Back in April 2020 you may recall Hugh Scott sent me two of the 200ft extracts from this movie that were released in the 70s by Miko studio's Italy. Both had excellent unfaded colours and were excerpts rather than cut downs. Like all 8mm dealers, their releases were on whatever stocks they had at the time so some of the 200ft films were like mine, great colours, low fade stock, while others were faded Eastman.
I am now pleased, to have recieved Hugh's 1200ft reel which contains all six of the excepts from this classic Eastwood movie. Some of the 200ft parts are fine while a couple are sadly faded but still have fair colours. I havnt been able to view it yet as it has been treated with a home made cleaner which contains bees wax so I have to clean it several times before letting it through any of my projectors. On the Elmo editor/viewer it does look a lot better than I thought it was going to although during the clean up it is clear that this print would have struggled to project as the cleaner is quite thick and in some places started to go hard.
The cloth is dark brown, even on the reverse and second clean so tomorrow I will have another go until it is up to my standard of cleanliness. What all this crap would have done to the rollers and heads I wouldn't like to guess but from what I can see it should clean up very nicely.
While a good 16mm print would be much preferred, to have all six excepts of this title on one reel is extremely rare, I'm not bothered if the sound is Italian as the music and action is what makes this film what it is. Hugh has recorded an English track on the balance stripe, (i think) and it was done the old way with a cassette player, this may be interesting to say the least.
Normally I wouldn't touch something like this with a barge poll but I think its unlikely that all six parts will come up for sale on 8mm. I have seen the odd part for sale on the de website but but very rarely and so far, all faded. This one was sent to me for free so for that I am very grateful.
Once i have cleaned it up and checked all the splices I will put a review on here.

This is part of the Miko catalogue from the mid 70s which shows the title of each of the excerpts that were available.
Are there any European collectors on here that also have these? Surely these would have been popular, especially in Italy.

A nice one to own Tom but I wouldn't be too keen on it being Italian, I'd definitely have to put it into English to make it watchable, if it's a nice print then it's worth doing,Mark

Tom,

I am very glad to hear this rare print finally ended up in your hands. I seem to recall that this is one that you and Hugh had an agreement on, but sadly he passed prior to sending it your way. This is a very appropriate film to remember Hugh by as I know he was a close friend of yours for many years.

Quite interesting about the 'beeswax' treatment. That is not something I have heard about before. I think many of us would enjoy seeing pics of this, once you are able to clean and eventually screen it.

Also, would you have additional catalog pages from Miko Studios? The Super 8 Database seems to have only a single film from Miko--a single 200 foot extract of 'A Fistfull of Dollars".

Thank you,
Greg

Greg, It was the 16mm feature print Hugh had that was going to wing it's way to me but it was sold before I got in there. That print was good although it was a TV edit, but still a great one to have had. Hugh often told me about this reel of 200 footer he had from decades ago, I emailed the seller to see if it was in the collection, obviously it was, I did put a price to it but after testing it he wasn't too happy to put in for sale. From what I have seen very briefly, it doesn't look too bad at all, it may well be disappointing upon projecting but I am still working on it and hope to project it during the end of this week.
Hugh also often spoke about his own film cleaner which was made with bees wax, it was a brown liquid that I have to confess I wouldn't have wanted to use myself but he said he never had any problems with it, I'm not too sure it was good for his projectors but the film is very supple thats for sure.

For the additional pages of the Miko catalouge please see previous thread here, if need be, I can upload again direct to Evind if he would prefer.

A Fistful of Dollars,200ft reels,Miko-Studio release.

Pity about the back story Tom, and the fact that you did not get the film even though you offered payment for it. Sadly Hugh did not get the recognition he justly deserved after his passing, with his incredible knowledge
of film collecting in different formats, and his no nonsense approach to so much BS spoken on the forums now, claims made by some, making out they are the first to do this, that or the other, maybe it was his frequent spats with forum members he was never going to be flavour of the month, but i liked him, he was a good soul, and always helpful and spot on with his info, sadly missed........

100% Paul, he spoke as he thought, sometimes it isn't always ideal but then that was Hugh.

Now here is the sad part, the film is now cleaned and aside a few light lines as you would expect, it does look as though the colour is pretty much non existent and the sound not too good on one of the reels. All the sound stripe and balance stripes are fine and the actual condition of the film itself seems quite good.
I do already have 2 x 200ft excerpts of this film already reviewed and mine have perfect colours and good sound although they would obviously benefit from a re re-cord.
I am hoping when i check the second half tomorrow that even if I can get one more 200ft part with colours to match mine It'll be a bonus. For those who dont mind faded films then this may well be ok for them but it sadly isn't for me. It is weird how the two parts I already have are also the two on this reel that are good. Miko must have changed film stocks for these two reels perhaps. I will still review it later for its rarity on 8mm.

As an update to this thread, I have now split this film down into two parts to see what can be done with it, image wise it isn't as bad as first thought. It's cleaned up very well and I am removing the sections which have gone pink and have no colour at all, I have no interest in this type of image.
Hugh has done a good job of editing the movie into the correct order, the six 20ft reels were not continuous. Why this was not released in chronological order is beyond me.
While the film may not flow quite so well with the faded parts edited out, I will re edit it and make a reasonable version. The challenge will be trying to get it re-recorded into English.
I will try and keep an update on here but with so little time at present it will simply be a project to play with, like the Eumig 810 I still need to finish.

Here is a few screenshots of extra footage I can use to go with the two 200ft editions I already had previously, for those screenshots you can find them here, these are from the opening and ending.

A Fistful of Dollars,200ft reels,Miko-Studio release.

These are the new scenes, with good colours, there is still 700ft of film to check. In the first half, the reel where Ramón massacres a detachment of Mexican soldiers has had to be completely removed as this section is just pink, I know there is at least one other reel with no colour but once these are all removed the film should have good colour.

That looks nice Tom, quite sharp from the images, it's a shame about the faded parts as it could have been a nice long cutdown that flows better, still nice to own, Mark

What's going to happen with the footage you removed? I am a believer that all types of footage deserves a home and I often take "orphaned" stuff in.