A look at some of the numerous meetings that we undertook in order to issue 8mm films to our customers.
Contracts & Rights Chapter 21
Derek was a great fan of cinema shorts, particularly Pathe Newsreels and Pathe Pictorials. At one time he had several 1600′ 16mm spools just full of newsreels and a handful of pictorials. It didn’t take much to persuade him to put on a show and once in a while he’d project a reel, along with a 1600′ reel of mixed trailers. His favourite Pictorials were ‘Armchair Alps’ and ‘Matterhorn’, not only because of their undeniable scenic splendour, which made them spectacular to watch but also due to the accompanying music, which only increased their grandeur. Pathe Newsreels, like their counterparts Pathe Pictorials had always been popular with the 8mm renatal customers and as with the Pictorials could be found in the pages of the earliest Derann library catalogues. At EMI the story was again one of hit and miss when it came to Reviews of the year with some elements unavailable to various items and master material sometimes very poor! I don’t recall our contact for the feature films, Ken Troy, being involved with the Pathe Library, but can clearly remember a small room with a number of files fiiles to overflowing with referance cards, which which we were able to make our choices, as well as preorder material that enabled us to issue, two George Formby shorts and the 200′ ‘Kamikaze. Over time we built up a nice collection of Reviews of the Year with 1947 to 1952 making their first appearance in the 1976 sales catalogue. By 1978 there were 13 plus a few Pathe specials and later a number of CinemaScope specials were added including ‘Shakespeare 400’ and ‘The Beatles Come to Town’.
…. to be continued.
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