The Big Reel
![]() September 1982 cover | |
Editor | Rhonda Lemons |
---|---|
Former editors | Don Key |
Circulation | 4,800 (late 1980s, peak)[1] |
Publisher |
|
First issue | April 1974 |
Final issue Number | October 2008 400 |
ISSN | 0744-723X |
The Big Reel was an American magazine dedicated to collectors of film and television material—particularly prints and tapes, but also props, stills, and other memorabilia. The magazine was published by Donald R. "Don" Key (July 18, 1937 – June 26, 2018) of Madison, North Carolina,[2] who founded it in 1974. The magazine initially delivered monthly,[3] later bi-monthly.[4]
1974–1990: Founding and success
[edit]Madison native Don Key founded the Big Reel in April 1974.[5] At age 35, Key had no prior experience in the publishing industry, having only owned a carpet cleaning business, as well as having been a salesman of cars and mobile homes. Key owed his interest in starting a publication dedicated to film collecting to his appetite for cinema-going—estimating that he had watched over 5,000 films as of 1993, including those that screened while he served the United States Navy during the 1950s. For three years in the Navy, Key watched a different film for every day.[6] Starting in the late 1960s, Key would attend gatherings hosted by local film collector Milo Holt, who concentrated on Western films. At the beginning, the attendees of these gatherings were a close-knit group of other film collectors, including Key.[7] In 1972, however, the base of collectors had grown to where Holt decided to host a cruise along the Mississippi River, on which he invited big-name Western stars such as Sunset Carson, Lash LaRue, and Tex Ritter.[6] Key conceived of the Big Reel on this cruise and discussed it among the attendees to great interest.[7] The magazine was an immediate success following its first issue.[8] Available only through mail order at first,[9] major newsstands eventually equipped it.[10]
The Big Reel is an excellent means by which a researcher can tap into the huge collector trade, where most of today's extant television programming can be found. Indeed, with increasing frequency researchers themselves advertise in its pages, announcing what titles they need in the hope that some collector might have that rare print or kinescope, and be willing to part with it (for a price) or, more advantageous, supply a videotape of it.
William Lafferty, in Private Screenings: Television and the Female Consumer[11]
At its peak in the 1980s, the Big Reel reached 4,800 subscriptions, with some academics considering this figure to comprise near the total amount of collectors in the United States during that time.[12] The non-editorial portions of the magazine comprised hundreds of advertisements for prints and tapes of film and television material, as well as props, stills, and other memorabilia.[10] The number of titles advertised in each issue spanned thousands.[13]
Among its targeted collectors, The Big Reel was seen as a bible,[1] through which to purchase prints of films not yet transferred to tape by the original distributor,[14] to valuate memorabilia,[15] and to discover films and television programs thought partially or entirely lost—this latter function being the source of many scams.[16] Besides its use for collectors, researchers and academics of film studies also used The Big Reel as a directory through which to contact collectors for copies of obscure films or television programs,[17] sometimes even taking advertisements themselves seeking rare titles.[11] The magazine helped catapult the professional careers of several multinational film distributors, including Jeff Joseph of SabuCat and Mike Vraney of Something Weird.[18]
Rival publications included Classic Images, Movie Collectors World,[15] VideoMania,[13] The Videophile,[9] and Screen Thrills—the latter of which was also published in North Carolina, in Raleigh. The editor of Screen Thrills, Jerry Burke called the Big Reel the "best adzine on the market for film collectors" over his own.[19]
1990–2008: Sale and decline
[edit]Key incorporated House of Stars to publish The Big Reel in the early 1990s. In 1993, he employed six people to write the magazine, including himself and his UNCG graduate daughter Rhonda Lemons, to whom Key relinquished his editing rights. Around this time, House of Stars also introduced a sister publication, Hollywood and Vine, and started publishing picture books and reference works on the film industry.[6] Later in 1993,[5] during a perceived decline of film collecting as a lucrative business, Key sold the rights to the Big Reel to Empire Publishing,[11] a big publishing house.[20] Empire struggled with the Big Reel in the years following.[5] Although the Big Reel saw use by collectors for the exchange of reportedly thousands of films in the months leading to its closure,[21] the magazine ended in October 2008, folding into Antique Trader. The publisher of the aforementioned magazine, F+W Publications, had bought The Big Reel from Empire several years back.[22]
Legal troubles
[edit]The legality of the copies of film and television programs advertised in the Big Reel varied: some vendors were movie theaters unloading old films that were sold to them by the distributor,[23] while others were selling pirated copies.[24] From the earliest days of the Big Reel, the Federal Bureau of Investigation frequently perused the magazine in search of collections of potentially pirated materials. According to Key, major film studios funded the FBI with upwards of US$25 million in the mid-1970s in exchange for an increase in the crackdown on pirated films. Because of this, after the magazine's closure, Key dubbed film collecting the most dangerous hobby in the world. In the early 1980s, the FBI subpoenaed Key to testify against a collector who was charged with selling pirated films, using the Big Reel to advertise their inventory.[7] Key refused to answer questions during his deposition, and a federal court later fined Key USD$1800 for contempt of court.[5] The FBI's interest in the Big Reel subsided following the magazine's peak in the late 1980s.[21]
Legacy
[edit]The film historian William C. Cline wrote a lauded column in the Big Reel entitled "Serials-ly Speaking",[25] the first entries into which consisted of brief commentaries on some aspect of a given serial film. These columns later expanded in length and subject matter and introduced counterpoints from letters, callers and personal correspondence with Cline in film festivals and collector conventions. A collection of these columns were later compiled in the book Serials-ly Speaking: Essays on Cliffhangers, published by McFarland & Company in 1994.[26]
Citations
[edit]- ^ a b Bartok & Joseph 2016, p. ix.
- ^ Colonial Funeral Home and Chapel 2018.
- ^ Sulski 1991b, p. 11.
- ^ Kerr 2013, p. 282.
- ^ a b c d Bartok & Joseph 2016, p. 201.
- ^ a b c Barkley 1993, p. 2.
- ^ a b c Wilson 2009, p. 157.
- ^ Wilson 2009, pp. 157–158.
- ^ a b Yarrow 1988, p. C13.
- ^ a b Jicha 1994, p. 6.
- ^ a b c Lafferty 1992, p. 275.
- ^ Bartok & Joseph 2016, p. ix; Monaghan 2016.
- ^ a b Sulski 1991a, p. 1.
- ^ Sulski 1990, p. 3.
- ^ a b Jicha 1996, p. 6.
- ^ Bartok & Joseph 2016, pp. 113, 196.
- ^ Schaefer & Streible 2000, p. 133.
- ^ Bartok & Joseph 2016, pp. 138, 191; Copner 1992, p. 60.
- ^ Burke 1976, p. 9.
- ^ Wilson 2009, p. 156.
- ^ a b Horak 2006, p. 115.
- ^ Big Reel 2008.
- ^ Casey 2006, p. 1.
- ^ Bartok & Joseph 2016, p. 21.
- ^ Lasiuta & Coan 2004, p. 65.
- ^ Cline 2000, pp. xiii–xiv.
References
[edit]- Barkley, Meredith (September 18, 1993). "Love of Movies Creates a Business". Greensboro News Record. Greensboro News Company. p. 2. ISSN 1072-0065. Archived from the original on April 12, 2019 – via ProQuest.
- Bartok, Dennis; Jeff Joseph (August 25, 2016). A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781496808622 – via Google Books.
- "Letter from the editor". The Big Reel (399). F+W Publications. July 2008. ISSN 0744-723X.
- Burke, Jerry (1976). "Intermission by the Editor". Screen Thrills: 9 – via the Internet Archive.
- Casey, K. E. (June 19, 2006). "Bringing Movies, Music to Nursing Homes: Jim Smith Has Been Entertaining Elderly Residents for 29 Years". Knight Ridder Tribune Business News. Tribune Business News. p. 1 – via ProQuest.
- Cline, William C. (2000) [1994]. Serials-ly Speaking: Essays on Cliffhangers (Revised ed.). McFarland & Company. ISBN 9780786409181 – via Google Books.
- Copner, Michael (1992). "Mike Vraney Interviewed". Cult Movies & Video (6). Videosonic Arts: 58–60 – via Internet Archive.
- "Donald R. Key". Obituaries. Colonial Funeral Home and Chapel. June 27, 2018. Archived from the original on April 12, 2019.
- Horak, Jan-Christopher (2006). "Archiving, Preserving, Screening 16mm". Cinema Journal. 45 (3). University of Texas Press: 112–118, 140. ISSN 0009-7101 – via ProQuest.
- Jicha, Tom (October 2, 1994). "Columbo Returns This Season on ABC". Sun Sentinel. Sun Sentinel Company. p. 6 – via ProQuest.
- Jicha, Tom (October 27, 1996). "Slides of La Monroe; Ever Hear of Ethics?". Sun Sentinel. Sun Sentinel Company. p. 6 – via ProQuest.
- Lasiuta, Tim; George Coan (2004). Collecting Western Memorabilia. McFarland & Company. ISBN 9780786416608 – via Google Books.
- Kerr, Leah M. (2013). "Collectors' Contributions to Archiving Early Black Films". Black Camera. 5 (1). Indiana University Press: 274–284. doi:10.2979/blackcamera.5.1.274. ISSN 1536-3155 – via JSTOR.
- Lafferty, William (January 1, 1992). "Family-Oriented Anthology Dramas and Related Programming on American Television, 1950–1960". In Lynn Spigel; Denise Mann (eds.). Private Screenings: Television and the Female Consumer. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 270–276. ISBN 9781452902647 – via Google Books.
- Monaghan, Peter (September 26, 2016). "The Oddball Worlds of Film Collectors". Moving Image Archive News. Archived from the original on December 28, 2016. Retrieved August 22, 2021.
- Schaefer, Eric; Dan Streible (2000). "Archival News". Cinema Journal. 40 (1). University of Texas Press: 127–137. ISSN 0009-7101 – via ProQuest.
- Sulski, Jim (July 10, 1990). "Elusive Video: That Rare Tape Probably Exists; Here's How to Find It". Chicago Tribune. Chicago Tribune Company. p. 3. ISSN 1085-6706 – via ProQuest.
- Sulski, Jim (April 4, 1991). "Collective Memory Videos of Old Films, Shows, Newscasts Are Time Machines for Aficionados". Chicago Tribune. Chicago Tribune Company. p. 1. ISSN 1085-6706 – via ProQuest.
- Sulski, Jim (April 4, 1991). "New Collectors Advised to Take It Slowly". Chicago Tribune. Chicago Tribune Company. p. 11. ISSN 1085-6706 – via ProQuest.
- Wilson, Eric G. (August 1, 2009). "The Most Dangerous Hobby in the World". Virginia Quarterly Review. 85 (2): viii, 151–159. ISSN 0042-675X – via ProQuest.
- Yarrow, Andrew L. (February 22, 1988). "Video Cassettes Pushing Books Off Shelves". New York Times. New York Times Company. p. C13. ISSN 0362-4331 – via ProQuest.
External links
[edit]- Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived March 15, 1997)