Comings…and Goings… April 10, 2007
Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info, British Film , 1 comment so farEver since it was tentatively announced last year by Network in the UK, there has been much speculation about just what might be ’special’ about their ‘Special Edition’ DVD of Things to Come.
I’ve mentioned it here a couple of times and, it seems, disinformation and rumour has been the order. Up until now hopefully.
As reported previously, William Cameron Menzies seminal sci-fi epic is being screened at Sci-Fi London next month in association with distributors Network, and when details were at last posted on the Festival Website, it looked like we were in for an astonishing treat. Those details have now been amended, but originally they gave the running time as 116 minutes and claimed: “…Released in 1936 at 87 minutes, we screen the original director’s version with 20 minutes of never-before-seen footage. The film has been painstakingly restored and we present it in glorious HD….”
With some incredulity, I reported the above over at the Roobarb’s Forum, and got this reply from Nick Cooper. Note that the UK standard TV format, PAL, means that film runs 4% fast, so that when he talks of ‘uplift’ he’s quoting timings for film at normal speed without PAL conversion:
Sadly, that’s an error. Basically, the various reported or known running times of the film are:
130m - Rough cut (reported)
117m 13s - Version submitted to the BBFC in Feb 1936 (passed as an ‘A’)
108m 40s - London trade screening, premiere, and initial 1936 release
98m 06s - Shorter version in UK circulation by late-1936
96m 24s - American release - The version of the film that had always been released on VHS and shown on TV since 1986 in the UK runs to 92m 42s on film - 89m exactly in PAL format.There are prints floating around in the US with two additional scenes and two segments from existing scenes running to 3m 42, that therefore “uplift” this running time to the 96m 24s of the US release, although they are otherwise missing other footage and therefore as a whole run shorter than 92m 42s.
The Network release re-instates these four scene/segments, as reflected by the BBFC-quoted running time of 92m 45s. The simple fact is that this is all the actual footage that remains from the film, barring a few alternate shots of existing scenes that survive in trailers.
Production paperwork is virtually non-existent, but there is a continuity/editing script containing an additional ten scenes or segments from existing scenes. Because each shot in this script is timed (in feet and frames), it’s possible to work out the extra running time of these ten scene/segments; overall they uplift the running time to 104m 41s.
Obviously this is still a bit short of the initial 1936 UK release and considerably less than the version certified by the BBFC. Wells published what was essentially the shooting script in October 1935, and it’s notable that where footage actually exists - or is documented in the above-mentioned continuity script - the published version is spot-on.
That’s not surprising, since Wells’s contract stipulated that the film had to be shot exactly as he wrote it, pretty much to the word, so the additional material does pretty much “fill in the gaps” that remain. That said, there are at least two scenes (coincidentally, one of which is being reinstated) that do not appear in the published script, so clearly there was at least one further revision before filming finished in late 1935.
More detail on my website: www.thingstocome.org.uk
My sincere thanks to Nick for clearing up the confusion on the running time front. It still looks like a treat - just not the one we might have imagined! All we are waiting for now is for Network to give us the news of any extra features, and for them to deliver a sparkling transfer with crystal clear sound. Here’s hoping, and with the May release of the disc still on track we won’t have to wait too much longer to find out.
Optimum’s yo-yoing schedule looks to have ‘yo’d’ against their proposed release of Abel Gance’s silent epic Napoleon. At first, they looked to be releasing a cut, sonorised, 1934 version of the film, but then, to much amazement, Optimum announced that they had reached a deal with Francis Ford Coppola to release his ‘restoration’ of the film with a score by his father Carmine. The result, in some quarters, was outrage and a call for a boycott of the release until Coppola, who claims to hold the worldwide rights for the film, came to an agreement with Kevin Brownlow to allow his much better restored version to be screened and released via the BFI on DVD.
Well, no need for that boycott now. Optimum has pulled the release from their schedule ‘due to a rights issue’. The deal with Coppola was apparently one he could refuse. Optimum’s release of Gance’s Austerlitz has also been canned.
Finally, in this mini news round-up, fans of vintage British films rejoice - I’m delighted to report that ITV DVD is set to release The Stewart Granger Collection: Adam and Evelyne, Blanche Fury, Caesar And Cleopatra, Captain Boycott, Fanny By Gaslight, The Lamp Still Burns, Love Story, Madonna of The Seven Moons, The Magic Bow and Waterloo Road come June in the UK. Huzzah!