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Super 8 Film in Melbourne

David Kilderry

In the 1970s Super 8 packaged films began to
appear in department stores, camera shops and
even pharmacies across many parts of the
world. Offering digests (edited highlights
from features), shorts and cartoons in bright
cardboard boxes, these films became a
widespread visual home entertainment
medium. Whilst other gauges such as 16mm,
9.5mm and even Standard 8mm had been
around for decades, none offered the wide
array of films and projectors at the price point
that Super 8 offered.
Here in Melbourne, we were lucky to have one
After its introduction in 1965, Super 8 hit the store that was wholly dedicated to Super 8
bigtime in the 1970s and expanded the use of film. It was located at 231 Queensbury St,
the small gauge much more widely than the Carlton and called The Eight Millimetre Film
previous home gauges. Growing up in the Centre. This store was packed with racks on
1970s, Super 8 films seemed to be available every wall that were full of Super 8 prints. On
almost everywhere and almost everyone who my very first visit to this store, I asked where
owned a Super 8 projector had a least a few they kept the Standard 8mm films, as I only
non-home movies that they could run to owned a Bell & Howell Standard 8mm
entertain the family and friends. projector at the time.
I was an avid Super 8 collector and still own The owner brought out a box and told me that
several hundred titles. Following are some of these were the last new Standard 8mm films
my recollections of Super 8 in the 1970s. they had left. I browsed through that box and
selected several titles, which was all I could
afford: a horror film called ‘Victim of the
Devil’ (only 50ft but in a deceptively larger
box), a silent 2 reeler called ‘Walter Finds a
Father’ and a Russian Space film. All were B
& W and silent.
By the time I next visited the Eight Millimetre
Film Centre I had a Sankyo Sound 501 Super
8 Sound projector so I was then able to choose
from any of the hundreds of digests, shorts,
cartoons, boxing films and even the features
they had of offer.
The store was run by Pam Samson, the
daughter of Mr Kerr, who had run the Carr
Camera Company (a camera, projector and
film store) for many years in Swanston St,

8 REEL DEALS March 2025