A dangerous thing has happened. I got thinking about my super 8 collecting days and which company I had bought the most releases from.

The top of my list is Derann, who from my very first film to their closure I have lots from them. Even from when I started about 1975 most titles I bought were their releases. I also used the hire library on the block booking I think every three weeks a new programme would arrive.

Now this surprised me, the next were Mountain Films, but on reflection they were the UK distributors of Ken and Columbia. Although I never bought from them because they were wholesale only. I did get them from Portland Films the retail arm. The prints were sometimes really good, but a lot sadly weren't. The Magenta Voyage Of Sinbad and the scope version of The Day Of The Triffids were poor. Fiend Without A Face 4x400ft was a good print though. I used to get those Stardust mini breaks to London about eight times a years so visited the shop on Shaftesbury Avenue, also one time the New Oxford Street one called Movie Makers.

The next again not bought direct they were wholesale only till the later end is Walton Films. A few features such as Callan, and in scope Hannie Caulder both 4x400ft. Of course they also released Tom & Jerry edited sadly, The Pink Panther and Inspector cartoons. I have a number of the 400ft cutdowns too.

Of the others I think P.M. Films just beat Powell Films. I have a couple of features from P.M. But none from Powell. I have shorts from both. DCR I have five features from Dave West and some of the 200ft shorts he released. Movieland I have Riddle Of The Sands in scope. (Did anyone get the 600ft that P.M. Films advertised?).

When Derann closed the library I used D.J. Hurst who had a nice large selection of titles. He was first based at Stamford Bridge and later moved to Scarborough. I bought many titles when he was closing due to ill health.

Of the overseas dealers Famous Films in Miami had a great section of used films I bought many optical sound titles and other shorts and features. L.A. Films I have a few of the 400ft trailer reels. Media Arts used to have a good selection of used titles of which I bought. Blackhawk and Thunderbird Films I bought these through Regent Films in Blackpool. From Techno I have quite a few of the Warner cartoons and some of the ITC releases.

Should mention Mirage Films, Quality Productions, Perry's Movies, Iver Films have a few of their titles too. Capital Films for the Castle and Universal 8. Marketing Films (New York) for some features.

Of course many more such as Classic Home Cinema, Independent 8, CEC Entertainment.

When you look back I was surprised how many dealers they were, of course some were also distributors only.

Good information David...On the Super 8 Database there are 90 distributors, not sure if we have all those you mentioned. Sure must have been nice to have so many options back then!

Good post David,
Over the years we also made many purchases from lots of dealers. Many of our films came from Roger Lily of Movieland International here in Plymouth while another large portion of our collection also came from Derann. In the early days we also bought from Mailmaster/Mountain and Portland films. As you say the quality did vary a lot but the Columbia and 20th century fox titles were always very good with just a few exceptions.
As the years moved on we also aquired some very good titles from dealers like Barry @ indi 8, Paul Foster, Ian at Perrys, Iver films and major 8.
The good thing about having movieland international here on our doorstep was the ability to visit Roger on a regular basis. Through him we could order almost anything and he always gave us a good price. We only dealt with Walton direct on a few occasions as most of there titles were bought second hand. One thing they were brilliant for was supplying us loads of boxes for titles we bought. They never once charged us which was very generous. Derann also helped us with boxes too. We did buy a couple direct from Blackhawk films and also Steve Osborne at the reel image where i purchased my copy of the Grease feature in scope as well as some great trailers and shorts.

Here is a list of distributors on Super8database with the number of releases we have registered extracted from the database just now. Off course it is very dependent on which distributors catalogs we have gone through, but that's not the whole truth since many films have been registered when we received covers for them. You can browse films per distributor here: https://super8database.com/distributors/

                name                | count 
------------------------------------+-------
 Derann                             |  1338
 Columbia Pictures                  |   426
 Fletcher Films                     |   391
 Blackhawk                          |   322
 Walton Home Movies                 |   280
 Universal 8                        |   228
 Thunderbird Films                  |   226
 Ken Films                          |   200
 Walt Disney Home Movies            |   141
 MGM                                |   113
 Castle Films                       |    80
 D.C.R. Films                       |    77
 Iver Film Services                 |    76
 ie International                   |    52
 Techno Film                        |    50
 Mountain Films                     |    48
 CHC                                |    47
 Movieland International Ltd.       |    39
 Marketing Films                    |    36
 The Reel Image                     |    31
 Kempski - Scoptimax                |    16
 P.M. Films                         |    16
 Americom 8mm inc.                  |    15
 Ring Classics                      |    14
 Heritage FIlms                     |    13
 Perry's Movies                     |    12
 Niles                              |    12
 Collectors Club                    |    11
 Red Fox Enterprises                |    11
 Starline Movies                    |    11
 Cinema Entertainment Company (CEC) |    10
 Powell Films                       |    10
 Cinevision                         |     9
 Film Office                        |     9
 Viacom                             |     8
 Canterbury Films                   |     8
 ABC Pictures International         |     8
 Unspecified                        |     6
 Arrow FIlms                        |     5
 Wing Films                         |     5
 Modern Movie                       |     5
 Real Film                          |     4
 Arco                               |     4
 Dane Film Services                 |     4
 Reel Images                        |     4
 Major 8 Movies                     |     3
 Steel Valley Film Services         |     3
 Showtime Movies                    |     3
 Internfilm                         |     3
 Republic Pictures                  |     3
 United Arista                      |     3
 Piccolo Film                       |     2
 Bootleg                            |     2
 Centa Classics                     |     2
 Barry Wiles Films                  |     2
 Classic Home Cinema                |     2
 The Widescreen Centre              |     2
 Silver Screen                      |     2
 Dune Film Services Ltd             |     2
 Lone Wolf                          |     2
 Animex                             |     2
 Avo Films                          |     1
 Ufa                                |     1
 Starjoy FIlms                      |     1
 Miko-Studio                        |     1
 DeMaio Film Service                |     1
 Capitol FIlms                      |     1
 Bucks Labs                         |     1
 Associated Artist Production       |     1
 Screen Gems Home Movie             |     1
 B.B.C. TV Enterprises              |     1
 Milestone Movies Corporation       |     1
 Phoenix Film Services              |     1
 Reel To Reel                       |     1
 20th Century Fox Films             |     1
 Vintage Movies                     |     1
 Spring Colour Publications         |     1
 Rank Audio Visual                  |     1
 Hollywood Film Services            |     1
 Independent 8                      |     1
 Boxer Films                        |     1
 LAP Films                          |     1
 

 

Eivind Don't Lose Your Head was a Powell Film release. P.M. Films also released Hell Drivers and The 39 Steps.

Powell also released The Iron Maiden, Angels One Five.

Eivind,
Great list a "reel" blast from the past there.
Movieland as with Tom was a great place to visit down here in Plymouth,got my print of Calamity Jane from the MD Roger Lilley a real film gent.
Good times

The database is by far the best reference site for our hobby, looking at the dealer list just reminds us at what has been lost over the years.

David,

Thank you for the additional info on the films and we will get those updates made shortly.
We are always looking for pdf files/scans of film catalogs that we can use to add individual films to S8D--should you have any that you can share, feel free to contact Eivind or myself at: feedback@super8database.com
We get a LOT of box images (used with permission of course) from individual collectors, FB groups like Ged's "Derann Vaults" and others, as well as the other film forums too. Any assistance to help the project along is very much appreciated!

try this old catalouge. If this can be used please let me know and i will upload it on the link for the database. Bear with me and i will re do that front cover over the weekend

Nice one Tom

Sorry for a slow reply. My wrist has been acting up, so I haven't touched my computer after work for a few days to let it rest.

That was an interesting catalog, Tom! But I see the names of three distributors on the front. What is the story here? I am a bit confused :-)

This was a catalogue that my Brother obtained from Frampton Cameras here in Plymouth. He use to visit it to see what films were for sale on the carousal racks. They use to have film catalouges in piles for customers to take. This one catalogue covered those three companies at that time.
This was the pre sound days for us. We used the Eumig P8. This shop was perfect for my Brother, it was three or four shops from where he worked in the City centre, there was also Tom Molland photography literally next door and Dixons, all within a few minutes of his workplace. Incidentally, this is the 50th year he has worked in the same place . Many changes in those years, mostly for the worse.

BTW, the address on the back cover is "Distributed by "Capitol Film Distributors LTD, 193, Wardour Street, London W.1 The phone number was 01 437 8196.