Walton digests endings

[Jose Artiles]

Today I was viewing my print of the boys from brazil by walton films and I realized that the end of the digest is not the original ending of the film, was it usual for walton to change the endings for his digests?

[Mike Newell]

Jose

I think Walton were a law onto themselves with their editing. Some of their decisions were totally mind 🤯 blowing

Mike

[Barry Attwood]

This is not just a Walton thing, it's how you condense the esscence of the story down to 17 minutes or so, sometimes they just have to end at a logical, if not correct ending, what about the cut of "Alien" that does not have the original ending as well, I did hear they were considering bringing out a 200' with the true ending, but it never materialised, I remember Iver Films cut the last 15 minutes or so from the feature print of "My Name is Nobody", as it kind of comes to an end where they finished it, but in the theatrical edition ithad aboutanother 15 minutes (and another gunfight) to go! Some films were more suited to a 400' cut than others, but some like "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind" just turn out to be a souvinir from the film, as the editing is all over the place to keep key moments in the digest.

[Rob Young]

Mountain films original 400ft "Day of the Triffids". I mean, why even bother with the ending. Just chop up the first half hour of the movie and slap a title card up when 400ft runs out telling us all is well...

[Osi Osgood]

I was always miffed with the ending of the Cineavision scope digest of "Force 10 from Navarone". The dam blown, bridge destroyed and a very quick the end. It couldn't be worse if they had a kid scrawl out with crayons the end and photographed that.

[Melvin England]

Some films were more suited to a 400' cut than others, but some like "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind" just turn out to be a souvinir from the film, as the editing is all over the place to keep key moments in the digest.

Much as this may be true, it was the first 400' that I purchased that felt like I had a serious piece of (then) modern Hollywood science fiction being thrown across the room onto that big screen. Amazing colour when new. (Forget Star Wars). What a buzz that gave me ! I doubt it is a film that could be played out successfully on an 18 minute 400' edit, no matter who was in charge of the edit...... not even you S.S. !

What about a 600' edit ? .... Now THAT would be a challenge!

[Brian Fretwell]

I don't know if they were meant to be digests, but the two Walton 400 ft reels of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, put together, end a long way from the end of the film.