Dr Zhivago - 600ft Digest ?

[John Halfacre]

Hi all
I have a digest of Dr Zhivago on a full 600ft reel (colour/sound).

Comparing this 600ft digest to the MGM 400ft version, it has a number of scenes which are 15-30 seconds longer and a nunber of additional scenes (eg killing of Russian officers, Revolutionaries communal house etc). There do not appear to be any marks of 'home editing' so looks like the 600ft reel was how it was originally meant to be issued. The colour of the 600ft reel is also stronger. The 600ft reel came in a generic blank box and there is nothing on the leader to give a clue as to who might have released this version

So does anyone know who might have released a 600ft digest of Dr Zhivago ?

Thanks

[Maurice Leakey]

Derann released it as a feature on Super 8. Perhaps they did an unofficial digest?

Maurice

[Graham Ritchie]

My guess that if its a flat print not scope, that its a edited version someone has made up from the MGM 3/400ft release. One way to check is to inspect the film for splices. The film was only ever released as a 1/400ft or 3/400ft flat versions. However Derann did release the full feature but to my knowledge but it was in Scope.

[Tom Photiou]

As far as i remember the film was released as a 200 a 400 and a 3 x 400 flat and scope.we have the 3 x 400 scope edited onto 2 x 600s. And of coarse the Derann full feature.

[Melvin England]

There is a " 600' " copy of this film for sale on Ebay UK as we speak. However, even the seller suspects it is the 3x400' version squashed onto a 600' spool. Screen prints are quite good, actually.
Good copy to pick up if it is not yet in your collection.

And.....NO.... I am not connected to the seller in any way...!

[Graham Ritchie]

Hi Melvin....I have a 3/400ft version of this film. The film will not fit onto any 600ft or even 800ft reels, as unlike the Marketing 3/400 films on polyester, where you can just get those onto a 800ft reel. To my knowledge MGM prints are on acetate film stock like Dr Zhivago, Where Eagles Dare etc those films will only ever fit onto 1200ft reels.

[Melvin England]

…..so it COULD be a genuine 600' version of the film? Hmm... interesting. Thanks for that,Graham. What's more, the colour seems to be pretty good, which supports John's original remark of the 600' being better colour !

[Graham Ritchie]

Melvin...I was wondering since you say the color is pretty good, could it be one of the 7/600ft scope reels from the full feature that Kemoski sold years ago?. John if you are there can you confirm that its either flat or scope?

[John Halfacre]

Hi Graham. It looks Flat to me

[Melvin England]

I agree, John. A flat print.

Graham - I do not think it is a chunk of the full feature. The seller claims it could be an edit of the 3x 400' to fit on a 600' spool. My original claim that it was the 3x 400' squashed onto a 600' was incorrect. Apologies for that.
They say it starts like the 400' and finishes like the 400' but has extra bits in-between. These being the march back from the Russian front / killing of the Russian soldiers / Revolutionaries commune house.

There is no mention of the print make.

Maybe if the seller is a member of this forum, they could join in on this thread with their contribution?

Whatever, it would cost £49.99 plus post to find out. It is a Buy It Now so no waiting around. If anyone takes a punt on this, please put us all out of our misery and tell us what it is!

[Graham Ritchie]

I wonder if someone has edited into the single 400ft release plus adding the 200ft extract as well giving it the 600ft .....I hope as you say Melvin, that the person that buys it is also a member here so we can find out what its origin is

[Melvin England]

Is the 200' a smaller version of the 400' or a different sequence altogether, similar to the releases of The Muppet Movie ?

[Winbert Hutahaean]

The mentioned item is listed here:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DOCTOR-ZH...EAAOSwUrZd~GPT

For future reference here is the screen shot. For me this is just a normal Kodak SP faded print.

[Graham Ritchie]

Thanks Winbert....That's the first time I have seen the screen shots. I am afraid folks its more faded than I thought it would be, some shown here are OK, but some are quite bad. I will run my print soon as a comparison and see what I come up with.

[John Halfacre]

Hi all

Melvin - yes its my copy on ebay for sale. Asked originally about the possible distributor to try to clarify (as per ebay listing it was a mystery to me). The only additional background I can give is that it was part of a job lot of 20 or so films which I bought from ebay (apparently left to the seller in a will). My friend and I ran the 600ft reel and compared to the 400ft digest which we also have. Some of the early scenes ran 10-15 sec longer than the version on the 400ft reel, then a mix of additional scenes as detailed in between the scenes from the 400ft reel. The last few minutes is exactly the same scenes as the 400ft reel.

Our thoughts were that it could be the 3 x 400ft edited down to 600ft - but it would have been a fiddly edit with multiple splices and we couldnt see any obvious joins. Looking from the side, the reel is pretty much the same shade all the way through, so likely to be the same stock, lending weight to the edit down theory ?

The only other clue is that the sound volume on a couple of the extra scenes seems a bit louder relative to the rest of the reel, but this is very subjective.

Winbert/Graham - with regard to the screen shots. These were taken with a digital camera from projection onto a white wall background during daylight. The variation might come from the amount of ambient daylight coming through the rooms window shutters (good old british sunshine and showers weather here !). Watching it the quality was pretty consistent trhoughout and less colour fade than the 400ft version

Thanks to everyone for their input and suggestions - seems to still be a bit of a mystery one. But mysteries are what makes life interesting !

Hope everyone has a super Super 8 Xmas