8mm Forum: The Bridge on The River Kwai

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Posted by Melvin England (Member # 5270) on July 24, 2016, 04:28 AM:

Has there ever been a decent copy (nice colour etc)of the 400' The Bridge on The River Kwai?
The reason I ask is that I have had several copies pass through my hands and,quite frankly, they were all awful. Very red. A great pity as it is a great digest. Was it the raw film type they were printed on? Was it ever printed on different types of film stock?

I look forward to the responses.

Posted by Joe Caruso (Member # 11) on July 24, 2016, 06:26 AM:

Columbia's isn't bad, they also put out a 200' "souvenir" reek, which is a fine edition as well - Cheers, Shorty

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on July 24, 2016, 09:01 AM:

We had this 400 footer and it was quite good but (i could be wrong here) i am pretty sure most of these will be faded by now. [Wink]

Posted by Melvin England (Member # 5270) on July 24, 2016, 10:03 AM:

Tom - They probably will be, but other 400'ers hold up well,CE3K for example,but I just wondered whether these were all generally naff prints, as some titles were on 8mm,Magical Mystery Tour as another example, or whether I had just been unlucky?
Were all prints released by the same company,does anyone know?

Posted by Barry Attwood (Member # 100) on July 24, 2016, 11:47 AM:

I had a decent print recently, but they are harder to find, you need a later re-print to really stand a chance.

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on July 24, 2016, 12:39 PM:

I wonder if the Columbia titles printed in America have held their colour better? The prints from Mountain were not always very good to start with.

I have a German release in scope the last time I watched it it was OK.

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on July 24, 2016, 02:09 PM:

I never rated Mountain film prints. None I've ever seen are on par with the Walton prints of this world etc.

Columbia prints however, I rate highly.

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on July 24, 2016, 02:27 PM:

I have to say i believe the USA prints seem to hold up better,
I recently bought from Barry a 400 footer of a jerry Lewis film The Big Mouth and the colour,(the whole thing actually) has excellent quality and very good colours, see my review on here, also recently purchased 400s of The detective, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, all with excellent colours. I know some of these wernt columbia,I had to sell off my 400 CEOTTK as it did begin to fade but i was extremely disappointed with this particular cut down, it was nothing more than a souvenir print really. [Wink]

Posted by Joseph Randall (Member # 4906) on July 24, 2016, 07:55 PM:

CEOTTK?

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on July 24, 2016, 11:32 PM:

Close Encounters....

Posted by Douglas Warren (Member # 1047) on July 24, 2016, 11:56 PM:

I had a used copy of this last year that had pretty good color. I wound up selling it as the narration was just too annoying to my ears. I do own the 200' silent reel which is nice in it's own way. I wish there was a way to eliminate the Columbia narration from many of their prints as they had some really good titles in their 400' releases.

Posted by Paul Suchy (Member # 80) on July 25, 2016, 06:39 AM:

You are so right, Douglas; it isn't only a matter of rerecording the Columbia digests in order to knock out the narration because of the editing-when the narrator is speaking, it can be over footage that cuts in or out in the middle of a sentence and one would have to get very creative with dubbing or cutting the print in order to make it come off well. I'll never understand why Columbia felt compelled to try to cram every detail into a twenty minute digest. They should have screened a few Castle digests to see how it's done.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on July 25, 2016, 11:47 AM:

Here' a bit of something to hunt for Melvin ...

I have only read of one being sold years ago, but there WAS a scope digest of this title 400ft, but i can't verify if it was the same edit as the flat 400ft digest but boy, would i like to find that one!

Posted by Melvin England (Member # 5270) on July 26, 2016, 12:30 PM:

Osi - You, me, both !

Posted by Andreas Chmielewski (Member # 2208) on August 08, 2016, 06:04 AM:

I have full lengh Print from Italy, is on 6x600 feet Reels

Posted by Melvin England (Member # 5270) on August 08, 2016, 12:32 PM:

Andreas - is it in English? Which company made it,please?

Posted by Mike Newell (Member # 23) on August 08, 2016, 03:59 PM:

I was tempted to write M-A-F-I-A but that would have been cruel. In Italy at one point you could have got virtually any print for a price. Most prints were in Italian but some were in other languages. I remember seeing a glossy box version of Bridge of the River Quai in Dutch in a movie memorabilia shop in Brussels. I think it might have been in scope. It was a crazy price even way back then.

Posted by Andreas Chmielewski (Member # 2208) on August 09, 2016, 06:04 AM:

Melvin, my Print is in German, i have re-recorded

Is a old Pirata Print

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on August 09, 2016, 11:05 AM:

Italy is a magic place for super 8, as there were countless prints made of NUMEROUS films from the 70's and early 80's, that were NEVER released elsewhere.

The only downside to all of this, is that many of them were also taken from very worn ex-theatrical print. I had a print of "The Rescuers" that was letterboxed, certainly sharp enough, but there were so many "flecks' in the image that you could hadrly watch it.

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