While I am not a big collector of Castle Films, they certainly have been a very important part of the home film industry and probably is how many people started out collecting films years ago. I have found the reference book, "Castle Films: A Hobbyist's Guide" by Scott MacGillivray to be very helpful.

This book is over 400 pages and contains a very interesting history on Castle Films from the early years up until the Universal 8 era began in 1977. Most of the book is indexes of all of the various films by subject--news, sports, cartoons etc. Other indexes by serial number or alphabetical by title or character make it pretty easy to find a title. Many of the films have additional details which help decipher title differences that seem to occur frequently between a digest and the original feature film. Castle did issue some real gems and when you read through the lists in this book it is quite incredible the sheer number of films they put out over the years!

I think this is a great reference book to have, and it is still available through Amazon I believe.

It's a very useful publication. I often refer to it.

Sounds like something I would find good use for. I should improve on my history knowledge too.

Great reference guide — selfishly just wish it had more regarding Castle’s/Universal 8’s history, etc.

Regardless, highly recommended.

As they say down the road in Somerset "Yer Tiz".
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Castle-Films-Ho...y/dp/0595324916

This has been featured in the Picture Gallery,"Books for Collectors" section,for quite some time now. Incidentally,all the books featured,are in my library!

it looks a very good book but its a very expensive book.

Pan,
I am glad you reminded us all about the Picture Gallery--thank you.

And yes, many other interesting publications shown in the "Books for Collectors" topic!

#7 -
Tom,
Yes, not a cheap book--and sometimes I do think to myself, "here is money that could be used toward a film instead of a book". But for me being a newer collector, I need to learn all I can even if it means a bit less money left over for film....

Yes,but it will help you to buy more films and/or not buy films that will not interest you

Given the talent involved in editing a feature film to an eight-minute digest, the names of those editors seem to be lost to time —