OT: Vintage cameras on TV/Movies

[bmattock]

I was having a root beer float with my wife last night, and we were watching some stupid TV show, I don't recall what. A commercial came on for MCI's "The Neighborhood" calling plan, with James Taylor singing "I Just Wanna Stop (and Thank You, Baby)" and a little girl taking pictures of various couples. The camera she was ostensibly using was an Olympus Pen-F, a half-frame 35mm SLR from the early 1960s.

Anybody else notice older/vintage/rangefinder cameras in use in movies, TV, etc?

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[Brian Sweeney]

The one that hit me hard was a commercial for a new Chemotherapy drug. It showed a bunch of kids outside playing, and then shifted inside. Their grandfather's Nikon Ftn was sitting in its half-case, but Grandad was too worn out to get up and use it to take pictures of the kids.

Also, at the Beatles exhibit at the Smithsonian, Museium of American History (aka History and Technology), you will see lots of shots taken by Nikon SP's. The Beatles press photographer is pictured with his SP, and many shots taken of press photographers with SP's, F's, Speed-graphics, and Rollieflex's. Ed Sullivan is there too. I remember watching the Beatles on that Ed Sullivan show.

[Wayne R. Scott]

In the movie Coal Miners Daughter actor Tommie Lee Jones is taking Sissy Spaceks photo with a Super Graphic 4x5. He is focussing using the groundglass and has the 4x5 film holder on top of the bellows. After he gets the composition right he inserts the film holder into the back of camera and takes the picture which amazingly turns out great, even though he did not remove the dark slide from the film holder!!!. I need some of those "magic" film holders that let you always make great photos without doing every thing correctly.

Wayne

[bmattock]

In the John Waters movie, 'Pecker', the star, Edward Furlong, picks up a rangefinder camera from his mother's used clothing store and goes on a photography tear - shooting everything in sight and becoming an overnight sensation in NYC's art scene.

Trouble is, he never seems to change film - he gets 80 or 90 shots per roll. He must need film though, because he shoplifts it from the local grocery store (he has no money). How he gets the prints developed is a bit of a mystery.

He also likes to obscure the rangefinder or the viewfinder with his hand while he adopts his classic 'famous photographer' poses.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[bmattock]

They try to obscure the camera make, but it's a Canonet 28.

[Doug]

And the MCI ad obscures the name on the camera too, just showing the "F" on the front instead of "Olympus-Pen F". Looks odd and I noticed it right away. That camera is pretty distinctive in appearance anyway!

[Wayne R. Scott]

And I thought Kodak 5053 TMY was a Black and White conventional film, I learn something new every day.

Wayne

[Stu :)]

I know this is book but...
In William Gibson's 'Count Zero', there's reference to a female TV personality with expensive Carl Zeiss Jena implants on lease, with the logo on the iris.

The fun part is when she gets knocked off in the jungle by terrorists; the TV station has to retrieve the implants.

Stu :)

[SolaresLarrave]

How about Jude Law's sinister photographer in "The Road to Perdition", loading a folding camera (to me, a Zeiss Ikon or some such thing) in the diner where he's planning to knock off Tom Hanks' character? At least they gave him the right film?

Not a rangefinder, I know, but that's the only one I could remember... besides the Leica in "The Big Fish."

[jdos2]

Who Framed Roger Rabbit had a folder of some type which Bob Hoskins actually wound...

[strangedoctor]

Das Boot (the Boat): great movie, lots of screw-mount Leicas.

[scubaguy10]

I need to check this, but I believe that in the movie, " Under the Tuscan Sun," the nice Polish kid takes everybody's picture with a Kiev 4.

... Kiev cameras, good wine, and Diane Lane.... heaven....

[back alley]

amen!

[pshinkaw]

Back in the late 1960's network television introduced what they called a, "made for TV movie" It was a two hour long (with commercials) feature, usually a drama of some kind. At first they were one of a kind stories, but they later evolved into a series of recurring characters like "McMillan and Wife" with Rock Hudson and Susan St. James.

One of the very first ones was a rather obtuse spy thriller where a travelling writer was mistaken for a spy and dragged into all kinds of hazardous situations. Eventually he fought back and triumphed. Throughout the story he took pictures with what I think was a Konica Auto S2 or perhaps an early Canonet QL 17. At the end he replaced the innards with an explosive device and tried to kill the bad guys. Does this sound familiar to anybody?

-Paul

[strangedoctor]

Not that I really know these kinds of movies, of course, but I just remember something. When I was younger there was a "romantic" film in which that great hero John Holmes plays a swingin' fashion photographer.
What was he shooting with (so to speak)? A black Nikon SP! (I swear this is true if anyone wants to find it.)

[bmattock]

Slightly more accessible than the Johnny W. Holmes pic mentioned above (do not ask me how I know that, I *was* a Marine once, hehehe), consider the Argus Match-Matic C3 used in the latest "Harry Potter" movie to take a picture of a snake!

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[Fedzilla_Bob]

I know this is an "ancient" thread but couldn't help myself.

While watching Close Encounters, during the scene where the UN is rushing to document a ship found in the Gobi desert, a photgrapher rushes into the frame with what looks like a Mamiya 6. Too quick to tell.

Mind you, there are helicopters and trucks kicking up clouds of sand and in the same scene another character has a Hasselblad strapped around his neck.

You can imagine what is going through my mind. It has nothing to do with the story line at all.

[ray_g]

I was watching "Godfather III" a couple of weeks ago, for the __th time. I just noticed Sofia Coppola using a Leica (M3?), to take shots of Michael and Kate as they walked along the train station in Sicily. Hard to do with a 50mm, shooting the moving subjects while walking backwards in front of them. ;)

[Jocko]

In the original "Alfie". Murray Melvin is a street photographer with a Zorki 4. It apparently draws the birds!

[shutterflower]

Vintage. . . maybe not so vintage, but the camera that Nicholas Cage is using to shoot his character's soon to be wife in "Lord of War". Looks like a CL or CLE. . . not sure.

[Richard Black]

Just watched a movie, River King, released late last year. For leicaphills (sp?)tell me which M was the teacher using. She at least looked through the v/f ok, but I never saw her focus the lens. Does the M have special focusing functions you guys aren't sharing?

[comp_wiz101]

Ooh ooh! What about in "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind", where in one scene we can see someone taking pictures with what looks like a Kodak 110 Instamatic-60 RF?

[lmd91343]

In the Spiderman movies, Peter Parker uses a Canon F1N AE finder. The Canon name was blacked out. I got that from the Canon SLR list.

[brians]

My turn:

Zenit 12XP Fotosnaiper in a Korean movie callled "Over the Rainbow" (http://static.flickr.com/30/103741464_f99d050f01_o.jpg)

and.......

In K19: The Widowmaker, when the submarine breaks through the ice cap after the test launch, the men take a break and play some soccer on the ice. One of the officers takes a picture of the crew with a FED or Zorki (first edition) in a nice looking leatherette.


On another note, I hate how the shutter sounds are so fake in these movies. What's wrong with having the sweet "KACHUNK!" of the Zenit or the CLACK of the FSU Leica III copies? :)

[dostacos]

not vintage, but in the movie STEALTH they were using an black Leica

[dostacos]

and another nice black rangefinder showed up in Nicolas Cage's hands in LORD OF WAR

[kmack]

Rainy day here. I was watching the classic Bogart, Bacall film "The Big Sleep" I could swear that the camera hidden in the oriental statue was a Zeiss Super Ikonta BX.

[biomed]

I remember a WW2 film that was shot in eastern Europe. There was a scene with two British agents in a parked car taking surveilance photos with a Zorki 4 equipped with a turret finder.

[MadMan2k]

In "big momma's house", they use a TLR to take pictures out in a boat. Not sure what kind.

[manfromh]

In one episode of Knight Rider some woman was taking picures with a screwmount Leica.

Dialog later:

Michael: "Wha camera did you use for these pictures?"
Woman: "The best. My grandfather used it in the war"
Michael: "Which war was that?"
Woman: "If its good enough for WW2 battlefield, its good enough for taking picures of *some guys name*"

[darkkavenger]

I was watching Das Boot last night and it was a joy noticing the Barnack Leica used by Lt. Werner. :)

[Gray Fox]

In the current Hallmark TV series the heroine of "Mystery Woman" uses only an RF which looks a lot like an early Contax and on almost every show spends time in a wet darkroom making contact sheets and getting something critical from a frame or two. She must be using 3200 because I never have seen her use a flash even under the most dim conditions. Has anyone else seen the show an ID'd the camera?

[Michael I.]

in chinatown a screwmount leica with an external finder and a tele lens sees some use

[Michael I.]

Life Aquatic with Zissou - had a leica in it,as well as BIG FISH.I think they were modern,though.

[Welsh_Italian]

One of the Harry Potter films had someone with an Argus (and apparently "The Sky Captain of Tomorrow" too). Example here:

http://sepiamemories.com/showprod_6.shtml

[kestas]

italian for beginners. a good danish movie
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243862/
group of tourists from denmark in italy ask an old italian man to take their picture and gives him... Diana toy camera :D

[Mark Wood]

An Olympus OM-4 is almost the main star of the opening credits for one of the James Bond films. I can't remember which film but it coincided with the launch of the camera which I seem to recall causing a few wry comments in Amateur Photographer at the time.

My memory's probably playing tricks with me but I seem to think an Exacta of some description appears in Schindler's List...

[KoNickon]

I just saw "The Namesake" the other day -- excellent movie indeed. At one point a friend of the main characters takes their picture with what appears to be a Kodak TLR. And a Nikkormat FTn (maybe Nikomat, since the scenes are in India) is used by a couple of the main characters.

[Michael I.]

Hitchhock's Rear Window - exacta with a long tele

[nikon_sam]

In the Spiderman movie Peter is seen shooting with a SLR camera but if you notice the "film" is flopped. The film advance is on the wrong side along with Peter's part in his hair. How can they get away with this?? Don't they know it will tick some of us off??

[DMG]

Lost in Translation - Giovanni Ribisi's character has a peli case with 3 or 4 Bronny RF645's

[Pistach]

One should cite Antonioni' s blow-up. The main character is a pro fashion photographer in London, most of the time with a chrome plain prism Nikon F in his hands. He used to take the Nikon everywhere in the glove compartment of his Rolls Royce. Naturally he had a beautiful studio with lots of other gear. One day he took some pictures in a park. When a lady tries to steal the roll he blows-up the photos more and more to discover that he had taken the pictures of a murder....

[NickTrop]

In the 1970 Japanese sci-fi film - Yog, Monster from Space, photographer Kudo (played by the great Akira Kubo) shot pictures on a remote island of a giant radioactive squid monster controlled by evil aliens determined to destroy the earth with a Nikon F.

[Richard Black]

In the current Hallmark TV series the heroine of "Mystery Woman" uses only an RF which looks a lot like an early Contax and on almost every show spends time in a wet darkroom making contact sheets and getting something critical from a frame or two. She must be using 3200 because I never have seen her use a flash even under the most dim conditions. Has anyone else seen the show an ID'd the camera?

I think it is a Leica IIIf, but my 60 year old eyes can be deceived. Do enjoy the program, a camera, darkroom and a bunch of books. The stuff dreams are made of...

[Richard Black]

One of my all time favorite movies, K19, the sub surfaces breaking up the polar ice. The crew gets out and plays "football", European, and a photographer takes snaps of the crew. I have stopped the dvd and still can identify it. Any body know what the camera is. It is certainly a pre-FSU camera.

[JimG]

I'm a big fan of that 60's show "Secret Agent" aka Danger Man. In almost every episode he has a Leica M3, IIIg or some other film camera. Great show, there all available now on DVD.

[KoNickon]

Johnny Rivers was the singer, right? Yes, the DVDs of the series have come out recently.

OK, another old film -- Brewster McCloud. There's a scene where the title character goes to a camera store and handles a very nice all black Nikon FTn with a 200mm. After trying in vain to get the clerk's attention he just walks out of the store with the camera. When I saw it in the theater I remember much of the audience cheering at that point. (It was a different time, man.)

[sienarot]

In "Spy Game", Brad Pitt's character poses as a photo journalist. He was shooting with a Leica, though I am not sure what model. I thought I caught a blooper because in the same scene, he later uses a Nikon SLR. It wasn't until I noticed he had more than 1 camera around his neck did I realize it was intentional (or atleast somewhat). It looks like he's using three cameras in that scene, a nikon SLR, and two Leica's, one silver and one black.

[Fotch]

Has anyone mentione my all time favorite "Man with a Camera" starring Charles Bronson. He used everything from Speed Graflex on down. I know they have one episode on DVD but I wish they had them all. :rolleyes:

[Welsh_Italian]

Just remembered: The Quiet American.

Hinh (Thomas Fowler's assistant) was using an old 6x9 box camera to take pictures of a military rally (General Thé, I think), and a folding camera of some kind (frame viewfinder?) was used by (IIRC) the French soldiers after the massacre of the village.

What camera did 'Al Rockoff' (played by John Malkovich) use in the Killing Fields? There was also John Cassady (played by John Savage) in Salvador. John Cassady was apparently based on John Hoglund or Olivier Rebbot (IMDB)

I have both on DVD so I might do some checking tonight. What a sad way to spend a Friday evening!

[Welsh_Italian]

John Cassady (played by John Savage) has two cameras - an SLR and a small rangefinder (I think a Leica M3 - you can see it clearly as the photographer takes a sneaky shot of an execution about 1:37:03). Richard Boyle (James Woods) has an SLR. All names seem to be brushed out but on the DVD cover, it's marked a Canon. Maybe product placement?

John Malkovich's character in the Killing Fields used a Rolleiflex to take the passport picture of Dith Pran. For general photography, all the journos had SLR's.

What a boring life I lead! :D

[dostacos]

The French movie Z
the reporter runs around with a Canon AND Nikon SLR The NIkon firing off 30 frames at a time:eek: holding it at his side and they NEVER hear the thing chachink zzzzzz chachink zzzzzzz

[Welsh_Italian]

More camera-related movie stuff: in the film Road to Perdition, Jude Law plays a killer who takes pictures of dead people using a Speed Graflex. It shows a few clips through the ground glass.

[sinetsin]

here some movies:

Antonioni's Blow up, nikon & great studio stuff.
Jennifer connelly with a leica M6 with a 35 summincron on blood diamonds
Some medium format gear used by julia roberts in Closer
fernando meirelles cidada de deus, one SRL, I think..

[dexdog]

Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 film "The Last Emperor" has a scene in which a Japanese agent takes pictures of the crowning of Pu Yi as Emperor of Manchoukuo using an Exacta. He seems to have trouble using the left-handed advance. I would need look up the camera to see if the particular model seen in the film was in production in 1934.

[IGMeanwell]

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

just came out on DVD yesterday

lots of Nicole Kidman with a Rolleiflex

[JimG]

"high art"
It's got Leica Porn, lesbian porn and heroin chic.

[nikon_sam]

A 1995 movie "Smoke" with Harvey Kietel is an interesting story that includes the main character photographing from the exact same spot at the exact same time everyday...Another character looking at the photos say "It's the same picture..."
If you look closer it's the same background but each picture is completely different...neat idea for a long term photo project...

[David Murphy]

The Secret Agent Man series with Patrick McGoohan from the early 60's had lots of cool cameras -- even one episode featured an amateur photographer and they were discussing the new Japanese SLR's, etc. There are episodes with Minolta SLR's, Rollei's, Leica's, etc. Close ups of the cameras and sometimes very technical things too -- like Leica copy setups with screw mount cameras on stands with extension tubes used to copy secret documents, etc, etc. Great show if you are a spy buff too.

[Bullwinkle]

Not vintage, but in "Closer" Julia Roberts does a photo session with Natalie Portman using an M6.

[dostacos]

JAWS looked like a chrome spotmatic used by the Amity reporter

[Rodinal Addict]

In "Apocalypse Now", the crazy combat photographer portrayed by Dennis Hopper nervously takes pictures of AWOL Col.Kurtz, (Marlon Brando), with a Nikon F.

The following is an often mis-quoted bit of dialogue from this movie:

Kilgore exults to Willard:
"You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end.."

[landsknechte]

There was an out of place (by about 30 years) Exakta in Last Emperor, and another in Rear Window.

[FallisPhoto]

Harry Potter I: Argus C-3 Matchmatic, Pacemaker Speed Graphic
Harry Potter III: Some weird thing that looks like it was cobbled together from parts of an early Graflex model C (with the really tall pyramidal viewfinder) and the bellows and scissor struts of a Kodak Vest Pocket (127) camera.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: Standard Model Argus C-3

[Xax]

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/shutter/

hasselblad :)