Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Vintage 16mm "promotional" movies

This is topic Vintage 16mm "promotional" movies in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-25-2012, 02:20 AM:

My first "taste" of film came from my grandfather, who owned a 16mm sound projector. When I was a teenager I stumbled upon a catalog from Modern Talking Picture Service, and through my dad's business I started booking these corporate promotional films from them.

I borrowed Grandpa's projector and set up a makeshift "screening room" in my bedroom. (This was all mostly due to me not having much luck with the ladies back then.) I even had sound from the screen, provided by a 6x9" speaker I mounted in an apple crate.

Just wondering if anybody else here has ever seen any of this stuff....these are a few I remember.

- "Get Wet" and "What to Do on the Three Day Weekend," both directed and filmed by Homer Groening (father of the Simpsons' Matt Groening). These were quirky films, very offbeat and humorous. I think "Get Wet" was sponsored by Kodak and "Three Day Weekend" by Johnson Motors, although I might have them reversed. Groening did several movies in the "Wet" vein, such as "Psychedelic Wet" and a few others. One of his films, "Basic Brown Basic Blue," is available on YouTube and shows his offbeat sense of humor that he obviously passed down to Matt.

"Hot Dog Skiing," sponsored by Chevrolet. It was about, you guessed, it, hot dog skiing, which today would be called "extreme" skiing. Had some great snow skiing footage and stunts, and some pretty good music in it, as I recall.

"Ballad of the Big Ones" was a film by Budweiser that told about the famous Clydesdales. They actually had quite a few films about them that were usually good.

"Footprints 4" was sponsored by Goodyear and was a documentary about tires. Before that film I hadn't really thought about the fact that when driving, you are only contacting the road on those four little squares at the bottom of your tires. (Hey I was a teenager.)

"Show Me The Way to Go Home" was sponsored by Allied Van Lines and was a comedy about a family moving. Don't remember too much about it but it had its moments.

"A Report to Ole" was a history of outboard boating and the Evinrude motor company, and was released on the occasion of some landmark birthday -- either founder Ole Evinrude's 100th or the company's 50th, something like that. The first half was historical in sepia tone and then the second half was in color.

United Airlines sponsored a lot of travel films that were decent.

There was also a film sponsored by Champion Spark Plugs (and released by Paramount) about a stunt pilot, Art Scholl, called "Ballet In The Blue." It's available on YouTube in a horrible video transfer from a badly-worn and faded print. The music in it is far worse than I remembered but some of the stunts are amazing.

OK, well that's a trip through one of the more twisted hallways of my past.

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 10-25-2012, 07:29 AM:

My father had a business that sponsored a little league team that we used for booking purposes. The titles however, have long since faded from my memory.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 10-27-2012, 09:45 AM:

I used to rent the Bell Telephone films, like: Our Mister Sun, and Hemo The Magnificent, among others. I ran them on an Ampro Premier 30 in the late 1960's.

Few friends came to my screenings.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 10-27-2012, 05:04 PM:

I've acquired about 15-20 16mm promo/sponsored films over the years, and have managed to get a few of them transferred and on to YT in cases where they're either orphan films or Crown copyright, now expired. My second favourite is this one - even Harry Enfield couldn't have dreamt up the 'housewife' cooking the evening meal in an evening gown and fur coat!

My favourite is one I quite simply could not dare to put on YT, or even show beyond a few friends whose sense of humour I know can cope with it (and besides, BA probably still own the copyright). It's a promotional film for BOAC's (the airline that later became British Airways) flights to South Africa made in 1946, featuring some great footage of Short Empire flying boats. Unfortunately, the commentary starts, over shots of passengers boarding the aircraft: 'If you're one of these chaps who think that the wogs begin at Calais, you probably won't be interested in joining us on this trip'. During a stopover in Mombasa we see footage of natives dancing, as the commentator explains that 'These darkie rituals do take a bit of getting used to, don't they?' And things don't get any better from there on in. In a way the film is fascinating social history: that sort of language went from being unremarkable to unacceptable, more or less within a single generation. But it's probably best kept for discerning audiences...

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-28-2012, 01:07 AM:

quote: Bruce McGee
I used to rent the Bell Telephone films

In which those were classics by themselves. My mother used to work for "MaBell" and I would borrow our church's B&H 185, she'd get the films from the Telephone library and we'd watch all of the films in this series

This Archive site and YouTube have a few of these films available for download along with some actual prints still floating around in collector's sites and Rhino Video, in the early '90's, released them on VHS.

In this site above, one can find video downloads in sections of: 'Ephemeral films', 'A.V. Geeks' and others. A major collection of 16mm films now preserved on digital video formats.

-Monte

Posted by Jeff Taylor (Member # 443) on 10-28-2012, 04:30 PM:

Run an ebay search for "16mm film" and you'll find probably 80 or so pages of such gems generally at give-away prices.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-28-2012, 05:44 PM:

There are some terrific 35mm industrials as well. Among the best of the genre are the US Steel film "Rhapsody of Steel" and the Bell Telephone film "The Big Bounce." Both were printed in dye-transfer Technicolor, and good prints exist of them in private hands. Both are available online, too.