Reels

In the big, crammed corner of an old mill building in Port Richmond, the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour shares shelf space with Fritz Lang's The Blue Gardenia . A stack of 1940s B westerns - Alan Ladd in Whispering Smith , a posse of Buck Jones oaters - is stored with thousands of canisters and cardboard boxes holding 8, 16, and 35mm prints. There's Joan Crawford in This Woman is Dangerous ; Raymond Burr in episodes of Perry Mason ; The Story of Menstruation , an educational 'toon made by Disney animators for Kotex; Panama , a 1920s travelogue; Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in a Technicolor print of Tennessee Williams' Boom ; The Frank Sinatra Show ;   Lionel Atwill in The Strange Case of Doctor Rx ; a Lee Marvin-narrated TV show about great feats of engineering called It Couldn't Be Done . . . . It's unlikely that anywhere else in the United States - or the world - does there exist such a collection of vintage film and TV reels, topicals and industrials, stag movies and silents, found footage and old Hollywood cartoons, quite as eclectic, eccentric, and wonderfully obscure as the one Jay Schwartz maintains in this gritty neighborhood a few miles northeast of City Hall.

Auctioneer Barry S. Slosberg is saluting the arrival of the merry month of May with a sale well-suited for spring: Starting at 10 a.m. tomorrow at his gallery, 232 N. Second St., he will auction off more than 400 lots of fishing equipment. At least one lot in the collection is expected to sell for a four-figure price. The equipment, including more than 100 rods, more than 100 reels and scores of lures, creels and publications, as well as a dozen firearms, comes from an Upper Darby physician who is liquidating a 40-year collection.

"Gone fishin' " could be the epitaph for Philadelphia manufacturing's glory days, but Penn Fishing Tackle is still here making the reels. The company on Hunting Park Avenue in the city's Nicetown-Tioga section has made fishing gear for 74 years and sells 1.2 million reels a year. And, though it laid off 86 workers and closed a plant that employed them in Schuylkill County last year, chief executive officer David H. Martin said his Penn Fishing Tackle Manufacturing Co., also known as Penn Reel, has a "goal and a mission" of keeping production of its high-end reels in Philadelphia.

Bob Christy is hooked on collecting. While some people collect art or stamps, Christy collects antique fishing equipment, including a stone hook that may be a thousand years old. Christy, 38, began collecting the equipment about 2 1/2 years ago after his father-in-law, Joseph Brennan, gave him a Steel's Wigglefrog lure, made in 1949. "A lot of my pieces have a real sentimental value, so I make a promise never to sell them," said Christy, a maintenance worker for DeLuxe Check Printers in Moorestown.

Thanksgiving weekend is regarded as one of the more important holiday weekends for the Hollywood studios. They send new films to the big screen when friends and family have the time to spend together watching. In all, the top 10 movies this weekend will likely bring in close to $150 million. That's a lot of cash for which the studios can be thankful. My family always participated in this great movie weekend, but we did it in the comfort of our living room. With a turkey or two well-devoured, we'd all make our way from the dining room and sit ourselves in front of a white projection screen.

Go ahead, admit it. Even though their accents enchant you, even though you wonder what's worn under their kilts, and even though you long to dance a jig with a red-tressed lad or lassie, when you're honest with yourself, your knowledge of Scottish folklore and dance ends somewhere between Braveheart and Brigadoon. Not to worry - you're not alone in admiring the plaided people of the North. And your best bet for finding others like you, while broadening your international horizons, is at a country-dancing class.

Boxes of junk film scream at Todd Kimmell. Buried in basements, unwanted by libraries, free at flea markets, they sense that he'll take them - and view them. To Kimmell, the dustier and more disorganized the boxes, the more promising the film. He hauls them to his Queen Village living room and threads them into a 16mm Kodak Pageant that resembles something pinched from high school health class. Sometimes he finds himself sitting through reels and reels of black-and- white footage of squirrels, as was the case with films he took off the hands of the Women's Humane Society.

Taking his mission to field-test fishing reels literally, Neil Mackellow, a champion surf-casting fisherman from England, tries one out in the softball fields at Fairmount Park's Belmont Plateau. Reel designers from Penn Fishing Tackle Manufacturing Co. of Philadelphia brought Mackellow to the park because it was the only place they could find to accomodate his casts of almost 300 yards. The company is seeking to expand into European markets and has hired Mackellow as a consultant.

Imagine listening to this mob hit parade for hours on end: THE LAW OFFICE TAPES: 1,369 cassettes of 45 minutes each, recorded over two years during mob meetings inside the law offices of Salvatore Avena, who has represented several mob bosses through the decades. THE WARFIELD STREET REELS: 89 reels, not exceeding three hours each, from the Warfield Breakfast and Lunch Express, on Warfield Street near Wharton in South Philadelphia, where conversations were recorded for four months last year.

With spring just around the corner, it is time to get your gear in order before heading to your favorite fishing hole. Beginning at 11 tomorrow morning, auctioneer Charles Whitaker will provide a great opportunity to acquire vintage fishing gear, some of which will likely be better off left at home on display than taken to a stream. There will be assorted 19th-century American fly rods, fly reels, surf rods and surf casting reels. The offering will include several fly rods made by John Krider, H. L. Leonard, A.B. Shipley, and F.E. Thomas.

TEN DAYS AGO, they were in Palm Beach, Fla., at the NFL owners' meetings - Jeffrey Lurie, Andy Reid, Howie Roseman, all of them. Amid the old money and the pounding Atlantic surf and the $22 room-service omelets, the Eagles had no idea they were about to be confronted with a roster crisis: the ruptured Achilles' tendon of All-Pro left tackle Jason Peters. Roseman, the Eagles' general manager, was in Palm Beach with his family. He said he arrived back from the meetings last Tuesday.

IN A CITY that has made history a backbone of a multibillion-dollar tourist trade, it might surprise the average citizen how little he or she knows about Philadelphia's history outside the narrow window of 1776. That's one reason why we were quite taken with a new multipart documentary series on the city's history being produced by former mayoral candidate and Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority board chief Sam Katz. Katz has produced two out of potentially 12 segments of "Philadelphia, the Great Experiment," a lively documentary on the city.

The arrest this week of Medford Township's school superintendent on drunken-driving charges has opened new wounds in a community still recovering from a sex scandal involving its former mayor and dealing with deep budget cuts, including police layoffs. Now Medford residents are struggling to reconcile the arrest of Schools Superintendent Joseph Del Rossi with the antidrug and antialcohol message he delivered to students at an awareness event last month. Del Rossi, who has led the 3,000-student district for about 10 years, was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol after he flipped a district-owned Jeep on Sunday, police said.

NEW ORLEANS - Drew Brees threw four touchdown passes as the New Orleans Saints torched the collapsing New York Giants, 49-24, on Monday night. Brees completed 24 of 38 attempts for 363 yards, and the Saints raised their record to 8-3 and took over first place in the NFC South. The Giants (6-5) lost their third straight and took a beating on both the scoreboard and on the field. Defensive end Osi Umenyiora went out with a sprained ankle and receiver Hakeem Nicks was rocked by a vicious collision with Saints rookie safety Isa Abdul-Quddus.

ATLANTA - Across the diamond, the Braves shuffled silently out of the dugout and into the tunnel, destined for another anxious night of scoreboard watching. Houston had just squandered an early five-run lead over the Cardinals, a team that now is tied with Atlanta in the National League wild-card race after coming back to pound the Astros. Turner Field wasn't exactly packed with fans to begin with, but by the end of the Phillies' 7-1 victory last night, it took on the feel of a movie theater after a Clint Eastwood drama.

Roads remained closed in the northeastern United States on Monday and some rivers were still flooded, days after heavy rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee washed over the region. It could be Wednesday before the Passaic River in New Jersey falls below flood stage, forecasters said. Moderate flooding persisted, and a flood warning was in effect at two places along the river, Pine Brook and Little Falls. The flooding forced hundreds of New Jerseyans from their homes. The fact that Lee followed so quickly after Hurricane Irene further slowed restoration efforts.

James Shields and the Tampa Bay Rays got the sweep they needed to charge back into the playoff race. Shields came within two outs of his 12th complete game this season, B.J. Upton hit his first grand slam and the Rays routed the fading Boston Red Sox 9-1 yesterday at St. Petersburg, Fla. Tampa Bay moved within 3 1/2 games of the AL wild card leaders, sweeping the three-game series to go a season-high 17 games over .500 at 81-64. The Rays have won 21 games in a row when scoring five runs or more.

Aadil Malik was 6 and living on Byberry Road in Torresdale a decade ago when planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. School was dismissed. His father, Babar, a native of Pakistan living in the United States since the early 1980s, picked up all the Muslim children and drove them home. The Maliks were the only Muslim family on their block. Neighbors on either side, sensing imminent local hostility, served to buffer and protect the family.