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Author
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Topic: Hannie Caulder 4 x 400ft Flat version
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Tom Photiou
Film God
Posts: 4837
From: Plymouth U.K
Registered: Dec 2003
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posted January 14, 2013 04:21 PM
A Brief history on our print, in the early 80s we received a phone call to say that Plymouths super 8 library was selling everything, we jumped in the car and quickly purchased three films, The Wild Geese 3 x 400 ft, Where Eagles Dare 3 x 400ft and of Corse Hannie Caulder 4 x 400ft flat. All for £20 each, yes £20 each. Home we went and with a gamble on there condition we cleaned all the films with 222. How lucky were were, whilst all the films did have some scratching the prints themselves were all “A” for quality in all departments and the more we cleaned them the better they got.
Hannie Caulder was released by Walton Films and in several versions, Shots of Vengeance and The Brutal Brothers were both 200ft extracts available in colour and b/w sound and silent and of course the 4 x 400ft feature reviewed here. And in Walton’s later years they also released the feature in scope which we are still keeping an eye out for today to replace our flat version.
The plot is very simple; Hannie Caulder (Raquel Welch) is a frontier wife whose husband is murdered by the Clemens brothers, a trio of inept outlaw brothers (played by Ernest Borgnine, Strother Martin, and Jack Elam).
After a disastrous bank raid, the Clemens Brothers Shoot dead Jim Caulder, rape his wife Hannie Caulder, burn down her house, and leave her for dead. They go on a crime spree, while Hannie Caulder recruits professional bounty hunter Thomas Price (Robert Culp) to help her seek revenge by training her to use a gun. It’s that simple but this is a unique western in that it is British made & although set in America and Mexico the film was shot in Spain around Almeria. The film also has many well known faces including Christopher Lee, (the gunsmith), Diana Dors as a prostitute and Stephen Boyd, (a preacher type character) who doesn’t actually speak a word and is un-credited. The one thing that stands out in this movie is the rape scene, quite vicious for so many famous names to put there work to this and all three Clements Brothers are quite rough and rugged and quite violent in this sequence, yet in all the rest of the film before and after the rape they are all seen as bungling comedic characters.
Our super 8 copy was taken out tonight after being kept in the dark for 7 years, we gave it a clean up but did fear that fade would be setting in, however, we were absolutely stunned at how good the print still is, not a single hint of fade and all the colours are excellent still with pin sharp focus and excellent sound throughout, Although there are a few marks here and there we have certainly seen much worse and at £20 it was a give away, even for the early 80s. One thing i will say on this print, it does not have a balance track, i know Walton did remove this track for a while on several films with reports that it interferred with the focus and aslo some poor recordings. It was done in order to save money but i have to say on this print it hasnt made any differnce as the image is fine with corner to corner pin sharp image and excellnt sound.
I think Quinton Tarantino would have done far better to have re-made this one, all the violence is already there but 70s style, and it does have everything a good western requires, a bank raid, bloody shoot outs, pursuits on horseback, a sexy leading lady and sweet revenge. & on the super 8 big screen it’s at its best, if you haven’t got this one in your collection then start looking at the lists, (when they appear). ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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Tom Photiou
Film God
Posts: 4837
From: Plymouth U.K
Registered: Dec 2003
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posted January 15, 2013 07:00 AM
Hugh your dead right on this, it needs to left alone,oddley enough i never see it run on any of the TV channels either.
Dave, at the time the company went under it wasnt under Roger Lily, he had sold it before hand to this guy Brian something,he traded from a shop on Mutley plain in Plymouth and eventually moved to a tiny place in King street near the city centre where it all went badley wrong for him,i cant remember the surname though, after the event i caught up with Roger who had a cine shop in Barras Street in Liskeard and he told me that those films should never had been sold to the public, a few years further on Roger returned to Plymouth and traded under several names, Looney Movie co, Movieland international to name a few, however, he was a clever buisness man and his main job was indeed as a lecturer at the local college teaching buisness (& i think law).A great bloke though and we had many happy times visiting his home of and afternoon or evening to go through his latest collection purchase before he listed them on his sales lists. About 25% of our collection came from Rogers company ,he was always happy to help and in fact i purchased my full feature of the fog in scope from him for just £80. I wonder what it would fetch now? (i couldnt sell it though, certainly not yet)
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Tom Photiou
Film God
Posts: 4837
From: Plymouth U.K
Registered: Dec 2003
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posted December 30, 2017 01:31 PM
After all these years we have finally found a full uncut feature on 16mm, (thanks to fellow collector pointing it out to me), the copy was from Phil at CHC and my goodness what a print. This is an early 70s movie so i asked Phil, "is there much fade"? His reply was "no, in fact its much better than the Walton prints".
Well, i gave it a good clean, not that it needed much cleaning, and i was very happily surprised to see a stunning colour print, masked for widescreen with excellent sound and pin sharp image. I must add that these images are nowhere near as good as you see it on the screen.
Above all, this is a full theatrical version with the AA certificate at the start and is of course the full uncut movie and not the abridged version as per Walton's release.
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