Silent

By now my brother could be found regularly strumming a guitar, but I don’t think that any of us really thought that we had a budding Hank Marvin or Bert Weedon in the house. In a few years he would soon be walking around in a Kaftan, with a brass medal or bell on a chain hanging around his neck, while I would be trying to look cool in flares big enough for a troop of boy scouts to camp under! Meantime I had subscribed to a few fan genre magazines, like ‘Monsters Incorporated’, and joined several societies including ‘The Horror Film Club Of Great Britain’, ‘The Peter Cushing Fan Club’ and ‘The Gothique Film Society’, although I never attended any of Gothique’s film evenings. It was at some point during the middle of 1965 that I became seriously interested in 8mm film. I had always been fascinated by the adverts that filled the back pages of ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’, which were packed with pictures of the many films available to screen at home, and then around the same time we had a small 8/10 page Dixons leaflet pushed through the letterbox, listing still and cine cameras, projectors and several pages of ready to project movies!  On a trip into Birmingham I saw the line up of films in a  branch of Dixon’s and  decided I was going to buy a Prinz Magnon projector. Following an intensive period of saving I ended buying a Luch Standard 8mm Silent projector, along with a 50′  Walton film ‘The Sun Temple’ a ‘Fireball XL5′ short, however I didn’t purchase them from Dixon’s, I chose a small independent retailer in Wolverhampton, situated in Chapel Ash, Warner’s Photographic, who like most of their kind, have long since closed their doors. I would later purchase the 50’ ‘Varan, the Unbeleivable’ and the 200′ ‘Dinosaurus’. Of course I realised immediately that there was something very wrong, something missing when projected.. Sound! That would be rectified around seven years later when I would become the owner of a Eumig Dual gauge Sound, an 810D, projector and several extracts from ‘The 7th Voyage of Sinbad’ and the 200′ of ‘Earth Vs The Flying Saucers’. As the proud owner of the Luch I can remember the frustration of trying to get the sync right when projecting the Americom 200′, ‘Dracula’, you know, the one which was supplied with a floppy sound disc. ‘Start projector on tone’ a voice would say on the disc and start it I would, I must have ajusted the speed on the Luch a hundred times before a closing door on screen matched up with it’s sound!!!  Oh the Joy!.