Monday 10 June 2019

Eastwood on Universal (Super) 8mm

Anyone of a certain age may remember these humble beginnings of home entertainment. For me, they certainly bring back some much cherished memories. The Super 8mm gauge was a chance for fans to see an Eastwood film at their own leisure and without waiting for it to show up on TV. Universal (formerly Castle films) also started to release longer versions than the standard 200ft reels (approx. 8 minutes) with 1 x 400ft (approx. 16 minutes) and 2 x 400ft (about 35 minutes). As a retrospective reminder, I thought it would be refreshing to feature two titles that I use to own. There’s a slight feeling of regret about these reels as I no longer own them. Back in the early 1980s and the emergence of the Home Video Cassette, it was all too easy to become swept up in the new format on the block. With hindsight, these little gems still hold a great deal of nostalgia. I’ve also chosen to revive these images, largely because they were the longest Super 8mm films I ever owned.
High Plains Drifter was the longest of the films as it was a 2 x 400ft version. These came in a plastic snap case with an outer slip case containing some of the original artwork. The Universal 8 prints were arguably considered to be a little softer than the previous Castle film prints. Nevertheless, owning more than 30 minutes of the movie overshadowed any such technical issues. I don’t recall if there was ever a 1 x 400ft edition of High Plains Drifter.
The Eiger Sanction 1 x 400ft was another favourite. Again the film came in a white plastic snap case, but rather strangely the outer slip case had disappeared and was instead replaced with a card insert. I never really understood the process behind this idea. It’s not as if the plastic case had a clear cover to slip the insert in (much like a typical DVD case), so it really served little purpose and was normally popped inside the case for good measure and safe keeping.
The biggest drawback however was that both of these films were presented in a flat (4x3) format, which didn’t really benefit films that were shot in the Panavision widescreen process. But of course, as teenagers we rarely considered this as the films flickered away on our bedroom wall or (if lucky) on your dad’s pull-up screen.
Today, it’s perhaps laughable in context, that a film was only available in a very edited and condensed form – but hell, it was pure magic back in the day.  

Below: An original advertisement featuring the release of The Eiger sanction

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