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François POISSON is a collector, a fan of 9.5, a friendly and cooperative man whilst at the same time a dedicated and methodical researcher. He needed to be bold and courageous to undertake the Herculean task (or anorak jobbie if you prefer[?] ) that is his General Catalogue of 9.5 Films: several thousand titles patiently arranged over 220 pages, illustrated with over 100 photographs, with an introduction, description and bibliography. An almost exhaustive inventory which has demanded from its author years of dedicated research. F. Poisson has even resolved most of the anomalies due to contradictory references. For the great merit of this work is the clarity he has brought to a veritable jungle of titles and references. We shall never be able to thank him enough for having "blazed the trail" in this way. Here are analysed, summarised and alphabetically listed are some 4800 films of all types, from around a dozen distributors of more or less significance, chief among them obviously Pathé and Film Office. Thanks are due to the Cinémathèque de Bretagne and its Director, André Colleu for their support of this venture whose impact can only be of specialist interest.

(Pierre Guérin in Infos-Ciné No. 36/January 1998.

In "Cinema chez soi" N. 69 there appeared a "news supplement for October 1933: THE PATHE SELECTION LIBRARY" stating that the films issued by PATHE BABY in this new series would consist of films chosen from among the greatest films produced in the world, all of which had known enormous success in mainstream cinemas. Some were not intended for family entertainment (exceptional among the Pathé 9.5 films which were generally intended for universal viewing).

"The films of this new series are sold on S.B. (initials standing for Super Bobine [Super Reel]), i.e. on 300ft spools with running titles" (and without notched titles which, however, continued for 30 and 60 ft cassettes). "The price of an S.B. reel in a de luxe metal can is 160 francs."

The films were silent, even though 7 sound films (and 2 with sound added after shooting) were among the 24 titles issued, which benefited from exceptional print quality that still astonishes today, nearly 60 years after they were first issued.

The films are obviously edited down, but by talented editors, so well that I sometimes prefer the condensed Pathé version to the full length original.

Of the 24 titles, 15 (or 16) were German, 7 French, 1 American and 1 Austrian (?). Here is the list set out in chronological order of issue:

October 1933 La Montagne sacrée. (No. 7420) German -1926 3 S.B.

Arnold Fanck, with Leni Riefenstahl and Luis Trenker

October 1933 Metropolis. German -1926 5 S.B.

Fritz Lang, with Brigitte Helm and Gustav Froehlich

November 1933 Verdun visions d’histoire. French – 1928/1931 8 S.B.

(No. 4310 and 4311) Léon Poirier, with former combatants

December 1933 Le Mensonge de Nina Petrovna. German -1928 4 S.B.

(No. 7530) Hans Schwartz, with Brigitte Helm and Franz Lederer

December 1933 La Chronique de Grieshuss. German -1925 3 S.B.

(No. 7350) Arthur Vongerlach, with L. Dagover and Rudolf Rittner

January 1934 Kriss. (No. 4324) American -1931 4 S.B.

André Roosevelt with the natives of Bali

January 1934 Les Espions. (No. 7520) German -1928 4 S. B.

Fritz Lang, with Willy Fritsch, Rudolf Klein-Rogge

February 1934 La Mort de Siegfried. German -1923 4 S.B.

(No. 7290) Fritz Lang, with Paul Richter and Hanna Ralph

February 1934 Rapsodie hongroise. (No. 7430) German -1929 4 S.B.

Hans Schwartz, with Dita Parlo and Willy Fritsch

March 1934 La Vengeance de Kriemhild. German -1924 4 S.B.

(No. 7370) Fritz Lang with Margarete Schoen

We are told that the three German films: The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1920), Faust (1926) and Variété (1925) were also issued in the PATHÉ SELECTION series. We have found no trace of this in any review or Pathé catalogue for this series. They were certainly issued on 9.5 by Pathé, but in other series. I myself believed at one time that Marco de Gastyne’s Jeanne d’Arc (1922) had been issued in this series since a copy I acquired contained, at the start of the credits, the reference "Pathé Selection presents….." On checking, it transpired that this had been added by one of the previous owners.

On the subject of the length of the versions edited for sale, if one bears in mind that sound films were 24 frames per second (sound came to 9.5 only in 1937), it’s not a good idea to keep this for silent versions: in one hour of projection, if 648 metres of film are needed at 24 fps, only 432 are needed at 16 fps. By removing one frame in three from the print used to prepare the silent versions of sound films, the films would have been more complete for the same footage, and therefore the same price, all without changing the rhythm or reducing the visual quality. 400m films, for example, the most common, would have included 52 minutes of the original instead of just 35 minutes. Only the edited versions of silent films are not excessively shortened, since they were originally shorter in footage terms than sound films for the same screen time.

Times change, and not all of the PATHE SELECTION titles that were so much appreciated in the 30’s have survived the passage of time with equal fortune. If certain of them can be considered classics, others have completely disappeared from the vocabulary of cinema.

In the 1990 Film Larousse, which includes 10,000 titles, we find only La Montagne sacrée, Métropolis, La Chronique de Grieshuss, Les Espions, La Mort de Siegfried, La Vengeance de Kriemhild, Le Chant du prIsonnier, L’Ami Fritz and Itto: just 9 films out of the 24. Among those selected, it is hard to understand why L’Ami Fritz has reached the 1990 standard, while Verdun vision d’histoire hasn’t, although we find in the same list Raymond Bernard’s Les Criox de bois (1933), of the same genre and similar quality.

GILBERT BIANCHI

(This article by Gilbert Bianchi appeared in Infos-Ciné Issues 18[October 1992], 19 [January 1993] and 20 [April 1993] )

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