Customs A piece of film blew in my shop today.

Maybe there’s a Ford in your future…

 

Probably nothing to it, more than likely it blew out the garage door down street where the car has been stored away for decades when ' Two men & a truck ' were vacating the premises.

 

I’d drive it

 

lost from projector, found by protector, back to projector. check local camera shop on how to attach to a loop and play it.

 

Car movie... Twenty years ago someone was going to film a car scene for a movie in the western burbs of Chicago. They sent out a notice to all the car clubs in the ares. What they were looking for was about 20 "mostly stock appearing" 40s & 50s cars as "extras" in a cruising scene. You had to have your car at the appointed location for the entire day, so it was available when they were ready to film the scene. The filming day was a Tuesday or a Wednesday. They were going to choose which cars they wanted out of what showed up. If your car was chosen, when the time came to film, you had to drive your car down the hard surface road in a line with the other cars. At the end of the filming they would pay you $50, and your name would appear in the rolling credits at the end of the movie. There was no guarantee that the scene would even make it into the movie.

The day of the filming was a cold windy day with a chance of rain all day. Even if I would have wanted to have my car in the movie, the filming was going to be nearly 100 miles from my house. I was not going to waste the entire mid week work day for $50. I don't know if they even had the film event because of the weather. Most of the guys in our car club would have had to take the day off work.

 

Hello,

That piece of film seems like a 35mm slide or photo film strip. Most Hollywood films were shot using 35mm color films. A few were shot in more expensive 70mm and that would make the images bigger and brighter.

I used to buy 35mm color slide film from a production company in Hollywood. They shot the new larger reels during production filming on the sets. When the large reels were using up footage and an important scene, action or otherwise, was coming up with tons of preparation, no one wanted to run out of film for the shot(s). so, a new larger reel of film was put in the camera so a full long session of filming was possible without any screwups and costly re-shoots.

So, if the large reels were taken off of the cameras and stored away for processing. The processing labs had the whole film, but knew where the actual filming stopped. If there was a large amount of left over raw film still on the reel, they cut and saved it to the dark room files.

Then as a side business, if the left over raw 35mm films were still long enough to cut out a 35 shot length like a real kodak film cannister, then they rolled up the unused film in a no name cannister and had it for sale at a tremendous lower cost than a Kodak Film Cannister/processing. Over half off was great for budding photographers on a budget. 36 shots or 24 shots were offered with the left over color 35mm film cannisters for our choice of costs.

Now, when the film was shot in our 35mm film cameras, it could be popped out like normal Kodak cans and stored away for processing. The processing lab in Hollywood could do the color processing and send the film strips as a long strip in tact back to us with a new 36 shot new cannister. The other way was to have them cut and paste on the cardboard 35mm slide casing and now we had standard color slides for projectors or printing.

For a while, it was using the long film strips as color negatives shooting onto color paper. But, that got too expensive developing color prints. Making the prints in the enlarger was simple enough, but the color processing was too involved and expensive. So, it was less expensive and less time consuming to have the Hollywood lab or any Kodak Processing shop make some 8 x 10 color prints.

Jnaki

So, yes, in answering your question, it looks as if it is a 35mm film strip. Historic, well it was 1994 when the filming was being shot. Final film was out in 1995… 31 years old to be numerically correct. The recent strong winds blowing across So Cal can do wonders to everything in its path. Stranger things have happened.

Our wonderment has always been on days of strong "offshore" winds. They create a wonderful sight on the waves from ankle snappers to large overhead waves. The winds blow a stream of water drops over the top and creates a wonderful view of each wave coming into shore.... YRMV

Sometimes the wind catches the waves...

Sometimes the wave catches you… photo Vnak

 

Thanks for chiming in Junji...a like doesn't cut it for such a thorough explanation...even clarifying its a strip of film doesn't explain how it got there. It could be related to the jokingly put forward notion of sloppy movers or a garbage bag blown open by animals allowing a discarded piece of edited film from someone who many moons ago was involved in that movie that actually received pretty high accolades.

I still think it had an erie connection to the devastation occurring in your region.

You all in that region are in my thoughts as I have mentioned elsewhere. The New Year of unpredictable potential for this type of devastation is high right now it seems.

I can't help thinking of you discussing your many trips up the coast no doubt right through these regions and seeing it now. I know California will bounce back but it's hard not to be moved by the loss of so many people, landmarks, historical places and displacement of people.

I was looking at the map and while Brian says he is very far from that mess of fires dotting your state there is one that is closer than most. It really would be interesting to find out where it came from. I had a brother in the data storage business and perhaps films like this are similarly stored for preservation. It again could also have been someone involved in splicing of that movie that lost their home through no fault of their own.

Thanks always for your thoughts on this very unusual happening.

 

A Mercury...as it turned out to be. Brian has Ford well represented already...I'm getting a still of the Merc the bad boys showed up in...







I wouldn't be surprised that someone here knows or has the privilege of owning one of these lookers...

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Cool ! All I get is leaves blowing in my shop...

 

All I have is my doxie puppy coming in and leaving with whatever she can find.

 

Nothing wrong with that unless it rattles when it shakes its tail...

More than not, mediocre excitement wins the day but it is still very strange what happened to Brian especially the fact he's a Vintage Hotrod/Custom guy...

 

The winds were strong enough to send pages from a burnt up library in Altadena miles away.

It really spooky though - that '40 Merc is slightly street rod because of the front glued or VEE'D in , I would still drive the heck out of it.

Im sure its the one that inspired tons here.

 

It was filmed in the era of those mods so not a surprise but yeah they'd be welcome in my collection that's for sure. Glad you chimed in as being Custom guy I was thinking one of you might know of them.

 

I did some snooping around here and Chucho's Merc has been discussed many times as has the movie been mentioned with its several Hamb friendlies. I saw no direct hits but that doesn't mean it wasn't modded to eliminate modern features as @abe lugo mentioned...

Abe are you referencing the vee'ed windshield?

 

Yeah the black trim Veed windshield. Like I said I would still drive it too. I remember seeing this movie when it came out and always waiting for this scene.

 

The incredible odds and circumstances that brought that into @wheeltramp brian's garage more than make that well worth doing and framing it all up for one helluva conversation piece.

It was either a spliced out piece from editing the scenes or a Reel with that movie on it in a warehouse or home collection that met misfortune in those wildfires engulfing California. To me it looks singed from heat. There may be another way it got there but as unreal as the fire thing sounds I really think that is what happened...maybe there's pieces scattered all over along with other disintegrated movies.

 

Crazy

 

This is the HAMB, after all.

 

...It's not the first time this movie and its 4 wheeled excellence have been shared or discussed here but since it's been brought to light with @wheeltramp brian's unusual garage experience I am wondering about the two heavy hitters Chucho's Merc and the 49/51 Merc. The movie was 1994/95ish...I've been snooping around trying to find images of Chucho's Merc and some here have been identified as such I'm not sure.

As @abe lugo mentioned it had Modern elements in the movie such as the vee'd windshield that date it historically and there's every chance the owner or new owners if it has changed hands may have made changes to bring it back to an earlier time in the period that these rolling art pieces have graced the Culture...

I think this image above of so many I have seen reminds me in many ways it might be the post Chucho Merc...I always have incredible admiration for owners that take modern examples of new or vintage builds that have strayed forward and bring them back home to the period they resonated their best in.

Sorry long winded...

It's interesting many times how private these rides are...many barely see daylight being in collections. But, there's always a chance they are driven just like many of us do.

If this is it I think they did it admirable major upgrade...things noted are side windows and draft windows, running board rubber and trim, front bumper and chrome/stainless trim around the windshield and vee.

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Anyone know that this little badge is? I've blowen in up 800% and still can't tell.

 

Probably a Barris Badge...they could be bought and stuck on I believe I've read.

The Chucho Merc search brings up all kinds of hits but many are not remotely close in color or details...

I recall someone saying the owner may be mentioned in the credits so perhaps a revisit to the YouTube link I posted may bring that info to light but it still may not lead to its whereabouts.

 

That's it...I think these are affixed on true Barris built Customs. Maybe someone can chime in and clarify if they sold them to the public for those that wanted that illusion of.

 

There a few other shops with badges. D'agostino and Dick Dean cars have little badges.

the movie car seems to have different side windows and molded in running boards.

also the miss alignment on the side trim was better before

 

We know Anthony, we know.

 

I was thinking the pic I found might be the post Chucho Merc...perhaps 10 to twenty years later...that pic was a random image I found in search...

@Bad Bob had a Thread and someone mentioned a Merc he took a pic of was Chuchos, but I didn't think it was.

I also thought that movie Merc didn't have side windows yet...but they may have been down. Thinking of American Graffiti sometimes they use cars that have the look for the scene...other details don't matter like windows, unfinished this and that...but that Custom was likely done just done as you said with plenty of post Hamb era makeup...

When did this style of Custom first appear...1955?

The 50 not sure if that is what year it is has cruiser skirts on it...

 

A burned page landed in my driveway as I was evacuating.

With those super intense, bomb-like wind blasts hitting us and a river of smoke from the Eaton fire blowing over our area, we didn't need any more motivation to GTF outta there... After my family, valuables and practical cars were safely 20 miles away, I poured damned near every tool I own into my '34 and got it out, too. Neighbor Anna Ganahl got a friend of hers to drive Pat's '33 and '32 to safety. Evacuation for our area was lifted a day later. No damage in our neighborhood. I wish I could say the same for Altadena and Palisades. My best friend and his family lost their home.

PS -- I used to be a theater projectionist in the 1980s, and immediately recognized that film strip as a 35mm release print. The optical sound track on the side was one giveaway.