HISTORY:
I am not a 'film buff' and my "world" is 'the arts' and more specifically, music, artwork and hand crafted/decorated chinaware's.
An extremely unwell associate has asked me to find new owners for THEIR large collection of photographic and film items ... this is one of those items. I am often asked "THE QUESTION"
So how many films do you have, Russ?
My response is ... boxes and boxes of them, perhaps 500+
I have been honoured with the trust and care of these films, to the owner they are an important part of his life and I respect that. Each film is VERY SLOWLY (I have a lot of other things to do as well!) being evaluated, run through the projector (currently an ELMO ST1200D) and if needed, addition packing added to protect the film more.
ALL film stock is safely away in my storage units, nice n cool and out of harms way while I look (and smell!) each film ... NO ONE can just casually "browse" the collection. My associate wouldn't like that and neither do I.
Due to my previous working life in technical fields, I tend to be quite detailed in my item descriptions, please READ all the details to decide if this item may interest you.
Vinegar Syndrome: my nose came up negative on this reel, however ...
From time to time I have noticed a "vinegar smell" coming off some films that I have been checking. I have been contacted by a learned ex film professional who has provided some pointers about this vinegar smell. Thank you kind Sir!
It seems that the presence of this odour indicates a chemical reaction is underway which will affect the base material of the film - over time. Most of these films are already around 50 years old, how much longer will they "survive" I wonder? No-one can provide a definitive answer to that one ... it's a bit like "the earth WILL be hit by a comet, one day, but no-one knows when"
This chemical reaction which is indicated by the Vinegar odour can (over time) affect both colour and black & white films equally, gradually becoming worse as time passes although I could not find a reliable guide as to how much time we are talking about - months? years? No-one seems confident enough to commit to a time frame.
If you "click" on the CAVEAT EMPTOR (Buyer Beware) in Red above, buried there is a link will take you to the esteemed National Film And Sound Archive Of Australia page which talks about this Vinegar Syndrome problem. These people at NFSA know their stuff ... the most disturbing aspect which jumped out at me is the possible effects of this chemical reaction on HUMAN health. Be careful when handling one of the "vinegar beasties", even just breathing the vapours is apparently not a good idea for sustained periods!
Having said all of this, I will ALWAYS indicate film stock that is producing this Vinegar odour in my description - although "aged", my nose still works (sort of!). I will still run the film through the projector for "testing" but have no way of knowing how advanced the chemical reaction may already be - unless the film stock crumbles in my hands! Hmmm ... not a good sign!
I still have a ton of films to investigate (the owner of these films was a BIG film buff in the 1960's ~ 1980's) and so far only a small percentage have proven to have the air of Vinegar about them ...
I have also been advised that even if NO smells are being produced, chemical reactions may be underway but as yet undetectable by the human nose (Hmmm ... is there such a thing as a "dog film sniffer" such as Border Patrol uses at the airport?)
It really comes down to ... these films are OLD, probably they were never intended to be viewed up to 60 years later ... everything eventually fails
Please be realistic and keep all of this in mind.
Now, on with the description ...
CARTOONS plus TINTORERA (1977) - Super 8 Film
This is NOT the full length 1977 motion picture release although being a foreign release (German dubbed), I am guessing that it is the uncensored version.
Please read below for a lot more detail about this, the cartoons and the abridged version of Tintorera.
Single 400 foot reel
WARNING! With the cartoons and the edited version of the feature TINTORERA on this reel, it is HEAVILY LOADED (right to the very edge!) and there is NO film clip - be careful handling this reel.
Commercial "abridged" release for the Home Movie market
Because this reel title really didn't tell me very much, I played the ENTIRE reel this time ... here is what I found it contained.
In brief, this film is a splice of two totally unrelated films ... the opening scenes are three separate, very short (run time for each story is only about two minutes) Once one cartoon finishes, THE END comes up on screen and then the title screen of the next cartoon appears. These are all short cartoons with a TOTAL length of around six minutes run time.
The cartoons are "different" in that there is no dialogue but plenty of sound effects and music, with the latter being classical music such as Four Seasons for example. There is no on-screen text to assist with what is going on, you need to watch these cartoons carefully to figure it all out. From the looks of the Title screens, I believe these are Italian productions. I noticed that the characters in the cartoons didn't look "quite right" and the storyline was a little peculiar but quite frankly I wasn't really interested in these cartoons and skipped over them to a certain extent. I cannot even remember (nor did I take a photograph of) the first cartoon title screen but it was in the same vein as the following two cartoon stories.
Then the shock came! ... cartoon three finishes and I was greeted by a splash of FULL COLOUR, lots of Blues, Greens, Reds - the full gambit! Visually this took me by surprise.
The abridged version of the motion picture TINTORERA had begun. Very good colour rendition is what struck me immediately.
The movie? Well, pretty silly in my view (everyone has different tastes) it is like a Jaws rip-off but actually the focus on this edited version is FLESH - beautiful ladies showing off their beautiful bodies in beautiful surroundings and getting very passionate with the shark hunters (two guys). Now don't mistake me here, this is not a porn movie or even soft porn, but loads of female flesh is on show! Sure the ladies seem to want passionate embraces just about every second throughout this edited version, even the underwater scenes where a couple is diving - rip off their face masks and wild kissing begins, all underwater! It's like "the hell with the fish, the shark or the world for that matter - I want YOU babe!"
Yes, there is a shark and it does feature a couple of times in some mild horror scenes - particularly at the end of this edited release. The young lady goes for a "midnight dip" in the ocean, nude - as every lady is want to do ... great underwater shots of the shark sniffing out this "meal" in the ocean (the sound is also great, very realistic "underwater audio") and the inevitable attack scenes which feature copious amounts of blood Red ocean and even one scene where the ladies head is hanging out of the shark's mouth - now that's grose!
So this abridged version seems to focus on the female body, not the shark. Story line? Hmmm, I thought it was pretty stupid overall.
Oh, I forgot to detail perhaps the most important thing - this is one of the DUBBED versions of the motion picture! The language used throughout this film is German (there was a release of this movie into the German market) I cannot understand German very well so following the storyline was a little difficult but that is where the bodies come into play - who cares what they were saying, Oh My God ... look at that! It's all visual.
If you want more details about the production of the motion picture (A British/Mexican collaboration) it is pretty interesting and lots of information can be found online about this movie
Kelvin hard clear plastic case with drop down front door. I believe Kelvin was an Australian company.
Leader film is fitted
400' plastic reel
Colour
Sound
COSMETIC CONDITION:
USED
CLEAN
Film stock and the reel are undamaged
Kelvin case is in very good condition
Vinegar odour was NOT detected
NO personal names or other writing on the packaging or the film reel, the only identification on the reel and case is a hand written label (White) stating CARTOONS TINTORERA - that's it
TESTING:
Test machine: ELMO 1200ST
Leader film is fitted and it fed into the projector no problems (sprocket holes look good and undamaged)
As mentioned above, because I really had no idea about what the contents of this reel may be, I ran the entire reel through the projector.
The film runs perfectly fine, normal title screens for each very short cartoon and the "edited feature" Tintorera. While the colours during the cartoons were pretty "Ho Hum" this definitely does not apply to the Tintorera section of the reel. Very nice colour, one of the best I have seen so far.
The sound is of a good quality, plenty of level and I felt the classical music (although in mono) sounded really good. The dialogue in the "feature" is also easy to understand, if you are fluent in German!
I have now packed this film into a sealed, clear plastic outer packet in an attempt to maintain the current condition for as long as possible.
