The films usually ran either 3 minutes or 10 minutes, and were often silent and in black and white. Later, Super 8mm sound and color added another dimension to the experience, but it was the silent black and white films which dominated this market for decades. Companies such as Columbia Pictures, Castle Films, Walt Disney and Ken Films offered hundreds of titles to the film collector, everything from recent feature films to sports events to old cartoons and two-reel comedies.

At the bottom of this virtually bottomless barrel was our namesake, ATLAS FILMS, a tiny company operating out of lower Manhattan in New York City. Atlas specialized in very old, public domain films such as silent western and comedy films, and early cartoons. Some of their more popular series were the Max Fleischer POPEYE cartoons and Hal Roach’s OUR GANG.

The quality on Atlas Films was usually terrible, often using grainy dupes with soft focus for their 8mm digests. In addition, the inter-titles for the films were often drawn by hand in magic marker, and were just as often centered off-screen so you couldn’t even read them! To add insult to injury, Atlas didn’t even bother making up box art for their films; they just threw their films into a generic box, and identified the film with a cheesy rubber stamp label!

Even more amazing, Atlas had a decidedly “unauthorized†Horror Film series which took other studio’s films and bootlegged them! Boasting generic titles like THING IN THE ICE, MONSTER IN THE CAVE, and NIGHT OF EVIL, film buffs would be shocked to find bad dupes of films like THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD!

Yes, the Atlas Films experience was truly a unique one. For every film buff who hated them, there were two others who were strangely drawn to this “outlaw†company and their scruffy, inferior product. Hey, we liked them so much, we named our eBay Store after them!

Now, thanks to several other collectors who have come forward with their rare Atlas film titles, we can proudly offer a full DVD volume of Atlas 8mm Film digests, as they were originally seen by countless disappointed and baffled kids and film buffs over 40 years ago! Digitally remastered and boasting an evocative library music soundtrack, this almost 2 full hours of retro entertainment will surely be the highlight of your film collecting year! A few of the films even have the ultra-rare “animated†Atlas Films logo at the head! This volume includes: