8mm Forum: The Avengers, Return of the Cybernauts. 2 x 600ft Colour Sound

This is topic The Avengers, Return of the Cybernauts. 2 x 600ft Colour Sound in forum 8mm Print Reviews at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on July 03, 2017, 02:46 PM:

Paul Beresford, (Peter Cushing) the brother of Clement Armstrong, the creator of the Cybernauts, blames Steed and Mrs. Peel for his brother's death at the cold hands of his own creations. Aided by Armstrong's assistant Benson, he abducts several scientists who are blackmailed into producing a new batch of Cybernauts. Whilst he is the perfect gentleman towards Mrs. Peel, his aim is to turn her and Steed into human robots.

Derann could not have chosen a better episode of this TV Series to release on Super 8. A classic episode with a great cast, (Peter Cushing, Frederick Jaeger, Charles Tingwell, Fulton Mackay, Roger Hammond, Noel Coleman, Aimi MacDonald, Redmond Phillips). As with many of these the colour has unfortunately faded. This is another odd one though as the night scenes appear normal with colours but the daytime scenes, while very sharp have lost mush of it colour yet skin tones are actually quite good with greens outdoors are still there along with yellows. Sound is 1st class and the image itself very sharp and clear but again, on a downer, this print does have some lines and like a handful of our films is actually an ex library print from movieland international so along with other titles, (Where Eagles Dare, Wild Geese, & Hannie Caulder), we got this one for £15 at least 20/25 years ago. Every time we watch it we say, one last time, but after we say, "maybe next time"
If i bought this today it would either go back for a refund or binned. We dont normally keep stuff with these kind of scratches but i have to say this particular when viewed, tends to keep you looking at the film not the lines. It must also be said, as i often do, my old digi camera appears to make the fade a lot worse than it actually is. [Wink]

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on July 04, 2017, 08:25 AM:

These episodes never seems to date either. When you think back the largest TV screen would be 26"? To project these on to a in my case a six foot screen, made them look even better. I bought all three new. Two from Derann and one from P.M. Films, it was on offer. The other two are The Living Dead and The Positive Negative Man.

Posted by Burton Sundquist (Member # 5813) on November 26, 2017, 01:11 AM:

...My favorite Avengers episode because of Peter Cushing! There are other certain pleasantries that make this an interesting and entertaining episode, and I was particularly pleased to see it again, this time on cine. Screening it again reminded that there had been a B&W episode starring Michael Gough. I remember that one too! Great intro track. Your review reminded me to look for this print
So I think a thank you is in order.

[ November 26, 2017, 07:44 AM: Message edited by: Burton Sundquist ]

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on November 26, 2017, 03:26 AM:

No problem Burton, it is such a shame that these seem to be faded and as you say this was a great episode for derann to release.

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on November 27, 2017, 02:28 AM:

My 1x400 ft of The Living Dead looks faded, but it's a late print on Agfa stock so I suspect the master material was not of top standard.

Posted by Bill Phelps (Member # 1431) on November 27, 2017, 07:19 AM:

Is your one reel of The Living Dead a digest of the episode or is it one part of the 3x400'? The only reason I ask is I have 2 of the 3 reels of this episode. Maybe this is the missing reel.

Posted by Oliver F. R. Feld (Member # 1911) on November 30, 2017, 12:20 PM:

My CYBERNAUTS print is also red, but my LIVING DEAD cutdown is still colourful.
While re-recording CYBERNAUTS I recognized that some minutes are missing on the Super-8-source.
So in the end it’s an incomplete complete episode

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on December 02, 2017, 02:46 PM:

Bill, I have the digest.

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