For a few dollars more. Marketing film mounted onto a full 800 ft spool.
I cannot recall if this film was released in Germany by marketing as 2 x 400 or 3 x 400. My only reason for the uncertainty is that we have many of the Marketing 3 x 400ft mini features and they all fit the same way and quantity onto 800ft spools. This copy has German titles but the sound is in English so I suspect this was re-recorded, if it was then who ever did this had done a very good job, sound is excellent throughout and all 100% in sync. The colour, (as advertised when I bid for it on e-bay) is, as the seller stated, biased towards the brown, however, given that I have seen so very few of these prints around, (especially recorded into English), I had to bid and for once I won it. I was very pleased and very much looked forward to viewing it.
First of all the print
As with many marketing films, they had some of the greatest titles to come out on 8mm, but even with 3 x 400ft (or even 2 x 400 if that’s what this was), spools to play with they always seemed to manage to make the cuts a bit on the obvious side. This particular film is edited down OK, marks out of 10 for editing? I’ll give it 6/7. The sequence where Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef are going at each other, first by steeping on toes, a smack and Clint firing at Van Cleef's hat every time he goes to pick it up then Mortimer shooting Clint's hat up into the air and keeping it there with his pistol is shown here virtually in full, but as soon as this sequence ends it jumps to a daylight scene where they are discussing Clint’s character mingling with the gang, they are both out to get for the bounty, in my mind this part could have been edited down quite easily ,(we all got the point), and the full duel at the end could have been shown in full, (like they did with the duel on part 3 of once upon a time in the west), instead the duel, while being of a decent length is edited and you do hear this on the soundtrack, at the end of the day it is the music that went with the scenes in the Sergio westerns that made the movie, that said I have seen much worse editing. The print is standard marketing stuff, very good but not quite pin sharp, but very very acceptable and also very clean. The sound as already mentioned, is re-recorded into English and has excellent quality and a hell of a volume, it’s never over recorded but I hardly have to have any volume on my Elmo 1200HD, & the music does belt out. Also it was advertised with a few frames missing but that looks like poor joining of two parts, I can certainly live with that. Obviously I do not make a habit of collecting films where the colour has gone or going but until another better one appears or I get bored of this one not having much colour I shall keep it for the time being.
I remember years ago Derann had a 2 x 400ft B/W sound edition of this title. I have never seen one since, until this colour one appeared.
The plot, edited here to cover this version.
The Man with No Name & Colonel Douglas Mortimer—the "Man in Black"—are two bounty killers in pursuit of "El Indio," one of the most wanted fugitives in the Wild West, and his gang. El Indio is ruthless, clever, and brutal. He has a musical pocket watch that he plays before engaging in gun duels: (NOT shown in this version) A Flashback toward the end of this film, (before the duel), reveals that El Indio took the watch from a young woman, He is shown raping her; she killed herself while being raped. There is a photograph of the woman inside the cover of the watch;
Mortimer illegally stops a train in Tucumcari and kills Guy Calloway, displaying both his arsenal of weapons and his gun slinging skill as he easily kills Calloway at long range while the outlaw is shooting at him. After collecting a bounty of $1,000, Mortimer inquires about “Cavanagh, who has a $2,000 bounty on him and was last seen in White Rocks. He learns that Cavanagh has already been targeted by "Manco"
Manco is in White Rocks and finds Cavanagh in a saloon playing five-card draw poker. Manco kills him and his men and collects the bounty.
El Indio's next target is the Bank of El Paso and its disguised safe containing "almost a million dollars." The two bounty hunters arrive separately in El Paso, learn about each other and, after butting heads, decide to team up to take down El Indio and his gang. Mortimer persuades a reluctant Manco to join El Indio's gang for the robbery in order to "get him between two fires." Manco breaks one of Indio's friends out of prison and is admitted to the gang.
El Indio and the rest of his gang now have the safe, (my guess is there is a massive cut here where the robbery was shown), which they can't open.
Mortimer proves his worth to El Indio by cracking open the safe without using explosives. El Indio then says he will wait a month before dividing the loot, to allow the furor over the bank robbery to die down, and locks the money away.
Manco and Mortimer attempt to steal the bank money from El Indio, but are caught in the act. CUT HERE (El Indio's men severely beat them and tie them up NOT SHOWN). El Indio, kills their guard and releases them. El Indio informs his gang that Manco and Mortimer "got away", and sends the gang in pursuit, intending to let his gang and Manco and Mortimer kill each other off while he and Niño take all the loot for themselves.
Manco and Mortimer kill the gang, one by one, in a running gun battle. Standing alone, Mortimer shoots Groggy as he runs for cover, but then has his gun shot out of his hand by El Indio. El Indio then takes out his pocket watch and starts it playing. As the music nears the end, Manco suddenly appears with an identical pocket watch, which plays the same tune as El Indio's and which Mortimer realises has been taken from him earlier. Manco covers El Indio with a rifle and forces El Indio to wait while he gives his own gun belt and pistol to Mortimer, evening the odds.
Manco sits down while Mortimer and El Indio face off, with the watch playing again. During the standoff, The music finishes, and Mortimer outdraws and guns down El Indio.
Mortimer takes El Indio's pocket watch. Manco gives him back the other watch and remarks on a family resemblance to the photo. "Naturally, between brother and sister," Mortimer answers. His revenge complete, Mortimer declines his share of the bounties and rides away he then rides off into the distance AND NOT AN END TITLE IN SITE, the music plays as the film ends and into the tail of the film.

Certainly a rare beasty on our gauge, such a pity the colour lacks any blues greens or yellows, i bet it looked great when first printed.
Hugh, if you read this, what filter would you use on this to try and better the colour?

Tom, I'll put some in the post to you my son, A super write up by the way, the film was a 2x400 originally, I thought the first part wasted too much time on the silly showdown with Mortimer & Manko ( alias joe ) the gundown was cut short, remedied on mine to a point but still short. The Marketing editor missed the whole point of these films by a barn door, visual and music seemed to go over Wolfgangs bullet head. Still, we must be grateful, in my case on 16mm, but that ain't the point, a chance missed to issue a definitive
30 odd minutes of a classic western, but the Germans fumbled the ball, as they always do on the 8mm releases, their laughable
handling of the first reel of OUATITW is a case in point.

Hugh, you are a star, your bang on with all that to, is your 16mm feature a technicolour print?I bet it looks great.

Tom, I'll put some in the post to you my son, A super write up by the way, the film was a 2x400 originally, I thought the first part wasted too much time on the silly showdown with Mortimer & Manko ( alias joe ) Going by the 8mm editor, Indio, the bad lad, has done nothing wrong, until the robbery, unseen the gundown was cut short, remedied on mine to a point but still short. The Marketing editor missed the whole point of these films by a barn door, visual and music seemed to go over Wolfgangs bullet head. Still, we must be grateful, in my case on 16mm, but that ain't the point, a chance missed to issue a definitive
30 odd minutes of a classic western, but the Germans fumbled the ball, as they always do on the 8mm releases, their laughable
handling of the first reel of OUATITW is a case in point. These films needed, indeed cried out for someone of Keith Wilton's stature,
the Resa di Conti ( settling of accounts ) would surely have remained intact, the whole point of the exercise, Anyway, I'll keep vigilant
for a better copy Tom for you.

Hi Tom, no its an SP or something like as far as I know, on the wane, slight colour drop, but okay.

A great title to find there Tom and yet another simply outstanding detailed write up!
A big Thank you from all who get to read it, superb mate.

Wish Dirty Harry could be found on S8

I have Sudden Impact Optical feature on Super 8 Andrew, I think it's the only one of the series available, colour is not bad sound is good.

I've just noticed Pale Rider is on Phil's list Del. Another I've always fancied!

Nice looking print there Tom, always a great feeling when a film turns up and it either lives up to or even excels expectations, well done.

I have that one too, virtually mint, great colour and great sound, lovely print, well worth picking up

I shall see if he still has it by payday Del.

You are right Del, Sudden Impact is the only one of Dirty Harry, this was one of Dereks Ex Airline optical prints that he got back in the 1990's they were very good quality, and if my memory serves me right they had a coating on them to stop them getting scratched.

Nice one there Tom but bloody hell its a shame its a faded and panned and scanned print.
Still a rare one however.

Thanks all, I must admit i did start buying some optical prints many years ago but i soon realised they were edited for a wider audience so i put the brake on. I bough Little shop of horrors and crocodile Dundee, both were slightly edited for language which even uncut was its mildest form, & in Crocodile Dundee when Mick is at the party and pours a guys powdered drug into the hot water basin and tells him to get his head over the steam,(thinking he was steaming his cold), the scene was completely edited out. Also we had one of my favourites, The Bounty weith Antony Hopkins and Mel Gibson, this was also edited and ruined it for me. That was enough for me. I'd be very interested to know how they got around Lethal Weapon. Have to say that the actual prints were excellent condition and colours. (At that time).
But this particular film, Few dollars more, would normally get sold on with this sort of colour loss but due to the rarity we will be holding onto it for as long as possible. Its now in a cool constant temperature room with no light what so ever.

There are one or two "Flippin's" in Lethal Weapon Tom, rather than F@ckings!

I love my Croc Dundee print and many others despite the fact they have been edited somewhat to suit the airline companies back then. There really were some fantastic 80's titles put to print due to the power of the buck from the big airline companies of the day.

If you like your 80's films as I do, you simply cannot afford to overlook the Optical prints despite a little fade here and there and of course the optical only track.