The source of this tape was kind enough to inform us of more details of where it came from:

Nothing remarkable – my source was off two ¾” U-Matic tapes owned by the father of a girlfriend of a then acquaintance of mine. I simply arranged to go over one day with my early model VHS deck and make a copy. I have no more information than that. I would speculate that the guy was either a collector or somehow affiliated with the broadcast industry, as U-matics were considered primarily a professional format at the time. The recording itself was clearly several generations down with all of the flaws and dropouts already there, which suggests it was more likely from a bootlegged source.

I'm placing the time frame around early '78. I was, at the time, nothing but vocal as to my appreciation of the film in question. He responded by simply affording me access to something I might be interested in.

- The 3/4" U-Matic Video Cassette format was a larger version of a technology from which VHS and BETAMAX evolved. It housed a wider tape running at twice the speed, yielding a superior image to either consumer format, but a step down from 1" reel to reel video - the current professional NTSC standard.

In this time, for most movie goers only the memories would remain, there was no home recording. Can't imagine the excitement of being given the opportunity to re-see something you had initially thought would be gone possibly forever. Of course the side effect was the ability of one piece of entertainment taking over the 'time' of the person with the recording. Yes it allows for geeking out / research of the entertainment object so that it's better understood, which I think helped propel these movies to occupy a larger percentage of the public consciousness, but you wonder what got left behind.

But back to the topic here's the VHS Tape!

[Here's a video of a U-Matic tape for those like me who didn't know]
[http://wn.com/Vintage_Jvc_Cr-4900u_U-matic_S_Video_Recorder_Demo]