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THE PATHÉ VOX 9.5MM SOUND PROJECTOR
Mike Trickett

The 9.5mm film gauge provides a wide scope for collectors, not only the equipment, but the films
themselves provide a range of interesting subjects and even a few ‘lost’ film titles, which are not
available on any other gauge. However, Pathé also were the source of much frustration to collectors.
Many films were released with a minimum of leader length, titles reduced in length, scenes excised
out of the film to keep a running time what would fit on a reel, all in the interests of saving a few feet of
film.
There are a number of films that exist today, only because Pathé released them on their 9.5mm
gauge (and in some cases 17.5mm), the original 35mm negatives and prints having been lost or
destroyed. Unfortunately, because of Pathé’s tendency to abridge some of their releases, the
shortened version is all that exists.
On the equipment side, they started with the unusually designed
silent Pathé Baby projector in 1922; it was hand turned and
produced a small, not particularly bright image, but it produced
movies in the home, at a time when home entertainment meant
the piano or the radio.
The Baby projector was improved during the 1920s and eventfully
became available with a ‘Super Attachment’ which gave provision
for 300 ft reels of film and a motor drive – of course the end result
was a strange looking machine with a number of add-ons, but it
did do what it promised.
The 1930s saw several more models marketed. Some of these
machines were little more that toys; the owners suffering the
indignity of some film libraries refusing to hire them films because
the machines were prone to damage film. Pathé did produce
some models in the 1930s which acquitted themselves very well –
the Pathé model ‘H’ and the ‘200B’, both of which were silent
machines.
The Pathé Baby projector (c.1925)

The ‘Vox’
Pathé launched their first 9.5mm sound projector and a small range of ‘sound
on film’ films in 1937. It was called the Pathé ‘Vox’ (Latin for Voice). This
machine sold (in the U.K.) for around £60, The 'Vox' used a new type 15volt
200watt projection lamp which had a strange off-set filament, the lamp was
mounted glass down, enabling the projection lamp to be used to illuminate the
film sound track which ran under the lamphouse.
Volume control was achieved by a rotating sleeve which varied the amount of
reflected light from the sound track reaching the photocell. This was a serious
machine; weighing in at 23Kgs it was not a machine to be regarded as
‘portable’.
A good selection of optical sound films soon became available for purchase as
well as hire. Unfortunately a chap called Hitler curtailed the production and
take up of these machines within a couple of years.
A close look at the workings of this projector shows several shortcomings /
innovations, depending on how you see them. As mentioned above, the optical
sound system was a strange set up. There was no exciter lamp; instead a
specially made projection lamp was used to illuminate both the image and the
sound track. The lamp being mounted upside down, the exciter lens was
mounted in the bottom of the lamphouse and focused onto the film’s sound
track which passed under the lamphouse. The VOX projection/exciter
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