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BABIES 1

Pathé introduced the Baby projector (and camera) in 1922; this is an early publicity shot. It went on to develop a wide range of accessories, add-ons, attachments and gizmo's, plus a range of attractively-packed ancillary items. It was the birth of the "gear" hobby in cine - the only way Pathé could continue to make money was to sell you more and more bits and pieces.

I have developed a lampholder for Babies, which does not require any alteration to the machine. Go to Restoration and click the link for Baby lamp adapter.

A fair bit has been written about Babies, eg in Gerald McKee's book, but hopefully there are some pictures and info here you've not seen before, not least a sound conversion. You will also find under French Bits a series of articles about Pathé-Baby films. For a late and rather odd successor to the Baby, see the Coq D'Or. 

Here are two views of an early French Baby. The front-mounted motor is controlled by a smaller ancestor of the round resistance later used in the UK to drop the mains from 240 to 110 for the lamp. A vertical slide controls the speed. I don't know what that thing on top of the motor is for; maybe another pair of pulleys to reduce the speed of the drive?

 American Baby, front                                                                                                                                                             American Baby, back

I had always wondered why some of my Babies had a slot in the side of the mechanism cover. It was obviously original, not a later botch-up. The answer is a Baby with a front-mounted motor driving on the rim of the flywheel. It also has yet another style of resistance. This one seems to be without a speed control; presumably the thing under the motor is a kind of friction brake, as on other early Baby motors.

These are some close-up views of a sound Baby. It is, I believe, the one written up in ACW after the war, although further modified. The real guts of it are in that copper-coloured thing in front of the former take-up chamber. The film emerges from the gate, makes a very tight and peculiar loop and runs under a flap on top of the copper thing, where the track is read.                                                                                                                              

The rest of the gubbins is about trying to smooth the pull thru of the film. When I saw it, the owner had mislaid the instructions and I don't think it was running right. Nonetheless, it produced sound and, what was remarkable, the mechanism ran like a sewing machine, purring along quietly. I don't suppose it is very kind to films, but it does show how good the original basic mech must have been. You ask why on earth should anyone want to do it. You might just as well ask why men climb mountains. And as a piece of cine history and a simply beautiful-looking piece of engineering, it is worthy of any true nerd's attention.

How's about this for the answer to the nerd's prayer? Sprockets for the sprocketless! I wonder why it never caught on?

Click here for more Babies Babies 2

There's more Baby-related stuff under Gear.

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