What 8mm films did I watch last night?

[Steve Klare]

Tonight I had a visit with an old acquaintance, if not a friend: Steam Locomotives of North America

It was something like Summer, 2002: this thing happened to me. I had been a reasonably happy silent Super-8 kind of guy, until I read on the 'net that this company called "Derann Film Services" was printing brand new Super-8 films. The wrinkle was they were all sound!

I went through several stages of if not grief, then maybe surrender.

Shock: "How can this be?!! Before I got on the 'net I thought 8mm film was DEAD!"
Denial: "Just because somebody prints new Super-8, I'm not going to buy them!"
Anger: "Why can't they offer even a few silent titles??!!"
Bargaining: "Maybe I can show their films on my silent machine and be happy!" (-er...no!)
Depression: "There's a Bolex sound machine on E-bay, but I don't feel like buying it!"
Acceptance: "Oh, what the hell! -maybe it'll be fun!"

Life altering it was! I have no doubt if I'd kept my silents, I would be back to Model Trains more than 15 years ago! In the World of film collecting, sound is certainly where it's at! I have had many great experiences in the years since that basically started at that moment.

So I was now among the chosen few! The first Derann print was a used 400 foot extract of The Titfield Thunderbolt.

Sometime not too long afterwards came my first order for new prints in easily 20 years: Sounds of Arizona and Steam Locomotives of North America.

"Sounds" was and still is one of my favorite prints (don't be too impressed: I may have a hundred "favorites"!). Not too long before I had a job where I spent a lot of time in Tucson, and it brought back happy memories.

It DID prove to be quite an expensive print: you see it's 'scope. At the time I didn't understand exactly what this required, but I didn't have an anamorphic, and I didn't have a wide screen. Fixing this proved to be an adventure, and then I fell in love with 'scope, so that one film got quite a few friends!

Steam Locomotives of North America was another matter. It's scenes on four American heritage railroads, it's presented without any kind of context and there is no sync sound, just 1970s Elevator Muzak. It's kind of underwhelming: I doubt I've screened it 5 times in 21 years!

So tonight I was rummaging through the 200 footers and stumbled upon it. I said "Why not?".

It's actually not half-bad, this odd little film: maybe I should show it more often!

(If only I could get those tunes out of my head!)

[Michael O’Regan]

Sounds good. Nice purchase. My post was a reflection on my own shortcomings, not the sellers 😁

[Brian Fretwell]

I ran well yesterday, the sound was good but it did seem a little fast running at 24fps. I have adjusted speeds on Sankyos befor so not a problem.
I've bought films from Nigel in the past so I do know him.

[Michael O’Regan]

Brian, I almost bought that Sankyo but I’m always too wary of buying projectors from people I don’t know. It was a great price though. How is it running?

[Brian Fretwell]

An Agfa stock copy (silent) of the Tom & Jerry "The Truce Hurts" that I seem to have bought for 50p at a BFCC a few decades ago to test the new projector. This was followed by a good (not perfect) colour copy of Anchors Away and a 600 ft reel of trailersincluding Straw Dogs, Dog Day Afterneen, Taxi Driver, Raiders of the Lost Ark, 2001, Atilla the Hun and many more.