Before I started watching and buying VHS / BETA tapes, and long before the DVD era, I collected 8mm movie reels.
During the mid 70s to early 80s, you could find cheap 8mm / 16mm films at swap-meets held all over southern California ( at drive-in theaters ).
However, I could never find a cheap functioning projector to view them. Plus, my folks had already disposed of their projectors.
Most of those reels contained clips of old westerns, or old horror movies, or old crime flicks, or old sci-fi movies. Some were filled with cartoons... And of course, nudie loops.
I got rid of those films, and most of my movie memorabilia, when I left California.
Countless rare, previously UNreleased, and micro-budget films are released on manufactured on demand DVD-Rs.
Nowadays, those types of discs are as close to 8mm / 16mm reels as you're going to get.
Companies such as SOMETHING WEIRD, J4HI, and TRASH PALACE are the spiritual successors to all those 8mm / 16mm mail order companies.
I actually, in college, fell for one of these scams in the back of a Oui magazine. You didn't get 10 movies for $2 but you DID get your name on every porn mailing list on the planet, and for YEARS got envelopes with big red lettering on the outside warning of adult content.
ReplyDeleteThat sucks about the "mailing list".
ReplyDeleteThe only good thing, is that, many of those old adult catalogs are worth a bit of money these days.