Grahame N's Web Pages


PRESTO FILMS
9.5MM CATALOGUE
from Grahame L. Newnham B.Sc.



Yes - it's me folks - Grahame Newnham!


I realised I just had to complete this listing before I had no more film boxes etc. to scan / photograph! (Or my memory failed entirely!)

I started with the 9.5mm film gauge when I was about ten years old. Naturally it was a 9.5mm Pathéscope "Ace" cine projector that I had for Christmas that started things off! Plus a 300ft reel of assorted 9.5mm shorts, including, I recall "U-Boats Return to Port"; "Leggo"; etc. plus a 1 reel Laurel & Hardy "Spook Ship" that came with the projector. With Christmas cash presents I went to the Photo Shop in Guildhall Square, Portsmouth (or was taken by my father). More new 9.5mm shorts included "All Hands To The Pumps" and "Polar Party" (|Disney shorts), plus "A High Tea" and "To Ski Or Not To Ski" a 60ft short that I was told starred Mr Pastry (Richard Hearne) - no doubt it comes from a Pathé Newsreel or Pictorial, but maybe it is him falling about in the snow. The local secondhand shop where I grew up in Emsworth (near Portsmouth) yielded many 9.5mm silent films at bargain prices and in quite good condition. The phobia had begun......

Having moved onto reading the Pathéscope Gazette and Amateur Cine World magazines and purchasing the book "How To Use Ninefive" by Dennis Neale I pushed for a projector upgrade. This was a 9.5mm Pathéscope 200B! I already had a 9.5mm cine camera - a "Campro" - this was soon upgraded to a 9.5mm "Dekko" with an f1.9 focussing Dallmeyer lens. By now Pathéscope were in trouble (not that I knew) and my Dad kindly bought me a new 9.5mm "Prince" cine camera from somewhere in Lincolnshire where they were selling a couple off at only £8 each (half price). I was still happily filming on 9.5mm, but soon had to move onto Ferrania and Orwo film stocks as Pathéscope dissapeared into the mire.

I had always bought and sold various bits and pieces since my early teens - the Exchange & Mart being my usual market place. It was in my late teens, probably "A" level time, when I was round at a late friend's house, deciding to hit the trade big time, that I had begun selling reel-to-reel recording tape. These were actually very good quality, being the 'edge cuts' discarded when 'Scotch' tape was manufactured. I added leaders and trailers, then polywrapped and boxed they were sold at school and later Portsmouth 'Poly' (soon Portsmouth University) and via some small advertisements. My late friend had adopted some fancy name for the guitar bits he sold I think, and for some reason the name 'Presto' was adopted for this recording tape. Years later once I took over the importing and distribution of 9.5mm Fuji camera film I used the name again for another 9.5mm colour film stock (actually 100asa 35mm Konica slide film, slit and reperforated to 9.5mm), which I called 'PrestoColour'. So 'Presto Products' became 'Presto Films'.


There's that name again! Recording tape from around 1964 - 99p was far too cheap!!


9.5mm camera film box - this handy size could take "H" chargers, 50ft & 100ft spools


Even in my teens I had bought up 'end-of-line' printed films for resale. The collapse of Pathéscope meant 9.5mm was poison to dealers, who were only to happy to dump anything left on their shelves. Sadly I kept little of that when I got married. It was only later that I began collecting 9.5mm again in earnest.

The idea for trying to produce new 9.5mm prints began back in the 1980s or so perhaps. In the Southampton / Bournemouth area a few ninefivers met regularly for film shows. In fact the Wimborne 9.5mm Mini-Festival was the brain child of the late Ken Wordsworth. New 9.5mm prints had been produced by Novascope Films run by Pat Moules and the late Paul Van Someren, using much of the original Pathé and Pathéscope triple print equipment. Later, the late Larry Pearce of LGP Cine also produced many 9./5mm printed film releases, printing on redundant double-eight black & white positive print stock and reperforating to 9.5mm. I really blame a keen 9.5mm film friend Peter Foreman for encouragiing me to consider starting printing 9.5mm films again. We persuaded Larry Pearce to part with an ex-Pathé/Pathéscope 35mm triple perforator, contact printer, triple 9.5mm 35mm negative printer, various negatives and most important - the ex. Walton Films 16mm to 9.5mm perforator/slitter. And yes it cost me real money!! (None of which I will ever recover of course!)


The ex-Walton Films 16mm to 9.5mm perforator & slitter

Whilst this was going on, Peter moved up to the Lake District, so much of the impetus was lost! (Probably just as well!) The potential supply of 35mm unperforated positive printstock began to dry up and became polyester based. The local Microfilm laboratory (for the processing) had shrunk to a cottage industry in someone's front room and I began to realise it was becoming rather a lost cause as the gear itself needed much work.


I had been visiting France on a regular basis for some time - a keen French film collector (into Laurel & Hardy on 35mm!) just inland from Dieppe would find 9.5mm vintage films and equipment for me in exchange for English stuff. When the Newhaven/Dieppe ferry had a weekend deal, I would venture up to Paris for the 'flea-market'. A helpful dealer (ex. Pathé) was pleased to off-load his stock of remaindered Pinquin and Film Office 9.5mm prints. What luck, these included edited 100ft copies of "Napoleon"!

By co-incidence, Phil Sheard (now still trading as Classic Films) secured a batch of new Castle 16mm unused colour cartoons at a bargain price - sadly it turned out they all had Spanish soundtracks! So I reperfed all these to 9.5mm, got them mag. striped (it had to be 'paste' stripe I recall because of the film layout in the projectors), then using the very effective SimSync device, added perfectly synchronuised sound tracks geting the sound from unspliced 16mm or Super 8mm English prints. This must have been sometime in 1998. Now the late lovely Derek Symonds of Derann still had a soft spot for 9.5mm - he used a fantastic lab. in the Midlands for his Super 8mm printed film releases. They did all the commercial television work on 16mm. It didn't take much persuasion to get a few 16mm test prints of some shorter Derann Super 8mm releases. One was silent ("ABC Daysets") another involved the striping and sound rerecording of the 9.5mm prints ("Modern Cinema Tags"). The exclusive was Derek getting the recent "Titanic" cinema trailer I think before the UK cinemas release of the actual feature. So I was able to claim the first 9.5mm film in full colour, 'scope and magnetic sound - and they were superb prints!

The crunch came one morning when another batch of 16mm prints arrived from Derann (well I often only ordered three prints at a time!) - as soon as the perforator started to complain I realised these were polyester prints .... I rang Derek and it was soon realised that there was no more acetate print stock left! Other 16mm prints already ordered, also turned out to be polyester ("Wizard Of Oz" and "Calamity Jane") - watch my 16mm sales page - I may clear this stock! A lab in Germany was very helpful and still had a little acetate print stock in hand - they did the "Rio Bravo" trailer for me - not such good quality though as "Titanic". They were to do a little Christmas colour cartoon next, but I think they too ran out of the acetate print stock.

The little "Kalidga" notched colour shorts were produced by contact printing from my original 9.5mm copy in my Pathé Webo 'M' cine camera - (just set the aperture one stop over and point at the sky) - however I discovered it was doing great harm to my original copy and prints from a print were no good. So marked the end of notched colour shorts!

The only future lay with colour camera stock (which was then still acetate) and 16mm positive print stock. We shall see what the future brings!



Advert in the Group 9.5 magazine - Issues 94, 95, 96, 97 Summer/Autumn 1998 & Winter/Spring 1999

Watch the cinema trailer for 'Titanic' on YouTube -

(sorry! this is an HD version, not a transfer of my 9.5mm release!)


                 9.5mm PRESTO PRINTED FILM SCHEDULE
                 ----------------------------------

  9.5mm Ref.No.       Title                Length etc.         Date   Qty  Origin    Country Date

  PJ.95100 NAPOLEON A MONTENOTTE           100ft B/W silent  06/1998   7   Pinquin     FR 1927
           (from Napoleon - Abel Gance)
  PJ.95101 NAPOLEON EN CORSE               100ft B/W silent  06/1998   2   Pinquin     FR 1927
           (from Napoleon - Abel Gance)
  PJ.95102 OURSONS CASCADEURS              100ft B/W silent  06/1998   4   Pinquin
           (Bear Cub Pranks)
  PJ.95103 UN ROUND SANGLANT               100ft B/W silent  06/1998   7   Pinquin     US 1949
           (A Deadly Bout) from The Champion - Kirk Douglas 
  PJ.95104 LA SOUTE INFERNALE              100ft B/W silent  06/1998   4   FilmOffice

  PJ.95105 CHATEAU DE FONTAINBLEAU         100ft B/W silent  06/1998   3   FilmOffice

  PJ.95106 TONNERE SUR LA HONGRIE          100ft B/W silent  06/1998   1   FilmOffice
           (Hungarian Uprising 22/10/56)
  PJ.95107 HAIES 110m HOMMES 80m FEMMES    100ft B/W silent  06/1998   5   FilmOffice
           (1956 Melbourne Olympics)
  PJ.95108 100m HOMMES ET 100m FEMMES      100ft B/W silent  06/1998   1   FilmOffice
           (1956 Melbourne Olympics)
  PJ.95109 SAUT LONGUEUR ET TRIPLE SAUT    100ft B/W silent  96/1998   1   FilmOffice
           (1956 Melbourne Olympics-Long Jump & Triple Jump))
  PT.95110 TITANIC TRAILER (Scope)         160ft COL MagSnd  06/1998   7   Presto      US 1997

  PT.95111 ROUGH AND TUMBLEWEED            250ft COL MagSnd  08/1998   4   Castle      US 1961
           (Walter Lanz - Inspector Willoughby)
  PT.95112 YUKON HAVE IT                   250ft COL MagSnd  08/1998   7   Castle      US 1959
           (Walter Lanz - Chilly Willy)
  PT.95113 PHONEY EXPRESS                  250ft COL MagSnd  08/1998   2   Castle      US 1962
           (Walter Lanz - Inspector Willoughby)        
  PT.95114 CASE OF THE COLD-STORAGE YEGG   250ft COL MagSnd  08/1998   2   Castle      US 1963
           (Walter Lanz - Inspector Willoughby)
  PM.95115 L'ANNEAU MAGIQUE  (2x100ft)     100ft B/W silent  06/1998   2   FilmOffice  FR 195?
           (The Magic Ring - from Guignol & Barbarin - 1950s French puppet film series)
  PJ.95116 SAUT A LA PERCHE                100ft B/W silent  06/1998   1   Pinguin
           (1956 Melbourne Olympics-Pole Vault)
  PT.95117 MODERN CINEMA TAGS              100ft COL MagSnd  04/1999   6   Presto

  PM.95118 ABC DAYSETS                     140ft COL/BW snt  11/1998   6   Presto

* PT.95119 WIZARD OF OZ TRAILER                  COL MagSnd  01/2000   3   Presto      US 1939

* PT.95120 CALAMITY JANE TRAILER                 COL MagSnd  01/2000   3   Presto      US 1953

  PT.95121 THREE RING FLING                250ft COL MagSnd  06/2000   2   Castle      US 1958
           (Walter Lanz - Windy The Bear)
  PT.95122 SWISS MISFIT                    250ft COL MagSnd  06/2000   1   Castle      US 1957
           (Walter Lanz - Chilly Willy)
  PV.95123 KALIDJA, LA DANSEUSE TUNISIENNE  36ft COL Notched 01/2001   4   Presto

  PT.95124 RIO BRAVO TRAILER               140ft COL MagSnd  05/2003   3   Presto      US 1959

  PB.95125 STOCK TITLE - THE END           3.5ft B/W Silent  01/2017  10   Presto

  PB.95126 ACADEMY COUNTDOWN LEADER          7ft B/W Silent  02/2017  12   Presto

                                (26 entries - so far!)

(PJ = 100ft/30m; PM = 200ft/60m; PT = Mag. stripe sound; PV = 30ft/9m notched; PB = 'brief' 3ft)

PrestoF/gln/20.05.03/updated 22Jan2017

Notes

1. Titles starting with an asterix * although 16mm prints were made, were never released
on 9.5mm as print stock was now polyester and couldn't be perforated to 9.5mm.

2. Titles other than those marked 'Presto' were Film Office and Pinquin old stock. where
unmarked; the unmarked colour cartoons were 16mm Spanish prints reperforated to 9.5mm
and issued with English magnetic sound tracks - sadly by 2017 these have colour fade.

3. Luckily most of the Presto 9.5mm colour titles were printed on LPP low fade colour stock
so should all still have excellent colour. (My copies still have!)

4. The Film Office and Pinquin films were originally released in France and all have French titles.

Chck my sales lists on this web-site - a few titles were still available in January 2017!



1998 catalogue page 1 - phone numbers have changed now I notice!


1998 catalogue centre pages - wow 'fully illustrated'?


1998 catalogue back page - gives an idea of release dates now

A lucky find! This was folded up as a book mark - gives me an idea of some release dates



At least the printed films were supplied spooled, polywrapped and in smart boxes!
(magnetic sound prints must be on non-magnetic spools!)


Wow!
A bit of an exclusive! The first (and probably the only!) 9.5mm printed film release in full colour, magnetic sound and 'scope!
(Box label design by Peter Foreman)





The 'Presto' 9.5mm film releases on display at the Argenteuil Film Fair (Paris) - possibly around Jan 2000


The display, just visible on my stall at the Group 9.5 Pimlico (London) Film Fair - (back says Spring 2004!)



Well - something new for 2017 - this is from a 16mm roll found stored !


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Created 23Jan2017 .......... Last updated: 16 April 2019 ............... 95flmcatpresto.htm ................ ©MMXV11 Grahame .L. Newnham
04Feb2017 - Film Fair stall's photos added / 05July2017 - tidying & origin/dates added to film list