8mm Forum: The Giant Behemoth content question

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Posted by Hal Dickens (Member # 3661) on April 23, 2013, 11:22 PM:

Sorry for all the weird questions I''ve been asking since joining this great forum.
One of my favorite big monster films is "The Giant Behemoth". I'll never forget how excited I was when I bought the Ken Films 8mm version. The first thing I noticed was the less than full reel. Then I sat through the super long ferry boat scene with the fake head. I remember despair creeping up my spine as I watched the worst scene off the movie go on and on. Then the great underwater conclusion segment. The End. Where were the great city destruction scenes?!!!!!!
Was anyone else as crushed as I remember being with this digest? What lazy film editors. Let's put the really long ferry boat scene on and then tack on the underwater ending. Great! Let's go to lunch. Done in ten minutes. Aarrgghhhh!!!!!
You can tell it still bugs me after all these years. You have to understand it was the first monster movie I saw on TV with my father in 1961. We sat on the couch and shared a box of Brach's chocolate covered cherries while being enthralled by the monster. I had to wait years later to see the really old scenes because the 8mm version stunk!
Sorry or the rant.

Posted by Larry Arpin (Member # 744) on April 23, 2013, 11:49 PM:

I think it was Derann that came out with a 400 foot reel and I remember it being quite good containing most of the stop motion Behemoth. It's been a long time since I have seen it.

Posted by Hal Dickens (Member # 3661) on April 24, 2013, 12:31 AM:

I wish I had known about that version.

Posted by Janice Glesser (Member # 2758) on April 24, 2013, 01:40 AM:

Hal...I have the 200ft vesion which sounds like what you are describing. The boat bobs around like a toy in the bath tub. I never watched these movies as a kid, but I guess at the time special effects was in it's infancy and realism wasn't that important.

I love what's written on the film box..."The 200ft. Horror from the Earth's Beginning..Burning the human race with it's Hell fire.. crushing the world in its path! NOTHING so frightful has ever been seen!" [Smile]

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on April 24, 2013, 02:49 AM:

Behemoth the Sea Monster in the UK. Bought the 400ft Derann release, but it was a very poor print, bleached out images, the sounds was only average hissy. It was quite well edited though. It was one of the few prints I ever had to send back to them for a refund.

If a print came up for a couple of quid I'd proberly be tempted.

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on April 24, 2013, 04:28 AM:

Derann brought out three sci-fi B/W horrors which were printed
rather light, "THE TROLLENBERG TERROR", BEHEMOTH,THE SEA
MONSTER" AND "WOMAN EATER", they are extremely rare these
days,but I managed to snag them.The reason the head of the
monster in the river looked odd and immobile was because a young technician had been playing with this model,that was capable of various actions, and broke it just before it was needed,so invariably wrecking the proposed scene.Interestingly
in the 400', which has the final scenes intact of the creature
loose in London,there is a shot of the saurian crushing a car,
that although very well done,is repeated three times,it was retained in the release print, although in the DVD release the
repeat scenes have been removed, so making the digest a unique record of the original feature.

Posted by Hal Dickens (Member # 3661) on April 24, 2013, 05:11 AM:

Thanks for all the info, guys and girl! I have to look at the DVD again to see about that car crushing scene.
This forum is full of knowledge!

Posted by Joe Taffis (Member # 4) on April 24, 2013, 01:47 PM:

This is my favorite 400' digest. It may look a little washed out in some scenes, but overall the quality of my print is very good, well edited, and with a booming soundtrack. after reading the previous posts I think there must have been some inconsistency between prints....

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on April 25, 2013, 04:35 AM:

Looks like I got a poor one. The sound on that copy I had was very hissy and low volume too. The picture was bleached out highlights. Should have asked for replacement I suppose. I do remember it was quite well edited.

Wonder if at the time of release, Derann did not do their own recording.

Hugh The other two "THE TROLLENBERG TERROR" AND "WOMAN EATER" must be extremely rare as you say. I recall them from the catalogue, but never saw them for sale anywhere.

If they appear for sale cheap enough [Big Grin]

I might buy them. But looking at some of the prices on ebay of other so called rare titles maybe not.

Posted by Andreas Borutta (Member # 2311) on April 30, 2013, 08:06 AM:

Hello Hal
I was not for a long Time on this Forum,but still a big film fan. I am one of the few filmfans in the world who own a 35 mm copy of The giant Behemoth. And even it is an old used print,it looks great on 35 mm Bad luck,that it is not possible to meet to run this rare Item in a cinema.
Best wishes from Germany
Andreas

Posted by Hal Dickens (Member # 3661) on April 30, 2013, 07:20 PM:

Hi Andreas. That sounds really cool! I assume you have a 35 mm projector to run it on. How big have you projected it?

Posted by Andreas Borutta (Member # 2311) on May 05, 2013, 06:59 AM:

Hi Hal
I have a Filmclub,were we meet once a month to run all this wunderful Filmmaterial from the past .First we show one or two hours of old Super 8 material,most trailers and digest versions,then we switch to 35mm, were we run one hours of old trailers,a newsreel and two features on 35mm. One of the last films from my collection we run was Godzilla vs the thing, from 1964 on CS. But flat films are on our screen bigger than CS films,about 9 feet for a flat film like Behemoth.Its a nice Club because we celebrate the past of cinema and movies include Super 8mm.
Hope you have a chance to see old cinema material at your place,too
Bye Bye
Andreas

Posted by Vidar Olavesen (Member # 3354) on May 05, 2013, 07:12 AM:

Not enough people around here for many meetings, but I too started showing films to friends

http://pokeysoft.no/osfk/

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on May 25, 2013, 02:17 PM:

Andreas, Did you watch the film?

From this

a little radiation to this.

The one that blows up.

Interesting to see a few well known faces in early bit parts to.
George Sewell, Sid James, I think? plus a few others.

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