Blackhawk: Old Fashioned and Proud of It!

[Steve Klare]

I found this flyer among my stuff yesterday. It's a look inside Blackhawk in their later years, and it's personal.
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I never met any of these fine folks. I have a lot of Blackhawks these days, but officially only one of them arrived as a new print. Even that wasn't direct from Blackhawk. It's a film about the first Indy 500 race which I bought from a company that sold sports films. I've always liked having a personal relationship with sellers like this: if nothing else they know what you need and keep an eye out for you. By the time I got back to seriously collecting films, these people had all moved on to other things and the building went empty, but by then I was lucky enough to meet Derann Film Services.

Of course, now that you've gotten to know them, they wouldn't mind in the least if you ordered something: (Can't find a website anywhere! 😉)
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-and while you're at it: spread the love around!
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[Michael O’Regan]

Nice post. There is always something warm and cosy about reading through an old Blackhawk catalogue.

[Steve Klare]

Thanks, Mike!

Just for the record: the building where all this took place is still for sale, as it has been for quite a few years:
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https://www.ruhlhomes.com/for-sale/h...040315-855851/

There is actually a Wikipedia article about the building:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littig.../Eagle_Brewery

Now, to we film-folk, this place is kind of a grubby shrine! If I was out in Davenport, Iowa you can be pretty sure I'd be walking around that building snapping pictures, and you'd be seeing them here as soon as I could grab my laptop and WiFi. Of course, not everybody sees these things the same way we do. There's a little paragraph in the article that says this: "This facility housed other industrial concerns over the years. In the early 20th century it was one of the locations for the Davenport Pearl Button Co."

I mean, really? -Buttons?! In this scheme of things Blackhawk is just an "other industrial concern". (No wonder I don't like explaining film collecting to new people! "No, not DVDs...")

-but, the place is reduced down under $100,000 if you are looking for a really spectacular place to show films! (-and maybe make some Beer!)

[Joe Caruso]

My friend Don Taylor sent me some nice color shots from inside. Will bring to CiNESEA. You don't have to remind me about Blackhawk, as I've had a long and still-going admiration. I have about thirty more shorts to go. Looking through the old bulletins, one can study and research continually. The original boxes will always fascinate - Shorty

[Steve Klare]

Hi Shorty,

I should give you some credit here: odds are this flyer came to me at CineSea! I still thumb through a sales catalog you gave me.

It's something I noticed back in the day, and even into the Derann era, that as much as film prints cost, you tended to savor them. You'd know the catalog by heart and say "I'm going to buy that one next month.". In my teen years, money was kind of an abstract idea: maybe I'd buy one print every two or three months. They were few, but they mattered: 40 years later I can easily name the first ten prints I owned. (-all railroad films, BTW)

Yes: It is nice these days to be able to own a feature for fifteen bucks (five in the bargain bin), but it's not the same. We've gotten a couple we didn't particularly like: out they go with the egg shells and the coffee grounds! They aren't worth the shelf space.

It would be interesting to try to place your pictures side by side with the ones from the Real Estate website, and I'm thinking yours don't have nearly so many piles of tires in them!

[Joe Caruso]

Don was careful to take a nice photo from the outside, showing the front door. Indoors, the office then a nice photo of an aisle with box after box of film, 16 and 8. Said there were 12 such rows...imagine me, the cherry-picker down there laughing all up and down the yellow-brick aisles...Yes Steve, money was what I earned and a budgeted allowance, got the sampler (free), and the discounted Chaplins and L&H then getting into Griffith and so on. Met collectors along the way and evolved from that. Oh, how I literally memorized those code numbers, took extreme pleasure in the liner notes and descriptive essays. Knew every title by page...still retaining it all in mind these many years re-reading those bulletins. It is because Blackhawk took extraordinary care in giving us the finest product they could, with care and faithfully teaching us through those textual introductions, what we were watching and why - Shorty

[Osi Osgood]

I would love to read a series of posts concerning the last year's of Blackhawk. For some odd reason, I have a sentimental spot for those stories. I wonder if, in little nooks and crannies of that old building, if there might be some old prints still lying around there?

[Steve Klare]

The thing about that building is two levels below ground it's a bunch of caverns that a long time ago kept beer cool. In Blackhawk days they did the same with film.

Who's to say what's ratting around in some dark corner 30 feet below grade?! Then again, what kind of condition would it be in?

[Paul Adsett]

The first Blackhawk print I purchased was Hook and Ladder, a Little Rascals short. I remember buying it for my daughter when she was about 10 years old and she just loved that movie - still does. The thing that really struck me was the incredible print quality when I first saw it on my Kodak M100 projector (albeit with the incredibly sharp Ektar f1.0 lens).
Blackhawk were an amazing company, so sad they are gone.

[Steve Klare]

Hook and Ladder really is an exceptional print: Mine just showed at CineSea and people thought it was 16mm.

It's the best case scenario too! A great print of a great movie!

"Now help me put the Assistant Chief's PANTS ON!"

[Joe Caruso]

I do know the building was gutted, new assemblages added for potential sale. No, no more films, reels or anything. David Shepard told me all the 8mm negs were junked, though he had most of 16 negs when he later released films on-request. No other company catered so carefully to the purists. My late friend John Black had an interview with Martin Phelan, one of the partners, when he was well onto his 90s. Very patient and kind he was in answering several key questions. As a side-note, would like to locate all who worked for these companies. What a historic account book that would be - Shorty

[Steve Klare]

If we are to be true to what's printed on our boxes, we should call it the Eastin-Phelan building!

It's seems we almost lost it, too! According to this webpage it was struck by a derailed train in 1993, and repaired.

http://www.reelclassicdvd.com/BlackhawkFilms.htm

It has a nice mini-tour as well. (It says "Pictures Courtesy of Shorty Caruso"! -The small world of film collecting!)

It's also listed in the National Register of Historic Places, but probably not for the same reasons we would want it there.

[Brian Fretwell]

A nice array of Eumig projectors, for putting sound on Super 8 films from 16mm, in one picture there. I believe that is how Derann originally sounded their standard 8 prints.

[Steve Klare]

That is interesting: it's not an ideal setup for maintaining sync is it?

-but my Blackhawk prints are fine.

I suppose if all the machines have AC motors and are on the same power, that would help. At least the motor speeds would be the same. Maybe they used the Eumigs' sliding speed controls to fine-tune the frame rates. (-not a job I would want!)

[Joe Caruso]

I would....remember back in 1978, there was the start of Blackhawk Film Stores, even a photo in a later catalog. Idea was to chainlink them here and sell product. Never panned out, though nice thought. Wrote them once asking if a naive kid film enthusiast could apply for work in acquisitions or editing. No soap. Too far away for one thing. Wanted to see how the boxes were created too. Happily, at close-out time, I was the owner of empty boxes they had as giveaways - Shorty