How important for you is it for the print to have the Original Titles as per Cinema release
on your copies ?
For example Blackhawk prints of Laurel and Hardy can be very good quality but it bothers
me that they never included the original title sequences on their prints.
Walton among others were "guilty" of this nasty practice .

I think it is very important David, Marketing Films were the worst offenders in this field, anyone who has bought their 3x400s
like Crack in the World" or "Ten Commandments to mention just two, will know what I mean, main titles relegated to the cutting room
floor, while letraset titles substituted. Walton have a lot to answer for regarding Reeves classic "Witchfinder General", it ends on a statement from Nicky Henson, cue Walton logo, instead of the hysteria of Hilary Dwyer leading into the beautiful Paul Ferris score
a very important part of the film, both her and her lover had gone mad, lost in the S/8 version. Derann, on releasing its "companion"
film "Blood On Satan's Claw" kept beginning and end credits intact, the end was especially important in this film too. I remember
writing to Derek thanking him for that.

It is preferred with original as possible, but I still buy them, so it is not 100!% necessary

I look at it this way, when exhibiting prints, we emulate the professionals, or try to, so what is the point of rerecording films,
using lamps that are screen scorchers and going to the trouble of building home cinemas to replicate the cinema, only for
the first hurdle to scupper your presentation. Some main titles are worth the price of admission on their own, in Marketing Films case,
their editing left much to be desired too, not so much editor as butcher jobs, missing beginning and end of films, just a chunk from the middle. We bought them, but they stand as testament to extremely bad editors.

It is important to me with my 400' sound digests. I'd have been so disappointed if my "Superman" digest did not include any of the original opening titles! IMO, that is a nifty opening title sequence in its entirety!

What would any James Bond movie be with out the credits in full ?. Can you imagine how they would look with the Marketing Logo tucked in there somewhere or the Walton
Logo emblazoned across the screen, no way. I have nothing against there Advertising blurb, maybe only on the box it came in or at the end, the very end. Every time I watch
tom & jerry on Walton the logo plonked in there just spoils it for me. Some of the opening credits are a work of art in themselves, lets at least pay homage to these special
people.

Yes guys the original titles are indeed a necessary part of the total film experience for me.
Those bloody letraset titles and distributor substitutes are for me utter crap.
Its as if Walton and Marketing Films brand names and logos were more important than the
originals. I mean its not like they even made the films in the first place is it ? Yet they
tried to take some kind of credit for them.
At least some slightly edited versions were better than nothing at all.
Examples being 400 footers such as BEN HUR and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. Okay they were brief but
a bit more professional in presentation.

Well here's a good example, the opening credits were/are available to buy from some of the Bond films on S/8, can't put it better
than that really. I don't think Letraset would've cut the mustard somehow.

this is quite important to me,although my brother has the opposite thoughts.
i think a decent helping of both main and end credits are very important, for one you feel like you have watched the film properly, a good and unusual example is my recent purchase of thoroughly modern Millie, this print from universal,(who normally have very fast edited titles) does have virtually all of the main titles and also the original end title, its a very good edit and with the titles in place makes a much more satisfying edit. On Saturn 3 Walton did a great job with the main titles but it ends abruptly with that Walton logo as does many of there films, very annoying especially when some of there edits are generally pretty good. The marketing edits were abysmal in many cases, how the hell could you balls up anything with the given 3 x 400 foot to play with, i could have done a better job. Some were ok though, as for the titles, one word, disgraceful. What made me laugh with marketing was the fact that they had a lot of complaints about the poor titles on there first wave of releases they responded on there second wave by,(as mentioned),doing away with the originals altogether and replacing them with feeble letrasets. I think marketing also wasted so much celluloid by putting brief titles at the start of every part of all there 3 x 400 footers, i know you could buy any one single part on its own without having to buy the others but what a waste of film.
My brother always whines about the length of end titles on full features or lengthy mains on edited releases, he thinks they should just have the actual film title and then put more content in the edited edition.

I actually agree with your bro Tom, modern films now take an age to reel out & finish, once it was one pop song, now we have room for two. It is ridiculous, the end credits we speak of consist of about 10 feet of film, enough for a cast reprise and A Hammer Film or some
such, in the case of the releases Marketing butchered, the majority were 50s films, a simple The End was all that they required, Marketings response of course, because Bill Davison of Movie Maker fame had been in touch with them, was to send a
Paramount logo to purchasers of their product, I went one better and gave them a lecture on how Leone's masterpiece had been ruined
by them, I suggested a reel of the massacre of the McBain family and the title of the movie at the end, as it was in "Once Upon A Time",
not a peep from them, why should they, I'd already bought the bloody thing! Derann issued a film, the credits were so long, they asked that anyone wanting it, it would be sold on a separate
reel. one extreme to the other, but Derann did offer the alternative as opposed to others that didn't. Summing up, those little excerpts
from Castle and the like, plus the Columbia digests, were prime examples of how it should be done, a beginning, middle and end.
Tom, before I sign off, your bro is right again, those mute titles on the three part releases were wasted film, again, what the hell were
these editors thinking, I use the term in its loosest sense for those imposters.

Exactly, what made it so much worse was that marketing had some of the finest film titles ever to appear on super 8. As said, many of the films were good but thae hash up they made of the titles was criminal.

It's better of course, if all is in tact, but aside from the already spoken about Marketing or Walton 3x 400ft cut downs, I don't feel I have ever been too disappointed if ALL of the "outro" wasn't left in.

In some features like Die Hard or Beauty & The Beast / Hunchback etc etc, you have a third of the reel of left as the story ends! Ha ha
That is one expensive piece of music!! Only to find out at the end who the make up artists were. Ha ha.

Of course it is better for an 8 mm film to have all its original titles,but since so many do not (from most all of the Hal Roach Blackhawks to all the Technofilm and Film Office WB,Tom and Jerry and Popeye cartoons, etc,etc),I will buy the film as it is instead of not buying it at all! Of course,it all depends on how much I want it!

Andy, i think your right, as long as any edited edition has some of the original titles and there faded or dissolved so into eachother, they dont all need to be there but some of the originals done we; make a huge difference to what you watch.