Doctor Who

[Douglas Meltzer]

This What did Santa get you? thread on the Grand Old Forum mentions that there are a few William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton episodes out there on Super 8mm.

[Brian Fretwell]

Who's William Hartnell?

He was the actor who was the first to play the Doctor, in 1963. He often played army sergeant parts as in Carry on Sergeant (1958) and the TV comedy series "The Army Game". Though he did have serious roles in film like "Brighton Rock".

[Osi Osgood]

Who's William Hartnell?

[Barry Attwood]

I'm almost sure reading a few years back that someone had a William Hartnel episode on S8 with an optical track, it might have been an anniverary print, who knows!

[Ken Finch]

My Epson video projector does the same. 4 and 8k on mobile phones and tablet screens are just sales gimmicks to entice the ignorant as were 3d tvs. Many of the smaller cinema projectors are 2k and no one complains about the image quality. If you can see the grain Osi you are sitting too close to the screen.😉 The general rule for cinemas in the days of the 4 by 3ft screens was that the front row of seats should be no less than 3 times the width of the screen!! This of course was before the days of digital projection and multiplexes.😳

[Osi Osgood]

The interesting thing is that, with a blu-ray players ability to "upgrade" a DVD's playback, making it look really good, unless it is a cultic love of a film, I don't bother with getting a blu-ray version. Most of my DVDs, played on my blu-ray player, look very much like a 16mm, grainey image on my big HD tv. I like that.

[Brian Fretwell]

Unless the DVD coding was terrible (as with the original DVD of Blood Simple which I now find unwatchable on a 20" TV) I'd agree with that.

[Ken Finch]

Steve. Most film companies still release films on dvd as well as Blu-ray because there are still many people who have not dumped their dvd players for Blu-ray ones. Also, unless you have a very large tv you would hardly be able to tell the difference. In any case there is now a diminishing market because most of the younger generation are not interested in old films and those that are can watch them on the many free view, satellite or streaming channels. The BBC is no different to any other film or tv companies. They all dump their obsolete equipment. Most film producing companies dumped their silent master negatives etc. when sound films arrived.

[Rob Young]

Now there's a thought, Osi. Honestly, I don't know as I've never seen the Dr. Who & The Daleks 200 footers. Dang it, now I'll have to try and find some copies so I can check!

[Osi Osgood]

Rob, is it possible that the 200ft digests would have a little extra footage to add to the 4c400ft versions?

[Brian Fretwell]

I only have the two 200ft 'scope extracts, but also the trailer from Derann, spiced on in front.

[Rob Young]

Not the episodes, so slightly off topic, but the two movies made by AARU productions were released on super 8 by Walton films around the late 70's.

Doctor Who & The Daleks (1965) as an abridged 4 x 400ft colour / sound feature (flat pan & scan of the Techniscope original).

Also as two separate 200ft colour / sound extracts.

Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966) again as an abridged 4 x 400ft colour / sound flat version.

Also as two 200ft extracts, available as both flat and scope versions.

The prints are excellent; very sharp. I still have a print of Daleks and the colour is great. The feature editing is excellent also, removing scenes that don't affect the story telling; reducing the run time to about an hour, but in such a way that if you didn't know the film, you wouldn't be able to tell anything was missing.

As I recall, an Australian company acquired the negative to Daleks in the late 80's and made some new prints at the time.

[Brian Fretwell]

Be careful wording a post like that or you'll have all the missing episode rumours for some of those shows that are incomplete (Dr Who, Dad's Army, Hancock) starting again!

[Steve Lee]

Many years ago when I was a teenager, my boss at the time purchase three large lock up garages that had belonged to the BBC, that were scattered around London.
The boss and his son and myself lifted the up and over door on one of these garages, and the three of us simultaneously went "Oh my god ".
Apart from old telecine machines, 16mm cameras, projectors and anything else you can imagine being flung out of the BBC, it was filled from floor to ceiling as far as the eye could see with 16mm film cans.
The complete series and seasons of Hancock's half hour, Are you being served, Steptoe and son, Last of the summer wine, Some mothers do ave em, you name it, it was there. And this also included Dr who.
These were all of the archival masters. Every episode was labeled up, as these were double head prints, with a separate full coat accompanying soundtrack reel.
I remember we ran a number of them at home, but is seamed strange watching something on film, that you have only seen before on television.

Let's face it, the BBC when it comes down to merchandise wouldn't know its arse from its elbow. With so many missed opportunity over the years, and they are still doing it to this very day. Do they not stop to think, that people would like to view their programs in HD. So why release 95% of their HD material on DVD! it beggars belief, for what use this has today they might as well release it on Video 2000 tapes.

I think all of these ended up with Bob Monkhouse. and were kept as a collection and not broken up.

[Ken Finch]

If my memory is correct, the films Melvin mentioned were not BBC productions. They were available to hire on 16mm from some of the film libraries I used to use.