Submitted for your consideration is this Bell & Howell 240 16mm Portable “Orson Welles” Motion Picture Camera, Circa 1957.

This same ‘model’ camera was used by Orson Welles to shoot a feature film in 1962!!!!!

The “Orson Welles” 16mm camera, of the same EXACT model, was used in “The Land of Don Quixote”, in 1962 and was sold in an auction from Heritage Auctions in 2014 for $37,500 USD.

This camera is in extremely fine condition and runs well.

The Bell and Howell 240 was a 16mm film camera with automatic exposure control and a spring motor with a metal hand crank. The control barrel on the electric eye must be preset for the right film speed on the camera before filming. The outer scale of the Electric Eye shows the film speed from 10 to 50 Asa, while the camera frame rates varies from 8 to 48 frames per second. It is possible to operate the camera without using the automatic iris control and setting the iris manually.  The camera uses two Mallory PX2 cells to power the iris control system.
This camera is a sort of civilian development of a Military Gun Sight Aiming Point.

The “Orson Welles” 16mm camera, of the same EXACT model, was used in “The Land of Don Quixote”, in 1962 was sold in an auction from Heritage Auctions in 2014 for $37,500 USD.

“We shot with a crew of five: Welles, I, a sound engineer who also drove our Volkswagen truck, our camera operator and another one of the Spanish TV. We did everything; I did the electrician and the property master. Orson loved to shoot in a few and everyone did everything there was to do. At times we had four or five 16mm cameras, for example at the Seville Fair there were five 5 of us shooting, everyone was holding a camera in hand and if we saw something interesting we shot it. Later on of course, he chose what he wanted.” said Alessandro Tasca di Cutò, executive producer of the documentary.

A great look and a true piece of cinema history.

Even has the case key, extra lens, lock key.....