Saturday Night Fever ... Doomed to a red oblivion?

[Osi Osgood]

Are there any good color agra prints of this Marketing Films feature? I've never seen a good color print of this feature, but it is conceivable that there might be a good 3X400ft, as some of those 3X400ft titles made it onto agfa stock. However, my Escape to Alka Seltzer still has vintage color, and it's a Marketing Films feature release.

[Melvin England]

Osi - My 3x 400' version is on Eastman and, although not quite 100%, is what I would class as still having very good colour. The sound is still excellent.

Incidentally, there is a full length version on 7x 400' on one of the Ebay sites at the moment. I think it is on .com

[Osi Osgood]

Yes, it's another example of a faded mess.

[Rob Young]

Personally, I thought the 3 x 400ft version edit was a total mess anyway. How you could take 50 minutes and turn it into something that made little sense is actually a strange, unenviable skill. Many years ago I had this version, with extra scenes cut in from the 400ft version. I had some friends watch it that hadn't seen it before and apart from the dancing, they were totally lost and a little offended by it. As the years went by I realised that this is actually a movie that offends more than it is entertaining, so I sold it. So, if you ask me, I'm not worried if it is doomed to a red oblivion. Completely personal opinion, naturally.

But then take the 3 x 400ft version of say Star Trek The Motion Picture and, at the time, Marketing actually improved the feature by making it a nice compact, episode long version of the lumbering 2 hour movie.

Ha! I sound very down on Saturday Night Fever don’t I!! Anyway, when I sold my copy about 12 years ago it still had good colour.

[Osi Osgood]

That Star Trek the Motion Picture 3X400ft digest, from what I have seen, hasn't held up too well. That 10 minute trailer they released, however, still looks pretty good. I wonder if those who have the EXTREMELY RARE 3X400ft of Wrath of Khan can verify the color on it? I'd love to see some screenshots from that! It was never even distributed publicly, but it is rumored that at least the "test prints" made it out into a lucky few collectors hands.

[Rob Young]

That’s a shame re Star Trek TMP; many years since I had a copy.

That flippin 10 minute trailer was an awful release. It looked for all like a genuine 400 footer. I bought one long after Marketing had gone bust and knew exactly what it was, but imagine parting with your hard earned cash for that back around 1980 thinking it was a 400 ft version. I would have been heartbroken when running it. What a rip off.

Osi, that Star Trek II legend…I knew where 2 copies were many years ago but never bought one…grrr!!

[Winbert Hutahaean]

My AGFA prints of Marketing Film have now gone purple or sephia... so there is no point to find that stock it would have gone faded by now.

I think their life time is 50 years and now is the time.

[Rob Young]

My 2 copies of 43 year old 400ft Raiders of the Lost Ark on Agfa are still holding up well. And both the Marketing Star Wars extracts also doing ok so far. So not all doom and gloom yet.

[Paul Adsett]

The heartbreak of Eastman color fade . It has literally decimated my film collection, and I am sure most collectors are in the same boat. Thank God for Derann, or I would have no color prints left worth watching.

[Mike Newell]

Florida weather would be very unforgiving for film Paul. Usually it is dark and cold here but for last week we have sun and it is a sultry 28 degrees today.

I think it was stated in recent excellent interview that Joachim Schmidt carried out with the Marketing Films founder that all feature prints originated from the US and that stock used has faded or pinked.

Saying that I had feature prints of Escape from Alcatraz , Grease The Hunter and Black Sunday that were excellent. Mind you that was 20 years ago

Other features like Godfather 1 and 2 were always browny. That apparently was a print fault that was not corrected until the restored DVD and Blu Ray versions.

I only had Saturday Night Fever as a 3x400. It was a mess.💩

I still have 400s versions of Raiders, Grease and Star Trek with good colour

Superb interview very candid and informative.

https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/vbb/f...-international

[Bob Kuzyk]

Like Rob said- many collectors ordered the single 400' STAR TREK-TMP thinking it was a standard 400' digest, only to find it was a 10-minute promo. Plus- they tagged on an ad for Marketing's other releases after it. My guess is- this was all that Paramount would allow at the time, but they should have made it a 200' release.

It appears even the dealers were unaware. Blackhawk introduced it in Catalog #319 as an "abridgement" running "18 min." It was changed in #325 to "trailer only" and "10 min". It also set you back $69.95 when you ordered it from them.

Let's not forget- Universal 8 did a similar thing with the single 400' Frank Langella DRACULA- a 13 minute promo on a 400 ft. reel (with an introduction by the film's producer).

Being a Super 8 collector could be a frustrating hobby. 😉

[Winbert Hutahaean]

Saying that I had feature prints of Escape from Alcatraz , Grease The Hunter and Black Sunday that were excellent. Mind you that was 20 years ago

This is probably slow fading process. But should we have the screen shot when it was first time releases in 1990s to show how was the color and the screen shot of today's condition then we will notice the difference.

I can say that after comparing side by side between Derann 1990s print vs latest print of the same title, Snow White. If there is not such comparison I would say that Derann print is excellent howeve I would say now it has faded (but in slow process).

[Mike Newell]

Like Rob said- many collectors ordered the single 400' STAR TREK-TMP thinking it was a standard 400' digest, only to find it was a 10-minute promo. Plus- they tagged on an ad for Marketing's other releases after it. My guess is- this was all that Paramount would allow at the time, but they should have made it a 200' release.

It appears even the dealers were unaware. Blackhawk introduced it in Catalog #319 as an "abridgement" running "18 min." It was changed in #325 to "trailer only" and "10 min". It also set you back $69.95 when you ordered it from them.

Let's not forget- Universal 8 did a similar thing with the single 400' Frank Langella DRACULA- a 13 minute promo on a 400 ft. reel (with an introduction by the film's producer).

Being a Super 8 collector could be a frustrating hobby. 😉

At least, the Dracula 400 promo after Walter Mirsch talk you could extract an extra 2-3 minutes footage that you could insert into the 2x400 digest.

[Mike Newell]

[QUOTE=Winbert Hutahaean;n117846]

This is probably slow fading process. But should we have the screen shot when it was first time releases in 1990s to show how was the color and the screen shot of today's condition then we will notice the difference.

If only we could have a Time Machine and a digital camera to take photos in the 1990s.

[Douglas Meltzer]

At least, the Dracula 400 promo after Walter Mirsch talk you could extract an extra 2-3 minutes footage that you could insert into the 2x400 digest.

True, unless you bought the scope version of that promo!