Minox spotting in Movies ?

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Have you seen Minox in movie, TV or magazines ?

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), March 20, 1999

Answers

The first time I saw a Minox was in a german monthly magazine called Kosmos, it was the october/60 issue. It was an announcement of the Minox B showing a tourist in some italian city (Venice perhaps).

-- Wolfgang Fischer (wolfischer@hotmail.com), March 30, 1999.

At my optician's recently, there was a BMW magazine, with a photo contest there. One of the photographer teams was a man and woman, and the portrait they had of themselves was them in the front seat of a BMW, with him sighting back with a Minox -- probably a CLX.

Jon

-- Jon Callas (jon@callas.org), June 27, 1999.


The past few months the History Channel on cable TV has been running various shows about spies and spy technology. Of course Minox cameras are often shown. The comments include those about the public's perception that the camera is used only by spies. One of the shows told of a Russian general who spied for the CIA. He had been furnished with a Minox B (here the camera does a close up of a B rotating on a light table so it ca be seen from all sides) and provided the CIA with 51 rolls of highly classified documents. At 50 per roll that amounts to 2550 pages!! He was arrested, tried and executed; part of the evidence used agains him was the fact that he possessed a Minox camera

-- Ken Trettin (hogman@netins.net), June 28, 1999.

In the movie Grosse Pointe Blank, John Cusack uses one.

Also see http://www.retroactive.com/sept98/minox.html -- at the bottom, there's a list of movies that have used them.

Sorry about the email address.

-- John Doe (webmaster@greenspun.com), August 08, 1999.


As the author of the article just mentioned (thanks!), I thought I'd add another instance somebody recently mentioned to me:

In Roman Holiday (1953), Gregory Peck (as a reporter) uses a Minox... wrong! He holds it waist level, with his finger over the lens opening (!), and looks down at it like a TLR...

Of course, Grosse Pointe Blank got it wrong also: when it shows the subjective view through the viewfinder (without the distinctive Minox brightline) when John Cusack snaps a picture with his B, instead of the distinctive "zzzzip" Minox shutter sound, it uses a typical SLR mirror-up flash of blackness accompanied by the "zit-whrrr" of a motorized film advance!

Good thing only us fanatics notice such things...

-- Michael Goldfarb (mgoldfar@mobius-inc.com), August 10, 1999.



In "Roman Holiday" that's Van Heflin using an Echo-8.

al

-- Al_Doyle (alldoyle@worldnet.att.net), August 10, 1999.


Thanks re Roman Holiday, Al - I was obviously misinformed!

-- Michael Goldfarb (mgoldfar@mobius-inc.com), August 11, 1999.

The first time I saw Minox 35mm camera on TV was Charlton Heston, the Oscar winning actor of Ben Hur, using a Minox 35mm camera taking snapshot.

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), August 12, 1999.

In a Canadian made for TV movie titled "Doomsday Gun" about the life and works of Canadian super gun designer Gerrad Bull, a spy hiding inside G. Bull's company used a Minox spy camera to copy design information from computer terminal. G. Bull was later murdered.

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), August 14, 1999.

Stephen Rea uses a Minox in Robert Altman's Ready to Wear, snapping pictures of a half-naked Sally Kellerman.

-- James Wolcott (jamesw1252@aol.com), November 14, 1999.


I just recently saw a great World War II submarine movie for the zillionth time.It`s called "Up Periscope".The whole point of the story is for the sub to get James Garner close to a Japanese island so he can swim ashore and photograph a codebook with a Minox Riga.He uses the camera properly,but no measuring chain!I guess he`s a really a good judge of distance!The camera even sounds right.Check it out.

-- Lance Novak (roobunny@aol.com), December 21, 1999.

Flipping through the channels tonight, I ran across "Hotel" (1967). Which has a reporter guy (I think) snapping shots in the hotel lobby with a Minox B (I think). He was shooting pictures of a black couple who were refused a room there. I'm not sure what the rest of the movie is about.

-- Josh Root (photo702@hotmail.com), December 23, 1999.

James Stewart uses one to copy some police documents in "Call Northside 777". This film also shows photochemical reproduction of wire-service facsimile transmissions.

-- Ken Dauer (VKruger@aol.com), December 26, 1999.

A Minox C (!) camera was shown in 1991 movie JFK.

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), January 08, 2000.

Jan 28 4-5 EST TLC channel show: "The Spy Game", in which Jerry Friedman re-enacted a spy carrying a suit case full of document to a publich wash room, closed the door took out a secret document, holding it to the door, and copied it with a Minox camera. Two cameras were featured, a Riga Minox, and Minox B.

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), January 30, 2000.


In the TV series, "Stalag 13", Hogans Heroes used a Minox A exclusively to photograph documents and secret weapons. Best of all, it was usually done with one small candle and sometimes just a match. Some of the enlargments were incredible. Uh Huh!!!

-- Sal Riccobono (rigaminox@aol.com), April 01, 2001.

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