Friday 19 May 2017

An Interesting eBay Item (Secret of the Loch)




Here is an interesting item that has a few days to run on eBay. It is a collection of old 9.5mm reels containing that epic 1934 film, "The Secret of the Loch" and directed by David Lean who went onto fame as an Oscar winning director for the film, "Lawrence of Arabia". Quite a contrast.

I previously wrote on this enjoyable old monster romp some years back, so there is nothing much to add apart from the shot below which seems to think Nessie is a giant iguana. These hapless creatures were a mainstay of early monster films when they were placed amongst miniature houses and have terrifying prosthetics attached to them. This was probably a cheaper alternative to the stop motion animation technique used in King Kong and so on.




I was pondering bidding myself, but I have a DVD of the film and transferring 9.5mm film to DVD/MP4 is an expensive task if you don't have your own equipment. But perhaps some reader may feel compelled to own a genuine piece of 1930s Nessie memorabilia - and it does have a sequence from the 1933 Malcolm Irvine film as a bonus.

My previous article had embedded a Youtube link to the entire film, but that has now gone. Anyone know of a new link?



The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com



Monday 15 May 2017

Tim Dinsdale Prepares His First Book

A bit of Loch Ness Monster history here as I reproduce a letter Tim Dinsdale wrote to Herman Cockrell dated February 1st 1961. Tim was in the late stages of completing his seminal book "Loch Ness Monster" and sought Herman's permission to reproduce his classic 1958 photograph of the creature. 




Indeed, the photo had formed part of the 1959 magazine article that inspired Tim to study the phenomenon and head north to Loch Ness where he obtained his famous film footage in April 1960. Click on the images of the letter, then right click for "View Image" to read them.










I have edited out Tim's address, but looking around the web, it appears to have been sold over 20 years ago. If you want to know what Tim's house looked like, take a look below.




The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com