8mm Movie Film "Magi-Cartridge"

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rp2813

rp2813

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A friend of mine has a bunch of his family home movies on Technicolor brand "Magi-Cartridge" cassettes. I'm attaching some photos here of what they look like.

Can anyone advise on the type of projector that's required to view these?

rp2813++6-28-2010-22-05-36.jpg
 
I vaguely remember these from when I was a kid, but knew of no one who had them. From what I could find out, this was a loop type system and could either be silent or have magnetic sound. The film was shot with a regular camera, and sent for processing. It was returned packaged in the cartridge. They were made between 1964 and 1971. Still looking for a pic of the projector
 
For some reason

these were very popular in my school district when I was going through elementary and junior high.

Haven't seen (or thought of) one in YEARS.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Wow, very interesting. If I read it correctly, that projector didn't sell. Thanks Allen. I'll send the link to my friend. His sister passed away a while back and he got a bunch of cartridges but no projector.
 
A company my father represented used this format (briefly) for training films. Since it was a film loop, you had to be careful to stop it when it reached the end or it would fly past the start and the next time you started it, it was like walking into the theater late. On the plus side, it did eliminate all of the threading necessary with a regular projector. On the minus side, you were kinda locked into (no pun) the company's processing. The projector and films arrived at our house in the early 60s. My father, brother and I sat down and watched them. It was the closest we got to home movies. The projector had a nice leather carrying case.
 
I remember having a Fisher Price toy that showed 8mm cartridge movies when I was little. It cranked and you pointed it at a light to be able to see. Like a lot of F-P's stuff, it was a fantastic toy.
 
The non-sound version of these are surprisingly easy to find for not a lot of money....the sound version on the other hand was two to three times the size of the one pictured above, tough to find in working shape (brittle plastic gears) and commands a good sum today. Those cartridges have a 20+ min run time. If someone wants a non-sound version for the price of shipping let me know. - Cory
 
Cory, if you have a working non-sound projector you're willing to part with, I'll advise my friend and arrange something with you. It could be shipped to me and I'll pay.

I figured these were loops, but was wondering if there was any way to identify the end, like the long white leader section on your standard film reel. Sounds like you just have to watch and remember.

I do like the concept. Even the self-threading types of projectors didn't always function properly in that regard. I have tons of old home movies I need to sort through. It would a lot easier with this Magi-Cartridge system, that's for sure.

Ralph
 
Kenner Easy-Show

When I was a kid, I got a Kenner Easy-Show projector for Christmas. It came with a couple cartoons; thinking one of them was "Mighty Mouse". Didn't use it but a few times - don't remember if it broke, or if I was old enough that I just thought it was hokey. I remember being disappointed that it didn't have sound.

I tried to convince my parents to buy a 16mm Bell & Howell Filmosound projector like the school had, but they refused saying they were very expensive and we didn't have that kind of money. They were several hundred dollars even back then. My very rich cousins had one, and had a wall-mounted screen to use with it. I did get to use one a lot after I got in HS, as I worked in the AV dept. I should have asked for one as my graduation present, but I decided on a stereo instead. I wanted to buy a 16mm projector when the local school had an auction, but had to leave for dental appt. before they got around to selling them. May still get one though, as I see them on E-bay often.
 
circlew

YES! I remember the Easy Show projector all too well. I got one for Xmas in '65 (with much nagging, begging and pleading to Santa). The colors of the projectors were either red or blue. I also remember the one "reel" that I owned had "The Munsters" on one half and "Superman" (from the '50's series) on the other. My brother and friends laughed our asses off watching Superman fly backwards.
 
I have a friend that has quite a few 16mm Bell & Howell projectors he'd like to get rid of. If you are interested, I could ask him what he wants for one.

These projectors have been regularly maintained. He has the Bell & Howl turqoise & older gray models. These are the same ones that they used in schools. They are heavy duty.

BTW, there are companies out there that will convert your technicolor cartridges to DVD format for you. This may be cheaper than buying a Technicolor projector.
 
Tom and Bill

I believe it was called the "Give a Show" projector. I guess it didn't interest me much because in our family we were already giving shows with the ancient Keystone my dad bought in 1949, and I knew how to thread and operate it.

Allen, it's sort of a Catch-22 situation. My friend sees no point in paying to convert the films to DVD unless what's on them is worth converting. So he kind of needs to run the actual cartridges through a projector and then decide.
 
Allen, I appreciate your offer. Please ask him how much he wants for one of the Autoload models. The shipping cost is usually the deal breaker for me - the things are rather heavy.

Ralph, my sister and I had the Kenner Give-a-Show also; several years before the Easy-Show. The Give-a-Show was a still strip projector. We had Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, etc. on that. I was always disappointed when things ran on batteries, instead of plugging in.
 
my elementery school had those 8mm cartrige projectors-they
were made by singer IIRC-haven't seen one in about 30yrs..
I do have a few 16 mm though:
-early 50s revere
-1955 BH
-1975,1980,1982 BH filmosounds
 
Tom, I must have not been watching kids shows anymore by the time the "Easy Show" projector came on the market.

I guess I dated myself with that "Give-a-Show" remark.

Hmmmm . . . lately I'm dating myself way too often . . . but that's a topic for the DL forum :-P
 
Yes,I had a Give A show projector as well.It is too bad an AC adaptor was not available for them.I have a few 16MM "classroom" type portable projectors-one being a surplus DeVry model used by the Army.I have a couple of films to run-old Army First aid shows.I have a portable 35MM Holmes projector-it weighs about 100lbs,and MANY boxes of 35MM film trailers that came from movie theaters.but alas no sound preamp for my holmes and no rewinder.The Holmes was sold as a set-the projector,sound preamp-amp-and a speaker.Would love to have the other parts.some have even put digital soundheads in the Holmes to run modern 35MM movies.The Holmes has a 750Watt incandescent lamp in it.
 
slide conversions

Speaking of dating ourselves, my father's closets are filled with 100+ carousels of 35 mm slides, from the 1950s to the 1980s. He didn't convert to print film until the 1980s. Since his projector long ago died, no one has been able to view these treasures.

For Father's Day, I bought him an Image Box slide scanner from Costco. It's USB powered but fairly bulky. You load four slides at a time in a cassette, then advance the cassette into the scanner to the first slide. Scan, advance, scan, advance, etc.

Loading and unloading the cassettes actually consumes the most time, not the scanning itself. I had my father order two more cassettes from the manufacturer, so he can load/unload while I am scanning. I can scan about 100 slides (one carousel) in about 40 minutes with an assistant (dad).

What I REALLY like about the supplied software is that you assign a name for a group of photos (say, "1973-10 London" where Oct 1973 is the date of the photos) and it:

1. Automatically creates a folder for this group, using the name you chose

2. Automatically names and SEQUENTIALLY numbers each image, e.g. 1973-10 London 001, 1973-10 London 002, 1973-10 London 003, etc.). What I dreaded most was having to name 100s of files, but the software does the work for me.

Image quality is excellent. Attached is a photo of the 1974 Spokane World's Fair. Original scan is 2.5 MB and resolution looks almost digital. I have reduced the file size to 50 KB for use on this board, but the full size version looks stunning. I noticed a major improvement between a set of photos he took in Japan (1973) and the Spokane photos; this may have resulted from his having bought a new camera with better lenses.

passatdoc++7-2-2010-10-41-18.jpg
 
just for Foraloysius.....

Here it is: Canisius College/Mater Dei Gymnasium in Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands! I was in school under the supervision of the Jesuits.

"Goedemorgen, Vader...."

(we had a priest for physics, a former nun for English, and a brother for religion...I knew better than to discuss the recent "Roe v Wade" court decision in the USA, the one that legalized abortion).

Having attended public schools in California my entire life, it took a little time to become used to seeing a crucifix in every classroom.

Unlike USA Catholic schools, there were no required uniforms at Canisius/Mater Dei. When I described the typical attire for Catholic schools in USA (pleated skirts and white blouses for girls, shirts and ties for boys) they thought I was inventing the story. Little did they know.....

Note: the original slide was taken with my c.1969 Kodak Instamatic. I believe the film size was 35 mm, but it was a fixed focus point and shoot lens and the film was contained in a cartridge. This one is at full resolution vs. the Spokane photo which I downsized from 2.5 MB to 50 KB. Instamatics had a slightly narrower aspect ratio than true 35 mm, hence the dark bars on either side of the photo. The scanner fills in the gaps with dark bars when the image is smaller than a standard 35 mm slide. If you remember prints from the old days, they were almost square rather than rectangular, probably to fit instamatic film images.

PS I know that Canisius was the "Atheneum" part of the school, and Mater Dei was the "gymnasium" part of the school. They may have been separate at one time and eventually had to merge to survive as government curricula changed. At that time, Atheneum offered a classical education with Greek and Latin. Gymnasium students studied modern languages without the Greek and Latin. Otherwise, the other academic subjects appeared the same, and I am pretty sure that students from both halves in the school were mixed in math and science and social studies classes, even though they studied languages separately.

By the way, the chemistry teacher smoked right in class, as he was teaching. And the students didn't even seem to notice "what's wrong with this picture".

passatdoc++7-2-2010-10-57-37.jpg
 
Thanks for the picture.

BTW, Atheneum was the part without Greek and Latin, Gymnasium included those languages.

Smoking in the classroom was pretty normal in those days. I once was sent to get an asstray for a teacher. I got sent back by the rector who told me to tell her that she shouldn't smoke before the third hour. LOL
 
even worse, Louis.....

Check out these links. GVD!

http://www.katholieknederland.nl/actualiteit/2010/detail_objectID708071_FJaar2010.html

http://www.katholieknederland.nl/actualiteit/2010/detail_objectID707982_FJaar2010.html

NO ONE in Nijmegen sent me these links....most likely they are in denial that anything happened (my host parents would have gone on the warpath, but they are deceased. I'm referring to my friends' parents, the families with eight kids, all of whom went to Canisius-Mater Dei).

Canisius was the first Jesuit VWO in Holland and the second Catholic VWO in the country. When I attended, it was called Canisius-Mater Dei due to the merger of all-boys Canisius and all-girls Mater Dei (before the merger, the schools had different closing times so the boys and girls would not mingle on the street...) in 1965. By my era, the school had been "integrated" for eight years.

Thanks for correcting me on which program was for classical studies and which one was for modern language studies. Question: unless someone wanted to be a priest or archaeologist, why would someone study the Gymnasium program? WOuldn't the Athenaeum program be more practical for most people? The other thing I always found confusing was that to me, "Athenaeum" suggested ancient Athenian studies (Greek, etc.) and so I always thought that Athenaeum was the classics program. The other confusing thing is that in most other northern European countries, "gymnasium" means university-preparatory secondary school, including the modern language and science programs that in Holland mean "Athenaeum". People in say Germany or Sweden don't realize that "gymnasium" students in Holland study Dutch, English, Latin, and Greek. Sounds like a fast track to become a priest or something!

In some länder of Germany, gymnasium students do study Latin, in lieu of a modern language, so they emerge with maybe German, English, and Latin, but it's not as heavily oriented toward ancient studies as the Dutch version.

By the way, Canisius still had a huge "internaat" building on the campus when I was there, but I was never certain if any students actually lived there anymore. "Internaat" in this case, for people reading this other than Louis, didn't mean an early form of "internet" but rather a boarding school, the students were "interned" in dormitories. The school we are discussing transitioned from an old fashioned boarding school (in this case, Jesuit Catholic on top of everything else) to a day school.

Maybe I should also explain for those other than Louis that in Holland, schools are funded by the government and all follow a standardized course of studies. Religion is taught in those school with a historic religious affiliation, so for maybe 2-3 hours a week, the students follow a religion course that teaches (in the case of this school) Catholic theology, but otherwise the courses are similar to what one would encounter in a non-Catholic school. Of course, my host parents always said the Catholic schools were better because they were STRICTER, and in those days they probably were right.

The links above relate to a recent (April 2010) sexual abuse scandal at the school I attended.

As a Californian at Canisius, I was a minor celebrity because one of California's two Senators, John Tunney, was married to a graduate of the school (well, of the Mater Dei portion), Mieke Tunney:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...a=N&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbs=isch:1

They couldn't tell you anything about Tunney's political views or biography, but EVERYONE knew that Mieke Tunney had attended Canisius-Mater Dei. The LIFE photo above was from when Tunney was elected as a Representative to Congress, about 1964. In 1970, he was elected to the Senate. However, in 1972, she filed for divorce from him. This was not news in California and I wasn't even aware of it (the news media back then regarded this as the private business of politicians, and I agree) and you can bet that NO ONE in Nijmegen knew about it. They were still going around saying that California's Senator's wife was from Nijmegen and Mater Dei. What they didn't know is that their divorce proceedings were pending in the California court system.....

http://www.katholieknederland.nl/actualiteit/2010/detail_objectID707982_FJaar2010.html
 
I vaguely remember being shown a cartridge educational film. Think it was in the mid-80's, probably a computer electronics class at a local community college. As I recall, the graphics were laughable. I think they used those plastic stick-on art shapes that were popular in the 50's. I think they were called Colorforms...

http://www.burlingamepezmuseum.com/classictoy/color.html
 
I can sort of remember "colorforms" type things used in school-letters,numbers,shapes-that sort of thing the teacher or students would stick to a special board.Also during the 50's-60's and into the 70's TV weathermen would use similar things to show weather forecasts on TV.Now I miss those.The computer generated forms and maps are too boring!
 
Veering Off Topic Myself . . .

We had a weather girl here in the late 60's and early 70's who would stand behind a clear plexiglas map with a white marker of some kind. She'd hand-write all of the temperatures backwards. Of course, the 1's and 8's she could do the same but she almost never made a mistake. They had a back-up weather girl who had to learn how to do it too. I think all the other channels had weather men, and they all stood in front of the map and wrote temps and made boxes and weather fronts with a black marker.
 

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