Thursday, July 30, 2009

The Disney '41 Strike -- 8mm Version

Tom Sito and Jerry Beck send along this amazing footage of the Disney strike. In it you can see all the major players of the time..

Strikes are always stressful things. TAG's '79 and '82 job actions were, and I'm sure the Screen Cartoonists Guild's struggle in June, 1941 was no exception.

Walt was never the same afterwards. On the other hand, a lot of studio employees found their salaries doubled when a contract was finally reached.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting, although the audio on that has to be a modern addition since there was no such thing as an 8mm sound camera then.

Steve Hulett said...

Same thought occurred to me.

Good to see Walt standing there watching the strike. Tinsel town was a different world then. Couldn't imagine Iger or Redstone or Rupert M. standing at the gate watching a strike today.

They wouldn't even notice.

Anonymous said...

The sound is new, but the film was originally 16 mm, and shot by John Hubley.

Unknown said...

The sound has been added for effect (as if it really needed any) The film we have is 8mm with splices in it. Interesting an 8mm print would be made from a 16mm film if that were the case. Does anyone have the 16mm copy and is it the same?

Anonymous said...

Michael Sporn may have a copy.

Anonymous said...

I hope they didn't enhance the flickering image effect on purpose. its really annoying and hard to watch with that.

Robert said...

The date of Kodak film (was there any other kind?) can be surmised by "edge codes". If the 8mm film has an edge mark indicating manufacture after the shooting date then we could presume it was a copy of some other film.

a guide to Kodak edge codes:

http://www.filmforever.org/Edgecodes.pdf


Original or only-known-copy, I hope some one gets a proper transfer for preservation purposes.

Tom Sito said...

I believe Bill Hurtz once told me the Hubley home movies were donated to the UCLA Archives.

Unknown said...

Well, The film has a kodak leader, so it was kodak film; but we have not found any edge marks yet. What is interesting is that there are splices in the film. I'll post a photo of the actual reel and box on the website. The box has a label of the Revere Camera Company. All we know is John Basmajian was personally given this by a participating friend. The film is pristine and we hope to have a proper transfer soon.

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