December 1974

AMONG THE letters I've received from fellow collectors this month is a most interesting one from a gentleman in the Midlands who for reasons that will presently become obvious must remain anonymous.

My correspondent was asked by his young son if he could obtain a package film of the TV series, Star Trek. He knew that it wasn't available on 8mrn but - not wishing to disappoint junior he decided to produce his own version.

Half-an-hour before Dr. Spock was due to twitch his cars on the box, he prepared for action. Not having a tripod, he clamped his camera to a low coffee table, measured the distance from camera to TV very accurately, adjusted the camera's telephoto lens so that the TV image completely filled the viewfinder, opened the lens aperture to the maximum f/1.8, loaded the camera with Ektachrome 160, adjusted the colour control on the 25-inch television so that there was a slight excess of red in the picture and waited for the programme to start.

He exposed two cartridges of film and found the results "beyond my wildest expectations". He reports perfect exposure, very slight strobe lines visible only on the lighter scenes and good colour quality. He sums up the result as "better than the average colour package print but not as good as the best".

Naturally, I can't recommend this form of piracy but if the distributors will not give us the titles we yearn for, I have a feeling that it may well spread.

Mention of television brings me to my first film this month. It's amazing how many TV series have started life as feature films on the big screen. Always ready to cash in on a successful idea, their latest acquition is the Planet of the Apes series. Now just released on 8mm are clips from the five cinema films which sparked off this series.

THE PLANET OF THE APES One reel super 8 colour:sound - recommended price £16. Mountain Films Ltd., West Central Street, London.

Charlton Heston once said in an interview that he would love to wear his trousers in a film, having appeared in so many biblical epics clad only in toga and sandals. With the decline in popularity of chariot epics, Mr. Heston found a totally different outlet for his talents in the realms of science fiction - and a chance to wear his pants once again!

His most recent film in this field was - Soylent Green a nightmare look into the not-too distant future where the world's food supplies were rapidly coming to an end.

Planet of the Apes, made in 1967, was Mr. Heston's first excursion into the future; I remember it as a most entertaining film and find this 8mm cut-down really excellent. Based on the novel Monkey Planet by Pierre Boulle and directed with tremendous pace by Franklin J. Schaffner, the plot revolves around an ingenious basic idea Darwin's theory in reverse!

The extract begins with Charlton Heston and his fellow astronauts, having just escaped from their crashed space ship, surveying the land which is now their enforced home. The only apparent inhabitants are very primitive humans - so primitive, in fact, that they cannot speak and fight amongst themselves for food.

"We've got off at the wrong stop," comments one of the space men somewhat despondently. To which Heston replies: "You're supposed to be the optimist, look on the bright side; if this is the best they have around here, in six months we'll be running this planet!"

No sooner have the words left his lips than the primitives suddenly end their fight for food and freeze in silent panic. A howling siren roars and many riders on horseback appear from the trees and begin a bloody massacre of the primitives. Heston and his colleagues dive for cover in the long stalks of a maize field, but are pursued relentlessly by the mysterious horseriders. Heston falls at the feet of his pursuer, looks up and the camera zooms in on the sinister face of - an Ape! The Ape shoots and Heston collapses wounded in the neck.

Having temporarily lost his voice, he is now on the same level as the other human primitives with whom he is imprisoned - imprisoned in a world where apes have evolved into the intelligent society and humans are the underdogs. He soon escapes, but after a well filmed chase through the Apes' village he is recaptured and hoisted high in a net. It's at this point that he recovers his voice and bellows: "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn filthy ape!" This outburst immediately renders him the 'star' prisoner, for he is considered the first human primitive to be able to speak.

He is taken into custody of the Ministry of Animal Affairs and is destined for exhibition in a human zoo. This plan, however, is foiled by Zira and Cornelius - Kim Novak and Roddy McDowall acting their hearts out under the marvellous ape make-up created by John Chambers. They help Heston to escape once again and the extract then cuts to the final dramatic scene of the film.

Heston and his girlfriend, Nova, are riding along the beach on a stolen horse. Suddenly he drops to the ground having seen something in the far distance. "My God, I'm back - I'm home," he cries. "They finally did it; they blew it up!"

The camera pulls back to reveal what brought on this outburst and we see the blackened remains of the Statue of Liberty! The point being, of course, that he and we the audience had assumed that he had crash landed in another planet; in fact he had travelled into the future and returned to the atomic blasted remains of our world, now ruled by intelligent apes!

A first rate package, excellent colour, and with a soundtrack that includes much of Jerry Goldsmith's growling score. And a note for title fans - this package opens with the well known Twentieth Century-Fox 'searchlight' title.

HAWAIIAN AYE AYE - One reel super 8 colour/sound - t7.70. Tcchnofilm, Milan, Italy. Available most outlets -- William Powell Films, Derann Films, etc.

As a contrast to the Apes, how about a Cartoon? I know humour is a very personal thing but all I can say is that this one had me in stitches! It dates back to 1948 and is a Merry Melody from Warner Brothers. It stars Sylvester, the short-tongued cat, and Tweety Pie, the elusive canary need I say more?

We are on a small island off Honolulu as Granny, all dressed for a party, is bidding farewell to Tweety. As a last minute afterthought she remembers to feed Sharky - her other pet which turns out to be a shark with bulldog characteristics who is kept in a kennel just off shore! As Granny departs, Tweety bursts into song and his melodic tones drift across the narrow stretch of water to the mainland where we find Sylvester, hungry• as ever. "Ah, succulent squab for supper!" he lisps.

He then begins the most hilarious attempts to reach Tweety. After uttering the immortal lines - "I tawt I taw a bad old puddy cat" Tweety calls out the faithful Sharky who really makes the sparks fly. Sylvester tries to row across, winch across, dive across each time he comes to a sticky endl

The film is complete with all opening and end titles; the colour quality is superb, reminiscent of those Angelino cartoons which also came over from Italy a few years ago. The sound is first rate what would Warner Brothers have done without Mel Blanc who provided the many voices for most of their cartoon stars. And the reel ends with the famous bulls eye target over which is spelled out - "That's All Folks!".

BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES - One reel super 8 colour/sound £t6. Distributed by Mountain Films Ltd., West Central St., London.

After that break for a laugh - back to the monkey business! James Franciscus stars in this one as a fellow astronaut of Charlton Heston who finds himself underground among the atomic rubble of what was once the city of New York - while on the surface the Apes are searching furiously.

He enters what appears to be the remains of a church and hears: "I reveal my inmost self to my God." The kneeling figure is not before a religious statue as one would expect, but is worshipping a colossal atomic bomb! The figure Lunn on hearing Franciscus and we see that he is nor an Ape but human.

Guards suddenly appear and Franciscus is whisked away to the dungeons where he meets his long lost fellow traveller, Charlton Heston, who explains that they arc prisoners of a group of highly intelligent humans who rule this underground stronghold.

Their hasty greeting is interrupted by the guard who says: "You know too many of our secrets. We are a peaceful people, we do not kill our enemies - we get our enemies to kill each other!"

By hypnotic means he forces Heston and Franciscus to attack each other. 'Phis is an extremely well filmed fight sequence which ends with the guard impaled on the lethal spikes of the prison walls!

Just as they escape, the Apes find the entrance to the ruined church and force entry. The Ape Commandant confronts the priest who warns them of the danger of "the instrument of my God", pointing to the atomic bomb. The Apes ignore the warning and callously shoot him down. As they attempt to destroy the huge structure, Heston is spotted and falls in a hail of machine gun fire. Franciscus retaliates by killing the Ape leader but is himself splattered against the wall, riddled with bullets. This is a sequence which, I'm sure, the Action Incorporated boys would have loved to work on.

Heston, bleeding profusely, drags himself to the bomb controls. His blood-stained hand is seen in close up as he presses the fatal button. Over the rumble of the explosion, a voice booms: "Far in the universe lies a medium sized star, one of its green and insignificant planets is now dead."

A well edited package full of action. You may think that's the end of the line for the Apes - don't be fooled. The ingenuity of the script writers is boundless when the box office demands yet another sequel. We have yet to escape from the planet and meet baby Milo - but more of that later. By the way, this series is also available in black and white silent but, having seen - and heard - these colour prints, I would urge you to invest in the latter. If you are a sci-fi fan you won't be disappointed!

PATHE NEWS REVIEW OF 1939 One reel b/w standard and super 8 £4.95. Distributed by Derann Films, Stourbridge Road, Dudley.

From the science fiction of the future to the factual events of the past. A whole series of these Pathe Reviews is to be released by Derann. I'm not, personally, a serious collector of news reels but have odd isolated examples in my collection. One reader suggested that it's a nice idea to have a news review of the year of your birth - see what the world was up to when you arrived on it! David Welford of Ongar, Essex, makes up 600ft reels by preceding a 400 feature extract with a newsreel of the same year. He has a 1954 Pathe News spliced to his extract from Genevieve, a Movietone Review of 1936 preceding his two clips from Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, and so on.

This 1939 edition is a typical example of the material available. Much of it centres around the preparations for war as Chamberlain tries to prevent it. All the leading figures of the day are to be seen - from Franco to the new Pope. On the lighter side, snippets range from the Derby to Portsmouth winning the cup final 4-5.

The thing which most fascinates me about these newsreels is their style of presentation. Even their choice of background music is so melodramatic by today's standards. As the King and Queen sail to Canada, for example, the soundtrack belts out God save the King and on their return we hear Land of Hope and Glory.

The commentary has some equally choice moments. When the King walks among a crowd of spectators in one of the first 'royal walkabouts', the narrator states: "In the British Empire they don't need bullet proof glass!" Over scenes of a shot-down German plane he proclaims: "Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Field Marshal Goering!" At the time, of course, it was necessary propaganda - but today it is all decidedly corny! The newsreel was an integral part of every cinema programme until the advent of television and, as such, one or two examples should, in my opinion, be in any collection of vintage cinema. From the Pathe series Derann release the years t939, 1940, 1941 and 1943 with others to follow.

Movietone News Reviews are distributed by William Powell Films priced at £5.50 per reel, both gauges. They have each year available from 1933 to 1943.

As we are nearing Christmas here's news of some great forthcoming titles. Twentieth Century-Fox are to release in the new year Sound of Music, King And I, M.A.S.H. and several others - something to look forward to!

Here's the original page

Back to Bootlace Cinema 1974