Raiders Of The Lost Ark - Stereo in 2020

[Lee Mannering]

Raiders of the Lost Ark 400ft Marketing Films Printed on thinner Polyester film.

Released as a 400ft reel way back when this is a wonderful film nicely edited for any Super 8 collection. It came in a blazing colour hard card box numbered 1104 and after opening you usually were greeted with a colour brochure to browse building you up to a frenzy before projecting your new purchase.

Although its now a fairly old S8 release the colour seems to have stayed pretty firm as has the magnetic sound stripe. The sound track was improved on if you added Stereo making for a more sprawling watch perhaps in a hone cinema setting. You can also put the trailer at the start of the reel which I had done which does add a bit more to it.

Over the years we must have watched this dozens of times and its always a thrill to project it evoking lots of memories of screenings past at least for us Oldbies (I invented a new word).

Lots of fast moving action in this reel and as I say nicely put together but is quite sought after these days as a result.

Enjoy.


Sometimes more economical to buy from Germany and dub to English perhaps?

[Mark Mander]

I put mine into stereo too and really lifts the film, had my copy 20 odd years and probably my favourite cutdown, Mark

[Douglas Meltzer]

Lee & Mark,

You both have convinced me to add this to my re-recording list. I agree that it's one of the best cutdowns ever.

Doug

[Brian Fretwell]

I seem to remember reading it being delayed whilst the cutdown was approved, possibly by the director himself.

[Lee Mannering]

I cant exactly remember what it was but there was a story attached to this 400ft release might be on the original 8mm Forum.

A minor off topic moment but didn't our German pals do a feature a few years ago?

[David Watson]

Hi Lee, Yes Raiders was available full length from German sources I have a copy and it's a nice print, both Temple of doom and The Last Crusade where also available via the same source I have the Last Crusade and it's also a nice print and in scope, I'am still looking for a copy of the Temple of doom.

[John Armer]

Hi David and Lee, yes I have been lucky to get a full length print of this - title in English though! It's a lovely print to have in my collection.

[Barry Attwood]

Just a bit of trivia, Marketing had actually cut a 3x400' edition of "Raiders", but the International side of the company based in New York collapsed owing millions in rights, and as technically it was a seperate company from its German parent, everything was put into lockdown, and Marketing of Germany could not get hold of the "Raiders" masters, so we had to settle for the 400' version. I remember Derek Simmonds said he once talked to someone in Paramount trying to get his hands on the existing negatives to re-print some of the Marketing releases, they said they might be willing to think about it, on one condition that they pay what was owed by Marketing in royalties, well he never actually told me how much they owed, but he did say to me that he did'nt walk away but "RAN!" at the amount they owed!

[Adrian Winchester]

Fascinating story from Barry. Some might recall the long delay before the 400' appeared and it was rumored that Spielberg needed to approve the cut, but I'm not aware of this ever being confirmed. But if it was true, presumably he would have wanted to approve the 3x400' too, so maybe that contributed to the delay?

[Russ Green]

I have this in scope german box English sound but unlike Lee's copy mine has gone pink

[Lee Mannering]

As a post script it is worth seeking out the KEN FILMS trailer at near 50ft in length.

LPP stock and a thing of beauty on its own.

[Brian Fretwell]

I'm sure I have a trailer but not Ken (Derann?) and lower quality.

[Andreas Eggeling]

Just a bit of trivia, Marketing had actually cut a 3x400' edition of "Raiders", but the International side of the company based in New York collapsed owing millions in rights, and as technically it was a seperate company from its German parent, everything was put into lockdown, and Marketing of Germany could not get hold of the "Raiders" masters, so we had to settle for the 400' version.

I can hardly imagine that these are the real reasons. The 35mm theatrical prints for the 16mm intermediate negatives, also for the American market, were cut in Bochum / Germany. I noticed that, when I got a used 200 feet version of marketings Saturday Night Fever from Derann. This copy came from a US laboratory, but in a frame at the end (footer) I discovered "Nur Samstag Nacht", the german title. Sometimes the foreign language versions were also produced and exported directly in Germany. This is the case, for example, on the reel in the illustration above of Raiders of the lost Ark --->engliSCH.

In 1982, UFA started to sell off its stocks. The 400 ft color Sound were initially sold for DM 59 instead of DM 149, then for DM 39.90 via Europe's largest mail order company Foto-Quelle. The last films were there available for DM 19.90 instead of DM 149.
It was therefore clear that marketing-film and piccolo-film also had the choice to stay in their inventory or to offer big discounts.

The bad thing was that the public broadcasting in Germany made a massive mood for video and Super8 talked badly, although they own with the Bavaria Kopierwerk in Munich one of the largest labs for Super8 films. But there they preferred to do business with video copies.

Most dealers in Germany only wanted to make money with video. Contact with end users has broken off without the dealers.

I think the system upheavals in the US were similar.

Piccolo film then sold directly to the end consumer.

The reason why we were able to experience so many Super8 versions at the end of the 1970s was, that the American and German companies worked together.
marketing / paramount
piccolo film / Universal 8
UFA / Ken Films / Columbia

In the end, it probably didn't make sense to release Super8 versions for a single market if you didn't have any dealers.
Had the Internet already existed at that time, it probably wouldn't have come to this.

Marketing Film seemed to be the smallest Super8 company in Germany. But you have to say that the two owners ran a second company in the same house that produced, distributed and sold hard porn. I think you could also call Bochum / Germany the German San Fernando Valley at that time. This was only noticed if a seal or plastic inlay of a love film got lost on the cover of a marketing film. These films were still on the market until 1983, when the serious films were sold out long ago.

marketing-film made headlines in 1982 when it paid DM 2 million for video rights for Cannonball-Run.

The really last Super8 version for the international market was a 400 footer of Grease 2. There exists some Spanish language prints.

So I can't imagine that marketing film had millions of debts internationally. This would inevitably have meant that the German parent company would also have had difficulty obtaining additional rights for the video market.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Andreas,

Thank you for the Marketing Films information. In past threads we've had pictures posted of Marketing's Grease 2 release.


From an eBay auction

[Adrian Winchester]

As a post script it is worth seeking out the KEN FILMS trailer at near 50ft in length. LPP stock and a thing of beauty on its own.

Lee - can you tell us any more about this? Like Brian, I have the trailer that Derann released, which has warm colour, so I'm intigued. Did you definitely mean Ken and not (e.g.) Jeff? I ask because this is the first ever reference I've seen to Ken releasing a trailer for any film.