Universal 8 Overseas ...

[Osi Osgood]

I know that many US releases, by various US companies, ended up being released or distributed by various foreign companies, for instance, Ken Films releases were released by Marketing Films overseas and Techno Films in France (or is that Italy?). Therefore, having stated that, who released Universal 8 releases on Super 8 in France? Italy? Germany?

[Rob Young]

Osi, as a fellow Star Wars fan, one release I became aware of was the Ken original 400 footer re-printed in the UK and released by Mountain Films.

Fortunately, when I was a kid, I had a great cine shop that only sold the best and he only sold the original Ken prints. Beautiful and sharp, sadly now pink of course.

Many years later I picked up a UK print. In the card board box and with a "Distributed by Mountain Films" on the back. Very average, soft and with picture bounce, plus a weird soft top and bottom frame masking. I assume a UK lab printed these from a Ken negative and I feel sorry for the folk who bought this and never saw the original Ken version.

[Steve Lee]

Hi Osi,
All of the Universal 8 and MGM releases that I have picked up in France on my travels, have all been U.S prints. With no changes to the printing on the packaging, also they are all in English with their original soundtracks.

The only oddities I have are the Cinevision Universal 8 releases. They all have a sticker applied on the same place on all of the releases. This explains that a scope lens is needed, and this is in French. so this was applied before distribution by someone.

The only MGM copy I have which has been dubbed in french is the two parter of Singin' in the rain. Obviously the songs are still in english.
It seems that all over Europe both Universal 8 and MGM did their own distributions apart from sales in Germany. Both Revue film and Ufa printed the Universal 8 and MGM releases for the German market.

[Osi Osgood]

Now, we have something to work with. I wonder if UFA printed the Buck Rogers 2X400ft digest? I know that most UFA prints still hold much of they're color today

[Douglas Meltzer]

Piccolo Film distributed Universal 8 (and also many Columbia releases) in Germany. The U-8 logo is clearly displayed on their covers.

[Dominique De Bast]

I Techno Films in France (or is that Italy?)

Techno film was Italian.

As Steve says, Universal 8 sold their films in Europe, but dubbed (except, needless to say, in English-speaking country countries).

[Dominique De Bast]

https://www.bd-cine.com/fiche.php?id=3484

You have an exemple, here. VF means Version Française, French Version.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Osi,

Piccolo did distribute the U-8 2x400' Buck Rogers.

While there are Piccolo releases that still have decent color, their U-8 "Sssssss" is sharp but very faded.

[Larry Arpin]

Piccolo distributed JAWS with reel 2 great color. I actually won this auction but the seller canceled my bid since it was Germany and didn't want to bother with international shipping.

[Osi Osgood]

Well, part two was on a very good stock, for sure!

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Germany:

Piccolo = castle, universal8, (up to approximately 1977) Warner Bros., (from approximately 1974 on) Disney

Marketing = paramount and 20th cent fox

ufa = (up to the mid 70s) Constantin, Ken, (from approximately 1977 on) Warner Bros.

Please note that these are just „rule of thumbs“ assembled by some other collectors. There are nearly always exceptions as it looks like some of the contracts haven’t been exclusive ones but have only been valid for a few selected films.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Germany continued:
“Revue“ was just the brand name used by „Quelle“ (their photo department, „Foto Quelle“, to be precise). In the time before Amazon, „Quelle“ was the largest mail-order-company in Western Germany (and later in Re-united Germany), but also had several warehouses, photo-shops and independent retailers.
The „Revue“-label was applied to everything that they managed to sell with special conditions (large quantities rebates,…). In some cases, they even had some exclusive products, e.g. B&W-S8-prints of „digests/selected scenes“ that have only been available in color by the „original distributor“ (in most cases: piccolo) or 45m-lengths of Disney-movies that were otherwise only sold with a length of 65m by piccolo.

The devices sold as „Revue“ are a wild mix of everything: some of their still photography products have been made by Lomo (USSR), others by Fuji, some more by Agfa, Chinon or Halina, … some of their S8-projectors are rebranded Eumigs, others have been made by Chinon, Silma, …, their S8-cameras are also from Eumig, Chinon and other companies like Kohka, … etc..

Funny side-note: In most cases, the devices had completely different manuals. Not only the manufacturer‘s label has been replaced, but sometimes the „Revue“-manual had a different number of pages (in most cases: less) or different formats (e.g. horizontal layout while the „original“ manual had a vertical orientation of the sheets). Also, sometimes the accessories differed. E.g. when a Chinon S8-sound-camera was sold with an detachable microphone with black wind-protection-foam, then its Revue-counterpart came with a microphone with a different shape and orange wind-protection-foam. Whether this was done to reduce costs or to obscure the original brand is unknown.

[Rob Young]

I sense Osi is trying to find a Buck Rogers with decent colour! Sadly, all of the Piccolo I have are red, even worse than some of the notorious Universal 8 prints. But you never know...

I once picked up a Piccolo 400ft version of Omen II expecting a copy of the Ken version in German. Was amazed to find it was a totally different and much better edit. Dubbed it into English. Sadly now beetroot.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Piccolo's release of Das Omen was also an excellent edit. I believe it was letterboxed. Like Rob's Omen II, both prints I have are completely red.

[Maurizio Di Cintio]

The Ken Films "Star Wars" extracts were sold here in Italy by the company "I.E. International", with a matching Italian soundtrack (albeit with a few mistakes in section with no dialogues: visuals and sound effects do not match but this is limited to one occurence in the first 200' ESB digest).
Unfortunately this is the only example I can make apart from Disney's home movies, here: "Walt Disney Cinecasa"; boxes featured the same artwork as the American counterparts with English captions, but the boxes were of the clamshell type in many cases. Needless to say they were printed (usually from less than perfect masters) and recorded in Italian in Italy.