jerry

Million Dollar Cat - 1x 200' - Tom & Jerry

Genevieve - 1x 600' - A beautiful Derann cutdown. Beautiful as in picture quality, colour, sound and storyline (edit)

Stagecoach - 2x 800' - The John Wayne classic. I didn't realize until I loaded it up that it is actually an optical sound print. Good job I can handle it.


I had planned to watch my "piece de resistance" purchase, one I can now tick off my wish list, but when I inspected it, I noticed that one of the reels was 1600' and, although they are the same diameter as a 1200' spool and could fit my projector, I didn't have a 1600' take up spool so will have to wait until another day. Part 1, that is.

.

[Lee Mannering]

We got another Sorcerer's Apprentice as well first thing I do is record it in Stereo.

I'm now the proud owner of 5 prints Old mother Riley meet the Vampire. Why no idea but it was one of two features we hired in the early 1970s Christmas.
If we hired two features in December they included a free 400ft so they sent Soho Striptease. Mum was non 2 pleased someone made a reel error I think.

Bela always pleases of course so we ended with Human Monster 400ft

[Osi Osgood]

Graham, yours looks just like mine! Check out the print right after it fades out from the titles and starts it's fade in to the original source material. There were no perfect blacks to begin with. I hear that the Fantasia 2000 Sorcerers Apprentice is letterboxed?

[Joe Caruso]

Ah Lee, yes I had that SYMPHONY HOUR in my hand, was about to buy it, set it down and caught something else I wanted; PATHE' PICTORIAL on DISNEYLAND... bought that and forgot the other Disney..ah, what luck...anyway, I'm grateful to have 400' editions on PUNCHY PANCHO (Leon Errol), FORT APACHE (John Wayne), KING KONG (1933), BANDOLERO (James Stewart)..so much more...my special thanks again to all my chums and mates...Shorty

[Steve Klare]

Graham,

I remember back in Derann Used List days (GOOD days they were!) it was quite common to see a Sorceror's Apprentice with "slight colour fade" among the films for sale. I bought one of 'em: the blacks were a deep burgundy yet the color is actually quite nice.

It's been about 20 years and it's still exactly the same, and it looks just like yours, too.

I'd be pretty pleased if all my faded prints looked like THIS "faded print"!

Review: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Shorty, I have "Symphony Hour": a brand-new Derann print I bought to celebrate getting a job after being unemployed a couple of months (ahhh!...memories!). -beautiful print, interesting cartoon too! (It's hard to imagine Mickey shoving a gun in Donald's face! -it's almost Yosemite Sam!)

[Graham Ritchie]

Hi Steve

They were the good ole days alright I haven't seen any real change from "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in years. I think those prints will stay the same way, for hopefully a long time yet.

Osi

I think Steve has a print of Fantasia 2000, so he might be able to confirm it being letterbox. I just did a quick check, the Theatrical release was 1:85:1. The included Sorcerer's Apprentice 1:37:1 , Imax 1:66:1.

[Steve Klare]

That is true, a former Doug Meltzer print actually: one of the best things I ever brought home from CineSea.

It is 1.85:1. I think it is letter boxed AND pillar boxed too.

I have other 1.85:1 Super-8 prints, and only this one requires me to back the machine up a few feet to fully fill the screen. Even zoomed fully-wide, I can't get it into the masking all the way around when the machine is in the usual spot.

What makes this interesting is I normally use the same projection table for this that I use when I want to show 16mm.

-so I can't show Fantasia 2000 and 16mm at the same time without moving furniture around!

[Lee Mannering]

It happens Joe. Symphony Hour is a nice keepsake of a friend who passed on quite a Disney historian over here in the early 90s.

Well we've put the Christmas tree up or part up , roasted some Chesnuts on a open fire and looking forward to watching Show Boat again.
BUT first Rochdale's Gracie Fields in Sing as we go.
Enjoy your evening film friends.

[Melvin England]

Tonight's alternative to the World Cup was as follows....



Pack Up Your Troubles - 3x400' - Laurel and Hardy. Yes, I have already watched this one in the last 5 weeks or so.

..... Then put the 'scope lens on.


West Side Story - 1x 1200' - This was the complete second part of the feature from Maria singing " I Feel Pretty." It was 'scope and stereo. Purchased in Blackpool last month. I can't see the first bit as it is on one of those extended 1600' spools (same size as 1200') but don't have a spare as a take up spool. Picture and sound quality marvellous. Why can't all super 8 be like this ?

June is Bustin' Out All Over - 1x 200' - Extract from Carousel in stereo and 'scope again.

The Great Escape - 1x 800' - Great edit of a great movie. Scope but this time mono.

Oliver - 1x 75' - Trailer - Mono scope

Close Encounters of The Third Kind - 1x 100' - Extended 'scope trailer with a contribution from Spielberg himself. Mono scope.

[Zack Sporre]

Watched an episode of Jack Benny featuring Bob Hope followed byThe Mouse That Jack Built.

[Graham Ritchie]

Back to Super 8 tonight with this one. I bought it new on its release long ago, the film has been shown every year since. The color has faded a little bit, but overall its still pretty good. Back in the good ole Derann days I did by new full length prints of "Santa's Workshop" and "The Night Before Christmas", both films are stunning color prints, so I thought mmmm lets make my original film a special Christmas edition by removing the slightly faded Santa's Workshop and Night Before Christmas complete and replace those two with the full length versions, which I did.

The end result looks really good, starting with the original "Toy Tinkers" followed by the two full length Derann prints, and finish with the original "Pluto's Christmas Tree". This brought the film length to approx 500ft mounted on a Eumig 600ft reel. I am always a bit wary to alter any film, but in this case it worked out really well.