Castle Films: A Hobbyist's Guide

by Scott MacGillivray

Do you remember the first movie you ever owned? It was probably a product of Castle Films. Before home video, Castle Films made every living room a screening room. For four decades the 16mm and 8mm... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0595324916
• ISBN13: 9780595324910
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 436 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Book Entertains and Educates On Many Levels

Like many present-day 16mm film collectors, I began my hobby during my pre-teen years, buying 8mm Castle Films at local camera and variety/discount stores. The Castles played an important part in my film-collecting life, and author Scott MacGillivray has done an excellent job of bringing back pleasant memories and reviving my interest in these fun home movies. This book is really what you make it.....It can be a relaxing, fun history of the Castle Films company and its various titles, or it can be utilized as a reference guide to look up specific titles. Personally, I've found the specific musical selection listings for each of Castle's 16mm "Music Album" reels to be worth the price of the book. After collecting various Music Album reels with such generic titles as "Swing Melodies" and "Musical Medley", it gets very confusing to keep track of the individual Soundies on each volume, but Mr. MacGillivray gives the reader an organized, easy-to-follow breakdown of each volume collection. Again, this feature ALONE makes this book a valuable resource for the Castle collector, but there's so much more. After reading this book, I finally know why certain Castle titles were discontinued and replaced by other titles, why certain cartoon titles had their original theatrical title names changed to different "Castle" title names and other "burning" questions that I've wondered about over the years. I highly recommend this fine book to anyone who has ever enjoyed Castle Films in their home....or anyone who just loves movies in general.

A nostalgic delight!

If the name "Castle Films" means nothing to you, don't bother reading any further. But if Castle rings a loud, nostalgic bell, then this book is a MUST-HAVE item for your library. Long before DVD made it possible to watch feature film trilogies or entire seasons of TV series in the comfort of our homes whenever we want, Castle Films (and outfits like them) provided desperate movie fans with little 8mm digest versions of cartoons, comedies and horror pictures. These 8mm titles were sold in stores everywhere, only to vanish completely when videotape came along. If you remember those days and have wondered about this once-thriving company, this is the book you've been waiting for. The research that went into this volume is amazing. More importantly, it's just plain fun to read. Highly recommended!

Fascinating, nostalgic, and useful

Those of us who have always held a fascination for the magic of the moving picture often nabbed our father's 8mm home movie projector to show the latest three minute Castle Film we just bought from a nearby deparment store. Our childhoods enjoyed many rainy afternoons where friends would gather and see silent excerpts from features with Abbott and Costello, W.C. Fields, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and others. This book not only reminds us of those blissful digital-free years, but remains an extremely useful reference tool for those of us who still like to dabble in the hobby, despite having far less time to do so. Indispensible and highly recommended.

Superb!!!

This is the kind of book I've been waiting years for! So how about 'A Hobbyist's Guide to Ken Films and Columbia' next???