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PATHESCOPE’S DIEING DAYS
Mike Trickett

After the war, the 9.5 mm gauge suffered strong competition from Kodak's 8 mm film,
which was introduced in 1932. Notwithstanding the far poorer resolution of the 8 mm
frame, which could hold only about a quarter of the information of the 9.5 mm or 16 mm
frame, 8 mm was taken up by a wider public, partly because of the commercial power of its
sponsors and the much lower cost of Kodachrome processed in England. Pathescope
found itself struggling to hold its place in the market and in 1959 there was a workers' buy-
out and name change to Pathescope (Great Britain) Ltd., with links to French Pathe being
broken. The new company produced a well-made 9.5 mm Prince camera made in England
by Smiths Industries and a low-powered Princess projector, but the gauge was already
doomed as a popular format, and in 1960 the firm went into liquidation. Nevertheless, the
gauge has been kept alive by a dedicated group of enthusiasts who have used methods
such as re-perforating 16 mm film to provide continued supplies of material. – Wikipedia
(internet).

To prove that the company had completely lost its way, in 1956, they introduced a new
format, or maybe you will see it as a variant on an already established format.

The economy offered by 8mm was one of the reasons why it was so popular (as well as
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Kodachrome being available ), this was partially due to it being produced and processed
as 25 foot rolls of specially perforated 16mm film, after processing it was slit down the
centre and then joined end to end, being returned as a 50 foot reel of 8mm film.
Pathescope decided to try a similar arrangement with 9.5mm. A new camera and projector
were introduced, as well as a new version of their 9.5mm camera film. The new format
which they called Duplex had two perforations on the frame line, replacing the one central
perforation that characterized 9.5mm.

A specially designed camera and projector were introduced, these units were made is such
a way that they could run the new double perforated film in the ‘Duplex’ or full frame mode
or in the new half frame, Monoplex mode. The half frame mode produced a widescreen
picture, the film being run in the horizontal plane in much the same way as VistaVision
35mm was in the professional industry. This required the camera to he held on its side and
the projector had a rotating front section to place the film in the correct plane. The
advertising for the Monaco projector suggests a very simple change over from one format
to the other. In fact it required quite a bit of dexterity to make the change; the film path
must be changed, the claw & the shutter positions as well as lamp.

The intention was that in the camera, the film would be run through in one direction,
exposing half of the film, turned over and then run through again, exposing the other half of
the film. It was then returned to Pathéscope for processing, slit and returned as 4.75mm
film. This produced a format with approximately a 2:1 aspect ratio and twice the runtime for
not much more that the cost of a standard reel of film.
Pathe had successfully introduced a number of sub-standard film gauges over the years –
28mm in 1912, 9.5mm in 1922, 17.5mm in 1926 – all of these gauges were released along
with a range of commercially produced films (“Printed films” as the British like to call them)