Yes, nobody knows about this 91 min German version. [quote=“JonathanCorbett, post:40, topic:1995”]Inaccuracies are possible, but many fims (not only SWs) were altered/shortened, this is a fact.[/quote]
Shortened after they were released, or before they were released? These things happen in any country, but not that often.
And how comes that many films are much longer than the version which was rated?
But for the DVDs they often try to use the original master negatives, and these should be uncut.
The runtimes of German or US films are more or less clear, but the SWs are still a mess.
After they were released: at times for a second theatrical edition (versione derubricata/reduced version) realized to modify the rating and not infrequently to eliminate the prohibition; in other cases - as described by Giulio Questi in his Se sei vivo spara audio commentary - a film was shortened for home video release or to meet television requirements, obtaining a copy with a TV standard runtime (80/90 minutes).
When a film is much longer than the version which was rated there are three possibilities:
For unknown reasons, the version submitted to the Italian board of censors wasn’t the uncut one.
Anica data concerning film length incorrectly refer to a second, reduced theatrical edition
Ok, but shortening released pictures for a later re-release, or for VHS, or for a TV showing, doesn’t change the original released version, and there must still be the original masters now used for the uncut DVDs. They normally don’t destroy the original negatives when a film is cut at a later point in time.
In Germany this also happened very often, but now the original versions are (mostly) still available.
It also happened in the early VHS days that the uncut version (if completely dubbed before the film was cut) was released, while in cinema only a cut version was released.
It isn’t always possible to start from the original negatives
Medusa HV continues to postpone the Blu-ray release of Lo chiamavano Trinità and Continuavano a chiamarlo Trinità for difficulties in finding uncut masters, and certainly not starting from the original negative in Italy Koch Media, without a doubt the most important and reliable label as regards SWs, released Da uomo a uomo/Death Rides a Horse with the first minutes only in English (among other things the Italian cut should be longer)…
A good number of DVD releases are cut or philologically incorrect, just to give a few examples
W Django by Mulargia: Surf video runs 90 minutes but there is an heavily cut Dagored release (79m30s, PAL runtimes)
- La collina degli stivali by Colizzi: many cut/shortened versions, the Rarovideo release is uncut (96m PAL)
Django il bastardo by Garrone: US and German DVDs are cut
Not to mention Chiedi perdono a Dio… non a me Italian release…
Let’s start with the short ones: all the runtimes taken from the 1998 book - see posts 27, 28 and 29 - are wrong, in Stanton’s list the only one with significantly longer theatrical length is Die for a Dollar in Tucson by Canevari.
All’ombra di una colt …84 min (rated ALL with a beating scene cut)
Per un dollaro a Tucson si muore …89 (rated ALL, uncut)
Rimase uno solo e fu la morte per tutti …82m30sec (rated ALL with a beating scene shortened)
Vaya con Dios, Gringo …83min (rated ALL, uncut)
Con lui cavalca la morte …81m30s (rated ALL with a beating scene shortened))
La strada per Fort Alamo …79 minutes (rated ALL, uncut)
watch out gringo … .87m30s (rated ALL, uncut)
ballad for a bounty hunter … 84 min (rated ALL, uncut)
ride and kill …88m30s (rated ALL, uncut)
woman for ringo …81 min (rated ALL, uncut)
fury of the apaches …84 min * (rated ALL, uncut)
5,000 dollars on one ace … 91m30s (rated ALL, uncut)
la belva … 87m30s (rated ALL with two close-ups cut)
outlaw of red river in Italy Django killer per onore …80m30s (rated ALL, uncut)
*Spanish movie, longer versions exist as can be seen in the Available DVDs section on the Database.
The correct runtime for the Italian version is 93 minutes (T rating, no cuts).
I want to dig this topic up. As we go through the SWDb, fixing this and that, we keep stumbling over runtime discrepancies, which are fine if we have some sort of source or additional info to add, but in most cases we have none. And the danger that some other editor changes them to another runtime because of whatever findable information is out there, is high. ANICA info is really rudimentary and also not always correct, so which other sources can we find?
I have a Catalogo Generale dei Film Italiani dal 1965 al 1978. This is a book which lists all Italian film releases between those years. It lists Italian production company and box office takings in Lira but also, I think, film length. The problem is I think it is listed literally in film length. As in metres not time. For example, Black Jack is listed with m. 2715. Run Man, Run m. 3273. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly m. 4840.
Problem is the ratio as I understand it (305m per reel = 11 minutes) wouldn’t be really accurate. Plus we would still have to list multiple runtimes for different markets right?
I mean I don’t want to copy the entire book into the SWDb (but the SWDb’s goal and purpose shouldn’t be so far off), but we could incrementally start putting some of this info in there, and, for fairness sake, footnote that book…
We should have our readers in mind: they often wonder, am I watching a cut or uncut version. So the most interesting movies to list accurate lengths for are those we know are often butchered or changed in different markets. If we get a bit more specific/detailed on those, that would certainly help… there are no space contraints in the SWDb, as we already have some fairly elaborate paragraphs of texts and bullet points when it comes to version notes for some titles…
but I don’t have a clear idea on how to proceed either…
A reel does not have necessarily 11 min, but to convert meters in minutes is no problem, otherwise it would not make much sense to give a film length in meters.
Or you could do it by yourself: meters x 52,6 : 24 : 60
This is for 35 mm film with the usual sound-film frame rate of 24 fr/sec (silent films used often different rates)
The data in meters of Anica were used by Ulli Bruckner to calculate the film length for his big SW book, so we can use his book as source for what once could be found on the Anica.it web site.
Problem is that the Anica data were too often pretty different from what we assumed as the uncut versions. And in both directions, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer that the versions we have. For a few films we might know how the differences could be explained, but there are just too many differences, so that using Anica as main source is at least problematic. For e.g. German or US films we mostly can work with the same given data, but not for Italy it seems.
So if there are now 2 different lengths given in the data base, this might be the Anica length and the one taken from the supposedly uncut version.
The new uncut version is a huge improvement, and though it’s about 10 mins longer, approx … it’s a much better film … plus now you can see what’s happening in the night time scenes at the beginning when Hill is chased through the western town by the baddies …
I was never a great fan of this one, (based on the crappy VHS version and a soft murky movies4men TV broadcast that looks to be lower resolution than older you tube videos) but the German BD is a spectacularly good release … the film now has an epic quality, which absolutely did not come across before.
You prompted me to watch the new Koch media dvd that I received at Christmas. I watched the intl version which improves my opinion of this movie but still not a top movie for me!
But it indeed feels like the movie goes on and on forever