The Video Store Birthday Party Tape

BirthdayPartyVHS

We’ll be closing our 100th Night with the now legendary Video Store Birthday Party tape, it’s only really legendary because I keep talking about it, but that’s a fair enough reason. So what’s the story behind this particular tape then?

Back in January we had Video Store Night at The Duke where we watched an evening made up of old promotional tapes that we’d acquired from a closed down video store, the tapes had been sitting behind the counter for decades until we were able to get our hands on them. So we dedicated a night to finding out what was on them, the highlight of which was going to be watching this tape, which according to the seller had been used to film someone having their birthday party in the store. Sadly he told me the wrong tape which meant that when we went to watch it there was no birthday party, which was a shame. But I’ve now gone through all the tapes and found the right now, so we’re going to close the 100th Duke by finding out together what happens at the birthday party in the store.

Remember we haven’t watched this tape, I’ve just watched the first 5-seconds to check it’s the correct one now. The one thing that makes me slightly nervous about playing this tape though is that fact that two of the other tapes we got from the store had been recorded over with home made porn! Which we only found out when we played them for the audience, let’s just say they didn’t stay on screen very long, but did make everyone laugh. So who makes porn films and then just leaves them behind the counter for decades? Also if they made porn films there, what’s going to happen at the Birthday Party? You’ll have to come along to the 100th Duke to find out!

DUKE BONUS NIGHT – Cinedelphia Warm-Up

Cinedelphia

Monday 4th April – PimpShuei – Show stars at 7PM Ends around 8PM 

This April Alex is heading all the way to Philadelphia, USA to represent The Duke at the Cinedelphia Film Festival, a massive 2-week extravaganza of incredible films, offbeat TV and general video madness.  We’ve been invited to take part and we’ll be unleashing a best of our Found Footage Show on Saturday night right in the heart of Philadelphia.

To warm up for this we’re doing a bonus Duke night at one of our favourite London bars, the one and only PimpShuei. Come along and join us as we run through the show we’re put together for Philadelphia and unleash on you the best of our Found Footage finds! We really want to see how it all plays with a crowd so please do come along and check out the show, plus we might throw in a few extra surprises along the way.

Also as Evrim can’t make our 100th Duke Night he’ll be here this time so come and join us as we belatedly celebrate 100 nights of film chaos with him at our 100.5 night!

Shows starts at 7PM and should run about 45-Minutes, stick around after the show for drinks and fun. FREE ENTRY as always!

William Castle 78RPM Lobby Spots!

WilliamCastle78s

Thanks to our ever vigilant ebay searches we were recently able to pick up these two very rare original 78RPM lobby spots for two classic horror films from director William Castle. Lobby spots are an interesting unknown item of cinema history, being records designed to be played inside the cinema itself to promote upcoming releases. They were never released to the public and were only designed with a shelf life of a few weeks or months, if used at all, then normally thrown out once the film had been and gone, that any survive at all is down to cinema staff taking them home once the films run had finished.

We got hold of these from the USA and have recently had them professional transferred to digital by the great Shaw Sounds, who manged to do an incredible job with two very battered 78s that are now well over 50-years old. So presented below are these two rare finds, the first for The Tingler from 1959 which features narration from the film’s star: Vincent Price and the second 13 Ghosts from 1960.

Both of these records are one sided and the backs are very interesting, featuring a diamond style pattern on them both.WilliamCastle78s2

Look for more features on super rare 45RPM lobby spots from our collection later in the year, we’ve got some fascinating UK ones we need to get digitised!