Cineflex - Arri 35 copy queries

[Aren Madsen]

Hi,

There's only a few posts that seem to mention the Cineflex, a US Army copy of the Arri 35. 

Has anyone here used one before? Is the movement inside more or less the same design or is it quite different and can it take magazines bigger than 400'?

I'm also curious about how it performs, would it have good, stable registration?

 

Any information would be much appreciated. 

 

Thank you 

[Frank Wylie]

I only handled one briefly  in the late 1980's, but didn't shoot with it.

It's more or less a direct rip-off of the original Arri 35 that was recovered from a shot down Axis bomber.  As I understand it, the magazines are interchangeable between the two cameras, but not sure about anything else.

In retrospect, it kind of reminds me of the build quality of a Konvas, but not quite as good.

 

Edited June 5, 2021 by Frank Wylie

[Dom Jaeger]

One of the forum members here was selling their Cineflex a couple of years ago, with pictures that show how similar it is to the Arriflex 35 it was based on:

https://cinematography.com/index.php?/topic/79386-for-sale-cineflex-a5-35mm-arri-35-clone/

My understanding is it was a very close copy, although being American it would have Imperial measurements rather than than metric, so the lens mount and mag throat dimensions would be different, meaning it is not compatible with Arriflex lenses or mags, though I do recall reading somewhere that people had successfully modified Arriflex mags to work with a Cineflex. The main other difference is that the motor is attached to the side of the camera rather than the bottom. In the post war years, Arriflexes were much more popular than Cineflexes, and considerably more expensive, which leads me to believe that a Cineflex may not have been as well made as an Arriflex.

The movement is based on the first Arriflex movement, a simple eccentric cam, which was not as stable as the improved cardioid cam design that Arri introduced in the 50s. So a Cineflex, like those early Arriflex 35s, is really more of a collector’s piece than a good working camera, given how many Arri 2Bs or 2Cs there are out there.  Finding lenses in Cineflex mount is also much harder than finding Arri mount lenses. 

[Simon Wyss]

We have no evidence that the CINEFLEX was copied after the ARRIFLEX but rather assertions. Application for US 2,410,962 was filed April 13, 1944. Application for US 2,419,706 was filed September 25, 1943. The two patents were issued to J. Burgi-Contner. Assumed at least three months for the preparation of the earlier application an ARRIFLEX would have to be brought to New York before or during summer 1943. American troops came first in contact with German troops July, 1943. It even seems an ARRIFLEX would need to have been captured by British forces before. A shot down Axis bomber is vague. When, where?

If we study the Contner patents we discover a number of features or details not present with the ARRIFLEX. The texts sound strongly Rockwell Engineering Laboratory, if one has already read a few Bell & Howell Co. patents. Questions arise. I don’t believe the purported story. Arnold & Richter may have bought a licence from B. & H. around 1934-35. The ARRIFLEX can also be an Agfa product no longer used after Agfacolor was tested at the Berlin Olympic Games August, 1936. Agfa could then have taken a licence from Chicago in 193?

Bell & Howell was not happy with the behind-the-film prism reflex viewfinder that they had applied for in 1924. It appears with the 2709 design in 1932 and with the Akers featherweight camera of 1933. Eastman-Kodak and B. & H. may have agreed upon Kodachrome not offered as 35-mm. motion-picture stock in 1934. Professional cinema had practically no use for KM. B. & H. was free to exploit KM as 16 and 8 by their equipment. The Kodachrome story of Mannes and Godowsky is made up, too, in my opinion. Research is going on.

[Dom Jaeger]

1 hour ago, Simon Wyss said:

If we study the Contner patents we discover a number of features or details not present with the ARRIFLEX.

Like what? The Contner patent drawings look almost exactly like an Arriflex 35, except for the side motor attachment.

Why would Bell and Howell allow a foreign company to licence an obviously superior camera design to their own Eyemo, without manufacturing one themselves, and then wait until the war era to allow a local licence? We already went down this path a few years ago when you suggested early Arriflex 35s had Imperial measurements which proved it was an American design, and I painstakingly measured all the critical dimensions of a WWII era Arriflex and found them all to be metric, indicating European provenance. 

I don’t think its suspicious that as soon as the Allies captured an Arriflex and realised the superiority of its design, they commissioned someone like Contner, an engineer and cinematographer, to copy and patent it for local manufacture. The interesting and curious thing for me is, that despite having a locally made and patented version available for half the price, in the immediate post-war years in the United States the Arriflex was what everyone wanted. 

[Frank Wylie]

This is similar to the Le Prince / Bell and Howell theory you champion. 

"Le Prince vanished September, 1890 in France. I imagine he had traveled to America, lived incognito somewhere around or in Chicago, and fed his life work into the young company. Howell simply cannot have conceived so many brilliantly designed things in the pace the world was made to believe, not alone. "

This statement is as equally anecdotal as the axis bomber story that has circulated for years. 

History is often vastly simplified and skewed toward the best interests of the author or their employer, but I have a hard time believing almost every significant technical development is cloaked in deception and skullduggery.

 

[Simon Wyss]

3 hours ago, Frank Wylie said:

"Le Prince vanished September, 1890 in France. I imagine he had traveled to America, lived incognito somewhere around or in Chicago, and fed his life work into the young company. Howell simply cannot have conceived so many brilliantly designed things in the pace the world was made to believe, not alone. "

This statement is as equally anecdotal as the axis bomber story that has circulated for years.

That’s correct.

As long as there aren’t any hard facts it can only be circumstantial evidence. I know that. At the same time, however, we have distinct breaks, rupture lines to come across. Sometimes just a hunch, a doubt about whether it’s the truth what we’re (were) told. When Arnold hired Kästner in the fall of 1932, the engineer from Jena was 21 years young. After inital trials Kästner and Arnold gave up. Reportedly a steel shutter was used that proved to not run true enough. As a machinist and mechanic I understand that steels are the cheapest materials that can be polished to a mirror shine. An aluminium alloy hasn’t been tried out, at least I can’t find any mentioning of light metals, nickel silver or Invar. What has been written in Germany about the non-availability of precision ball bearings for the mirror shutter is nonsense. Plain bearings allow more compact and more lightweight constructions. Also, stiff and rather tight fits are easily accomplished with sleeves that can be honed to ground shafts. Seats for plain bearings are reamed together. Such traditional mechanic knowledge Kästner appears to have been unacquainted with. It puzzles me. Still more so that he paused until 1936. An engineer doesn’t give up.

One difference between the later CINEFLEX and the ARRIFLEX is a governor which appears in the Contner patent. I’m working on an article about the ARRIFLEX in which I enumerate the various distinctions. There’s more to it than meets the eye.

The Bell & Howell Co. itself is surrounded by mystery. Many things are quite clear and traceable. Others aren’t. The first patent issued to Howell on a rotary framer collides with the rotary framer by Cannock of the period. Bell wrote:  . . . structure for which he had applied for a patent, it being the new and novel means for framing by cleverly swinging the cam on an axis to the star wheel  . . .  This structure was used by the designers of Simplex, who, at that time, did not know of its use on Kinodrome, as the Kinodrome had never been used in the New York City territory. Did they meet and share the invention?

The earliest patent on the B. & H. perforator is from 1917, a patent period after the point in time when the Williamson perforator was marketed. Bell has written of Williamson equipment Spoor had brought from England. The origin of the B. & H. perforator is not mentioned. A glance at a check perforator made by the American Perforator Co., Chicago, from then makes one think that the two young men might have fetched some help at the APC for a sturdy version of the tender Williamson. The English apparatus, though, featured already everything that was given to the Bell & Howell perforator.

Something trickier is the publication of the secret Reichspatent (DRP), nr. 736,423, on May 6, 1943. That patent had protected the ARRIFLEX glass shutter since 1938. Since individuals couldn’t apply for a secret patent in the Reich the content of the paper must somehow have found its way to the appropriate Berlin office. The date fits almost too nicely in the timing of Contner’s application.

A less obvious but not unimportant aspect of this camera discussion may be the general image of a motion-picture camera in the thirties. Movies were made with Debrie, Mitchell, Askania, DeVry, Wall, Eclair, Vinten. Newsreel cameras were rarely smaller than an Eyemo. So, despite the fact that an ARRIFLEX weighs double the Eyemo it was regarded as an experimental product. Practice of constant reflex viewing didn’t exist. Up to February 1941 around 125 ARRIFLEX had been sold. For comparison (certainly not necessary to bring in here), Debrie had sold over 5,000 Parvo before 1932. ARRI hides the truth about the creation of the mirror shutter camera because they have no proof. A prototype is written of but the pictures of this are enigmatic. One particular illustration screames photomontage. Just look at it!

I also know that life looks different on other continents. This is my personal entanglement with camera designs and history, so I simply hope that I can display something that has begun creeping into my mind since I discussed the Eyemo C with a master mechanic friend in Basel. Think it was in 2003.

 

Cit.: A Letter from Donald Bell. International Photographer, February 1930