A Silent Scope!

[Melvin England]

I was recently wading through a collection of silent films that are in my possession, and I projected one which I was extremely surprised to see was in cinemascope!

It was a Derann film as it has the DFS logo on both the start and finish. 1x 200' black and white silent "Fists of Death."

Was this typical for this release or have I stumbled across a copy that was intended to be sound striped but slipped the net ? I must say, being a Derann, the image quality is excellent and this copy has no scratches..... just endless Kung Fu confrontations!

I curiously await your responses......

[Brian Fretwell]

I have this as a colour sound scope reel. Perhaps it was a lab error or an early alternative low cost version. Is it on genuine B&W stck?

[Douglas Meltzer]

I had a B&W sound scope print of this title. I imagine it's just not the same without hearing the poor dubbing job.

Doug

[Melvin England]

Doug......... and not hearing the kicks make contact!!!!

Brian - I am pretty sure this is genuine black and white stock. It says down the sprocket hole side of the film "Kodak 10 Safety Film + " if that means anything to you. It certainly does not have that certain shading that B&W has on colour film.

[Adrian Winchester]

I'm pretty sure it was intended as a sound only release. Although there were a small number of Derann releases that were available in both colour or b/w, I can't think of any sound films that they released in b/w silent versions that were the equivalent of the Walton and Ken releases.

However, there are a couple of genuine Ken b/w silent scope releases that I think are both extracts from Godzilla films. But they were not advertised as scope, so it was more a case of trying to 'get away' with them being scope, when unsuspecting customers found out!