Synopsis:

Presenting the heavily-truncated home viewing cut with the best possible quality video and audio.

Intentions:

The Indicator Blu-ray release provides three versions of the film, the theatrical cut (with or without the roadshow introduction), the slightly-shorter one with the alternate (happy) ending the Super 8 cut. The latter is presented as how an old reel might look if it was played nowadays, complete with significant cropping (from ‘Scope to 4:3), heavy grain, faded colours and degraded audio. This reconstruction remedies that, taking the restored footage used for the “normal” cuts and conforming it as closely as possible. While very thin on plot and missing many great songs and dance numbers, it should hopefully be of interest to those wanting an idea of the story compromises one had to contend with before the emergence of home video.

Change List:

• 00:00 Inserted fanedit.org disclaimer and personal plate (modified to “A ParanoidAndroid Preservation”). • 00:10 Upscaled “Universal 8” vanity plate. • 00:18 Truncated version of “Big Spender”, plays from this point until end. • 00:24 Freshly-made text for the opening credits that match the original Super 8 formatting pasted in. • 03:11 Part of scene where Charity tells her friends about Oscar. • 03:55 First section of “I’m a Brass Band”, (presumably) atop a train carriage. • 04:35 Second section of “I’m a Brass Band”, dancing with marching band until end. • 08:15 Short section of Charity and Oscar walking through the Marriage License Bureau corridor. • 08:26 Short overhead shot of Charity and Oscar seated at a table. • 08:30 Scene of Oscar getting cold feet plays out right to him getting up. • 12:00 Section of conversation between Charity and Oscar is cut, restarts here. • 12:58 Started vocal section of “Where am I going?” early. • 13:00 Fading in early to match song coming in early, plays out as normal until it ends. • 14:27 Fades from end of song to Charity at the bridge, scene with group offering flowers is cut short. • 15:19 Scene of Charity being given a flower shortened at the end after she says “Good morning”. • 15:49 Shot of birds flying is slightly shortened. • 15:52 Final scene plays out as normal. • 16:45 Final shot extended by cutting, pasting and layering different elements from earlier parts of the shot as soon as the camera stops moving. Freshly-made text for the end credits that match the original Super 8 formatting is pasted over this extension.

Additional Notes:

Page image adapted from original packaging.

Other Sources:

The thirteen songs have been reduced down to three (“Big Spender”, “I’m a Brass Band” & “Where Am I Going?”), these mostly play out unaltered in large chunks, with bits of connecting material surrounding them. Some fades are slightly different, as I think that this version was not made from the final cut, but cutting on the whole is frame identical. The Universal 8 card was unique to this cut, to get the best quality still frames were extracted, upscaled and given a layer of grain. Other unique elements were the credits. The opening ones were very simple, just pasting text in the correct style over the new footage, but the ending required extending the last shot to fit them all in. To avoid just putting them over a freeze frame, this was achieved by cutting, pasting and looping different sections of the frame, hopefully it won’t be too noticeable. Exported in Full HD with three audio options: the original mono Super 8 track as well as stereo and 5.1 tracks derived from the main film’s. English subtitles are also provided.

Special Thanks:

Many thanks to Wraith for introducing me to the film, and to The Scribbling Man for doing the Super 8 cuts of The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. While I haven’t seen the edits themselves, seeing the thread and page gave me the idea to try something similar.