Tintin Forums

Tintinologist.org Forums / Other works by Hergé /

Jo, Zette & Jocko: The movie?

SingingGandalf
Member
#1 · Posted: 23 Apr 2006 14:10
This is something that I had never heard of before, not until jockosjungle mentioned hearing about something like it on a french site. It appears as if, in 1958, a Jo, Jocko and Zette film was released, called 'le rayon du mystere'. It was based on the first 2 books, and actually used Herge's drawings. It was created by Paris' 'les beaux filmes'. It was in black and white, using Herge's original drawings from the black and white books. It was fully named 'Jo et Zette dans le rayon du mystere pas Herge', interestingly not mentioning that little monkey jocko.I have never heard of this before, and unfortunately, I don't think any of us will ever see it as has become as mysterious as the original 'crab with the golden claws film', the one that used puppets.
Richard
UK Correspondent
#2 · Posted: 23 Apr 2006 14:34
It's basically a slideshow of the album, frame by frame. Les Beaux Filmes produced most of the Tintin books in this fashion (at least upto Tintin in Tibet). We have a page on them here.
SingingGandalf
Member
#3 · Posted: 23 Apr 2006 17:33
It looks like a slideshow, but does anyone know what they used for sound, if any, as they did have speech bubbles.
edcharlesadams
Trivia Challenge Score Keeper
#4 · Posted: 23 Apr 2006 18:30
They didn't have sound - I'm not sure that these 'films' were intended to be viewed as we think of film screenings today. Instead it's something more akin to one of those 'Viewmaster' reels, to be seen in private at home.

Ed
Richard
UK Correspondent
#5 · Posted: 23 Apr 2006 19:30
edcharlesadams
They didn't have sound - I'm not sure that these 'films' were intended to be viewed as we think of film screenings today. Instead it's something more akin to one of those 'Viewmaster' reels, to be seen in private at home.

In Hergé - L'hommage de la bande dessinée 1983 (see here) there's a strip that starts with some children at a boarding school watching a projection of The Crab With The Golden Claws. Could the Beaux Filmes reels have been made to show in schools, or were they actually projected in cinemas- maybe a Saturday morning affair?
edcharlesadams
Trivia Challenge Score Keeper
#6 · Posted: 23 Apr 2006 19:54
Could the Beaux Filmes reels have been made to show in schools

There's an idea: I can see them being shown to children as some sort of 'Storytelling' exercise, perhaps with the teacher reading along and advancing the frames? I'm not sure it would work as well in a public cinema though - that's not to say it didn't happen of course, but I'd be surprised if that was the intent behind making them.

Anyway I'm off topic now. I think we've established that this is not a conventional Jo, Zette and Jocko animated feature in the mould of the Belvision series.

Ed
labrador road 26
Member
#7 · Posted: 23 Apr 2006 23:49
I work as a projectionist at a cinema and there is no way the the reel sold on Ebay could be used in a regular movieprojector. The standard is that the frames are shown at the speed of 24 frames per second and that would make this reel just flicker and it would be totally uncomprehensible. Also, if there would be sound it would be located just inside of the perforations next to the images. With a manual projector that one had to wind every frame by hand and with a lamp that was not too hot it would be possible to watch it, similar to a slideshow projector.

One could quite easily make such a thing today. Get a facsimile copy of the book and a old fashioned camera and some rolls of kodachrome (or similar) film and just photograph every frame in the book and then put the developed slides in a slideshow projector, and there you have it. Then you could perhaps also ask the developer not to cut and mount the frames and fool some people that it is a unknown movie reel and that the price will be astronomical. I wouldn't say that the reels sold on Ebay are fake but they can't be used in a regular movie projector so it is simply a slideshow nothing more. And since it is not mounted in separate frames you would need a special kind of projector to look at it.

On a side note, I can say that 99.5 percent of all frames sold said to be from actual movie copies (like Star Wars and such) are NOT. Because every film in the Cinemascope format have the image on the filmstrips squeezed too fit between the perforations. And all frames I have seen being sold have the image with correct proportions and therefore have a lot of the original image been cut on the sides. If you are on friendly terms with your local cinema staff, ask too see a projection booth and you will probably be quite surprised to see how i actually looks.

One should also be very careful with old filmreels as they could be made of nitrate and will self ignite in room temperature and make a serious explosion. Nowdays the reels are made of polyester and is very safe but the old ones must be kept in the fridge or freezer or suddenly you won't have a home.

Please be sure to familiarize yourself with the Forum Posting Guidelines.

Disclaimer: Tintinologist.org assumes no responsibility for any content you post to the forums/web site. Staff reserve the right to remove any submitted content which they deem in breach of Tintinologist.org's Terms of Use. If you spot anything on Tintinologist.org that you think is inappropriate, please alert the moderation team. Sometimes things slip through, but we will always act swiftly to remove unauthorised material.

Reply

 Forgot password
Please log in to post. No account? Create one!