Another Collection Passed Down ...

 

Fun For One and One For All on 8mm

Seems I fall heir to another collection of 8mm film, a variant to before as this owner still lives, though minus machinery to run reels on, and no inclination to dig up means for doing so. Yes, there are cliffs between 8mm and 2022, especially standard 8, a format to scream analog loudest. Part why I return to such antiquity is colorful boxes, palm-size reels, each delicate in their way, so meaningful when new and treasures for privileged who got them when so. Consider comic books cost twelve cents, any Castle or Blackhawk subject many times that. There was a “headline edition” of Tarantula that parents cheerlessly paid for at a department store in West Virginia (why we were even there escapes me). It was part of a counter display … Castle reels aboard a spinning rack. Price was $2.98. I decided Tarantula should be tinted green (“the color of fear”) so I dipped the whole thing in food color. Miraculously not ruined, the monster marched three-minute trek to glory against a bedsheet to dwarf TV as it then was. And Tarantula’s cardboard container, what became of that? A large-enough vacuum cleaner may well have sucked it up.

Not to get all tingly and sense of wonder about 8mm, as I long passed nostalgia’s peak for it, yet the format is being collected again via eBay, younger people at most vigorous pursuit. Seldom do I see better magnetic sound reels for less than $60, so 8mm may well have risen from ashes. Physical film needs patience and physical dexterity which some among us no longer have. Feeding film to angry sprocket claws of my Eumig costs footage for each time tried, solution to trim film between sprocket holes before finessing them in, operator obliged to locate finger-length scissors for precision task. Collection what came my way was mostly comedy, natural and expected as this was sixties-early seventies mode of entry. Slapstick fit neatly on one or two reels and was at least somewhat affordable. Lots more buyers wanted Big Business than Intolerance, plus Blackhawk had sales where a dollar or three might drop from suggested retail. Back to recent haul of which Three Little Pigskins with the Three Stooges was part. I think Columbia missed a bet by waiting to enter the home movie Stooge market, like ten at least years late, then trying to sell the boys on sixties terms. Are those tie-dye pants Moe wears? The trio needed sound to emphasize grunts, groans, Curleyisms. Watching them silent was like something wrong with your television, except this wasn't television. Then came Bone Trouble, among “Walt Disney Character Films,” a bit imprecise, being fifty-feet where a bathroom break might cost whole of the sit. Best consign this to the Tarantula rack.

Next was From Soup to Nuts. I find setting up at boyhood home for 8mm L&H to be not a little spooky. Their very shades seem ready to step off the wall, or is it residual energy within the house from years past? The print was fuzzy as was much of Laurel-Hardy that Blackhawk licensed. We enjoyed exclusivity the silent shorts gave … none were on TV, so an only way of seeing them was at theatres using Robert Youngson scrapbooks. Blackhawk put explanatory titles with credits to tell who wrote-directed-edited the shorts. By a dozenth watch, data was memorized for life. Silent L&H may work best for 8mm because they were made silent, so there’s no sense of missing something as with Stooge shorts or an Abbott-Costello reel. Missing plenty was lot of those taking receipt of Sergeant York as teensy fifty feet from a 134-minute feature, many a rifle shot seen but not heard as Gary Cooper picks off Germans to force their surrender. That was all we got but maybe it was enough as trench round-up was for most the highlight of Sgt. York. The feature was generally cut to bone for television anyway, so what matter if yours was barest keepsake? York the feature was called “Best Ever” by many present when new (1941), and note NC kiddie shows still playing it in the mid-sixties, possibly a last 35mm print from Charlotte exchanges ending up in Moon Mullins’ shed (but there’s another story).

Speaking of war, there was the one sound subject from this collection, The Little Rebel, adapted by Castle Films from General Spanky, a 1936 full-length “Our Gang” of sorts with S. McFarland, Buckwheat Thomas, and Alfalfa fighting the war for Southern Independence and nearly winning. General Spanky was a rarity I often heard about but never saw until this modest reel unspooled before me. Curiosity made a difficult threading worthwhile, 8mm if nothing else the tiniest of mediums, and as with Sgt. York, the whole turns on fighting and outcome of kids taking on blue coats and fooling the enemy into thinking they number thousands, a nice self-contained story and undoubted money’s worth for those who sprang when The Little Rebel first came available. To have movies you could show the neighborhood was to stand out, for even where families had a projector, they seldom had anything other than home captures to watch among themselves or close relations. I made up lobby cards for Castle’s 8mm Dracula co-owned with two other boys and pasted the lot on basement windows. There were curiosity-seekers enough to yield thirty or forty cents for a typical Saturday. One attendee lately reminded me of a show he came to nearly sixty years ago. How many of specific sits does anyone recall from so far back, outside our own fraternity of fans?

Cartoons lend themselves to truncated reels since you can gather essential point of the situation without expending much footage. Crowing Pains was a Warner short with Foghorn Leghorn, plus a dog, cat, others. Conflict revolves around which of these can be convinced he has laid eggs. Sound is missed but not critical to viewing enterprise. Children would delight even in fifty feet of animation so long as it was theirs to enjoy at will. Color is less a loss since most were limited to black and white on home televisions. Two minutes of Crowing Pains will register well as the entire subject might. There are serious collectors of cartoons who got their start with these tiny reels. United Artists sold them during the early 60s with colorful art (our equivalent to album sleeves) and prominent credit for Associated Artists Productions, entity of which initially handled distribution of pre-49 Warner cartoons for TV. Container cameos of Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester etc. were potent draw for fans who longed for personal record of these characters in motion, a benefit even most vivid comic books would not supply. Next up came Abbott and Costello in one of Castle subjects that eventually brought about a lawsuit by the team against Universal and subsidiary United World for selling excerpts and not inviting A&C to share profit from them. No telling how many sold. One at hand called Riot on Ice was distilled from 1943 feature Hit the Ice, so there is comedy en route to Sun Valley and ice-skating attempts by Lou once they get there. As the reel concentrates mostly on visual foolery rather than verbal byplay between the boys, Riot on Ice plays fine sans sound. Between new features, reissued ones, television appearances for Colgate, and lively sale of the Castle shorts, Abbott and Costello enjoyed a peak of exposure if not popularity during the 50s. I never collected them on 8mm but judging by Riot on Ice, might have been well rewarded if I had.

Next came a tepid Tarzan reel, 1955’s Hidden Jungle, wherein Gordon Scott wore loin clothing for a first time. A safari is beset by natives and rogue elephants, during which I think I saw Jack Elam trampled under massive feet. The point of any Tarzan highlight reel is seeing him perform feats, in this case diving into a lion pit to rescue Vera Miles. Boys entranced by Tarzan would attempt vine swings but came often to naught, discovery that backyard foliage was not so resilient a too-late one. What became of Tarzan as cultural icon is anyone’s guess. Our enthusiasm turned most on who was cast as the jungle lord. Scott was best among later choices, better frankly than Weissmuller by plenty reckoning, but given too little opportunity to shine. Tarzan's Hidden Jungle was released by RKO, company having done the Lex Barker group and not inclined to spend color or location by a 50s point when these elements were sorely needed to attract any but a same and indiscriminate audience. Last of 8mm picks was 400 feet derived from a Republic chapter play representing slow but sure decline from what had been dominance of the field. Radar Men from the Moon has sci-fi elements to still engage, flying scenes with Commando Cody good as one could hope for in the early 50s. Why didn’t Superman use this technique for the television series? Radar Men being longer gives us a sense of what the serial in its entirety would have offered, being action continuous and one chase after unmotivated other. Little need in my watching the entire thing now, having nibbled these seventeen or so minutes. Serials yielded once a rich vein of pleasure. What a pity they had to go away so utterly.