SilverWook said:
Someone has outbid me on the 16mm print. It's going to be a long sleepless night!
Damn! sorry to hear that. :(
Mark Y got back to me:
Thanks for the additional info, but I do have some bad news - that 92m running time on the sleeve of the Warners tape is erroneous. Both it and the other tape (Tartan/Blue Dolphin) run about the same length of 82m, so with correction for PAL speed-up the original length is about 85-86m each.
This also means the BBFC running time must be wrong - I know that older running times for films were calculated approximately by them, so there may have been an error there; I'm not sure where Warners got their running time from either. I think I have the original Monthly Film Bulletin from 1971 that includes the THX review so may try and find that and see if it sheds any light on the matter.
The Warners tape opens with the 1970s red Warner logo, followed by the original Kinney logo. The titles are bright green like the DVD version, whereas on the other tape they are white (or very light green?). Both logos are missing from the other tape which just opens with the Zoetrope logo.
Neither tape has the Buck Rogers sequence at the start, though I do remember that the 1978 TV showing I mentioned did have this - do you know when this was first included with the film?
Sorry to bring you this disappointing news, but the prospect of a longer version of such a well-known film was probably too good to be true. Let me know if you think the Warner tape may be any different to any other versions (even if only slightly) and I will investigate further.
Leonard Maltin's movie guide lists the running time as 88m, and has done for years for some reason?
Regards
Well, there you have it. It's a little bit strange that both his tapes are missing the Buck Rogers segment, it is there on my UK '95 Widescreen collectors edition VHS. Anyway, it's great that we've found out that the opening titles were in fact green, at least on the restored original cut, I guess it became a Lucas trademark, the restored cut of American Graffiti have the Lucasfilm/Coppola title in green and of course the Star Wars films.