8mm film was first introduced by Kodak in
1932 as an economical alternative (during the Depression) to
16mm, which had become the popular amateur gauge during the
prosperous 20's. Though 8mm was first introduced primarily as a
medium for photographing home movies, like 16mm it was used to
market home versions of theatrical releases. It did not
gain wide acceptance as an entertainment medium until after
WWII.
The films whose cover art is featured on
this site were known as “packaged movies”, which
were essentially one-reel (7-10 minute) condensations of
feature-films, produced from the late 50's – mid 70's.
Physically they were approximately 150-175 feet of film wound
on a 200ft. reel and packaged in a 5.25 inch reel box. Not only
were these films a fraction of the running time of the features
from which they were derived, but most commonly they were
silent, subtitled, and B/W regardless of whether or not their
full length counterparts had been sound films or in color.
During the mid-60's, availability of sound home-movie
projectors prompted companies to release many of these titles
with magnetic audio tracks, and by the 70's longer 400ft.
(approx. 17 min) sound editions would squeeze the 200ft.
editions out of production.
FRAMES FROM A REGULAR 8MM PRINT OF
“DRACULA”
FRAMES FROM A SUPER 8MM PRINT OF
“PSYCHO”
There are two kinds of 8mm film,
“regular 8mm” and “Super 8mm”. Super 8
was introduced in 1965, and its advantage over regular 8mm was
a decreased sprocket-hole size which freed up more space on
film for the image itself. Most of the 200ft digests were
available in both formats, but the improved pictorial quality
of Super 8mm would eventually make regular 8mm obsolete.
A REGULAR 8MM film projector from the
early 60’s
A popular SUPER 8MM SOUND FILM PROJECTOR
FROM THE EARLY 80’S
Obviously an eight-minute extraction
couldn't offer the same narrative flow of the features from
which they were edited, but one must remember that these titles
were popular when the movies-on-demand convenience of
home-video was still many years away and few homes had cable.
Castle Film's digests were probably the most skillfully edited
and produced, although their effort to retain some trace of the
original film's storyline would occasionally result in the
omission of scenes that meant more to the collector than
continuity. When sound came along Castle also made the
effort to edit the soundtracks, thus eliminating abrupt audio
jumps that characterized some of their competitors' digests.
Consumer demand eventually prompted the success of longer and
longer multi-reel digests, and eventually the release of
full-length features. The medium transformed from a
pocket-money novelty that one could find on department store
shelves or in the back of their “Famous Monsters”
magazine to a rather elitist and costly collector's only medium
(the average full-length color feature was going for between
$250 - $400 by the early Eighties).
A HIGH-END FEATURE-LENGTH MGM TITLE FROM
THE EARLY 80’S
A UNIVERSAL 8 400 FT.
EDITION FROM THE EARLY 80’S
By the mid-Eighties, videocassettes had
pretty-much killed the 8mm film business. In the US,
collectors couldn't justify paying three to four times the
price of a VHS or Beta version of their favorite film (though
8mm offered better quality than most comparable early videos),
and many either “went video” or took a step up to
16mm. European markets held on longer but eventually also threw
in the towel, with the exception of British company Derann Films, which
is still (as of this writing) releasing gorgeous new Super 8
prints of Disney, Hammer Horror, and MGM titles.
Currently the film collector is left with
many perplexing issues, regardless of format. Production of
both 8mm and 16mm projection equipment has effectively ceased,
and many died-in-the-wool collectors have had to become
projector mechanics- buying several of the same model to use
for parts, stocking up on projection lamps and belts for fear
of eventual unavailability. The production of new prints has
dwindled down to a trickle and will only continue as long as
8mm & 16mm film stocks are manufactured. Buying older
prints can be a risky but rewarding venture given that most
have seen a lot of use by this time. To make matters
worse, many color film stocks introduced in the 60's onward
were not stable, and they are fading to red. Still, there is a
core group of collectors keeping film alive and online auction
services such as eBay enjoy a brisk trade, with choice prints
of desirable title still fetching top-dollar.
