HISTORY:
My "world" is 'the arts' and more specifically, music, artwork and hand crafted/decorated chinaware's.
I am not a film enthusiast but an associate has asked me to find new owners for THEIR large collection of photographic and film items ... this is one of those items.
While the world of 8mm/Super 8mm is not my area of expertise, I am doing my best to establish the condition of each item that I am listing.
I tend to be quite detailed in my item descriptions, please READ all the details to decide if this item may interest you.
Now, on with the description ...
THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX
20th Century Fox
KEN FILMS
Title: The Flight Of The Phoenix (1965)
Catalogue # F37
400 Feet
Colour
Sound (Mono)
Run time: approximately 16 minutes
Drama with the great James Stewart, yes I can actually remember him! Opens with the aircraft happily flying until things go badly wrong and the end result is a crash landing in the Sahara Desert, a story of survival.
COSMETIC CONDITION:
USED
CLEAN
Very good
Film stock and the Black unbranded (Made in USA) - reel are undamaged, there is a White leader film.
Outer all cardboard two part case is in good condition, clean, no substantial structural damage or graphic damage and no personal writing - no musty smells either!
NO writing on the reel and just the front cover has colour graphics while the rear is a mono print (Black) promoting Ken Films.
TESTING:
Test projector is the ELMO 1200 that I have on hand at the moment.
Film looks to be clean and in good condition, sprocket holes are not damaged.
I only ran the film for the first couple of minutes or so to observe the picture and sound.
The colour is .... (wait for it) actually really good, for a change. I am viewing the full colour spectrum with lots of Blues, Greens, Browns etc ... at least this desert based story doesn't look like the Australian outback! Impressed with this one ...
I did notice that although the 20th Century front title/logo is there, I did not see the film title screen or the actor credits ... I guess these frames had been chopped out of this selected scenes version.
Sound is good and clean and it is easy to understand the dialogue - James is just so calm and collected when it seems the world (as he knows it) is about to end for him.
SPECIAL NOTE:
I always include a couple of "off screen" snapshots of each reel as it is played ... now my digital camera is antiquated (colour balance? what's that - like I said, this is one OLD camera) and it's limitations are definitely showing up in these sample photographs.
I take the screen shot in very low light levels, the camera flash is turned off (otherwise the picture is flooded with White) and the camera shutter speed is very slow.
This means I have trouble getting sharp photographs, especially when there is movement on the screen and I have noticed that after viewing quite a few films now, that my poor OLD digital camera is tending to emphasise the Red's in the photographs anyway - in real life the on-screen picture is not as Red as recorded in the photographs
In my opinion, after this brief test, I am happy that the film is as stated on the box and that the film stock appears to be in very good technical condition.
I am very fastidious and careful with these films (I am after-all doing this on behalf of another person) and I have now packed it back into the original cardboard box AND sealed the film within clear plastic - waiting for a Super 8 film buff to enjoy!
