A very well known British Horror film form Walton. I dont think there are many people in our hobby who do not know about this excellent release, so first of all let me tell you how it took us 30 years to get a decent feature print.
My Brother bought the 200ft extract from this movie called savage justice. We loved it, so he went out some months later and bought the other 200ft extract The Evil One. Joined together onto a 400ft reel, these two extracts actually made a very good cut of this film from start to finish. Image and colour were never in question, however, the sound ,(especially on Savage Justice) could only ever be described as average.
Move on about 20 years, Roger Lilly here in Plymouth of Movieland International got in a collection, he rang me to say that in amongst it there were reels 1, 3 and 4 of the Walton 4 x 400ft feature of this title. He let us have it for £25 as it was a title he did not wish to put on his lists. (Remember the Fog and the warriors?) We got it home and i went to work on using the Evil one extract to make up for the missing reel two and it seemed to work really well. It was obvious that there was something missing but the film flowed well. A few years on and something happened that, (for us), is very rare, "that extract, the evil one" that we spliced in turned to red almost over night. I was peed off to say the least.
Then, this very forum started and at some point i put up this story and Hugh Scott came to the rescue. He sent me a reel 2 of the feature, not only was in good shape, the colour was fantastic as are the reels 1,3 and 4 that we had. over 30 years after buying the first extract we finally ended up with a Walton feature release. A to add to it all, Hugh would not let me pay a penny for the reel. What a bloke that is. I still miss him on here. The only part i would like to try and get, (and Hugh always tries to help me on this by letting me know one comes up for sale), is the German sound opening 200ft reel wiich shows the original opening to the film. The biggest error Walton did with this was to put the end credits at the start. God knows why they decided to this.

So tonight, i took the film out, gave it a light clean as it has been five years since screening this one. Here, with the help of wiki is a briefing about the film. My Brother often points out how accurate much of the background of this film is actually well researched and accurate, namely the introduction by the narrator, the battle places and years, the town names used and the fact that the Oliver Cromwell character in this film has facial warts, as per Oliver Cromwell in life.

Witchfinder General is a 1968 British horror film directed by Michael Reeves and starring Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy and Hilary Dwyer. The screenplay was by Reeves and Tom Baker based on Ronald Bassett's novel of the same name. Made on a low budget of under £100,000, the movie was co-produced by Tigon British Film Productions and American International Pictures. The story details the heavily fictionalised murderous witch-hunting exploits of Matthew Hopkins, a 17th-century English lawyer who claimed to have been appointed as a "Witch Finder General" by Parliament during the English Civil War to root out sorcery and witchcraft.
The film was retitled The Conqueror Worm in the United States in an attempt to link it with Roger Corman's earlier series of Edgar Allan Poe-related films starring Price although this movie has nothing to do with any of Poe's stories, and only briefly alludes to his poem.
Director Reeves featured many scenes of intense onscreen torture and violence that were considered unusually sadistic at the time. Upon its theatrical release throughout the spring and summer of 1968, the movie's gruesome content was met with disgust by several film critics in the UK, despite having been extensively censored by the British Board of Film Censors. In the US, the film was shown virtually intact and was a box office success, but it was almost completely ignored by reviewers.

I will apologies for the amount of images on this one but i wanted to show it across the entire film. This is a good Agfa print print with no fade. One of the best releases Walton put out.

Witchfinder General eventually developed into a cult film, partially attributable to Reeves's 1969 death from a drug overdose at the age of 25, only nine months after Witchfinder's release.[5] Over the years, several prominent critics have championed the film, including J. Hoberman, Danny Peary, Robin Wood and Derek Malcolm. In 2005, the magazine Film named Witchfinder General the 15th-greatest horror film of all time.[6]
Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn stated in 2016, that he had "bought the remake rights.

Never apologize for a good account of a film pictorially Tom. It is essential among reviews to cover the full and entire synopsis, quite besides displaying the quality of your print up for review.

In this case, as ever with you Tom, your print is superb!

That was some story about completing the collecting of a feature over decades :-) And the reel turning red over night; I have never heard about this happendng. Makes me almost want to check all my reels with OK color now :-)

separate reels of any film even from the same distributor at different times, can produce very varied results Eivind. It is always good policy to check or verify before you buy.

Look good, I have slight envy :-) First and only Beta video I saw. Have at least one of the 200’ digests, but the feature would be so nice

Thanks chaps,
Elvind, it has only ever happened twice with us, (for a film to fade so fast), this 200ft extract, and The French Connection. That one went literally beetroot red.
As far as Walton films are concerned, this 200ft extract was the worst i had seen, also one other film had fade from Walton but i cant recall it now but generally, we have been lucky with Walton films as they are nine times out of 10 on Agfa stock.
The first reel of this feature viewed here does have a line to the right which comes and goes. I will also point out that the sound quality of this feature also reflects the two 200ft extracts , some of it is very very good, other parts during two of the reels can be a little muffled. We sent Savage Justice back to Walton for a re-record but it came back exactly the same. It's a small section in the middle of that extract and the same place in the feature that isn't quite right. But all in all, giving how old this copy must be now, it is a good overall copy. There is a couple of places where there is some light black spotty bits within the original material while other parts are like new and very crisp and clear.
Now then, who has that German 200ft extract in colour and re recorded into English they would like to sell me please?

I have had a spare section part one print of Never say Never Again sent to me printed with half of the colours missing. It was totally Yellow, Magenta and Cyan dyes completely missing in action altogether and they simply do not exist on this print of mine.
It's only purpose in life for me even if perfect was keeping it as a spare part for my near perfect print of this extended double Derann digest. As it now stands it is useless and can never be used for it's intended purpose or any other so always,..buyer beware at ALL times!
If someone is selling something good at a very fair price nowadays, there is typically a reason as to why that is. That is my experience by and large!
Never believe that "no projector to check it with" nonsense, typically, they know exactly what it is they are selling.

Clearly a 7am Monday morning Bucks Lab Print.

Either that or a late Friday Afternoon one!

I bought The Evil One and Savage Justice on one spool at BSTR last year for a tenner. Both have lovely colour and sound. Nice review, Tom!

The two extracts are very well edited, its good that yours both have good colour.

A Ten Spot paid Martin, makes you the wisest Owl of them all!

Very well played Martin!!

A great looking print Tom; Walton prints were always top quality. Most other distributors at that time fell well below them. Remakes are rarely as good as the original.

Cheers Robert,it was rare for us to have any problems with Walton Prints.
This film, like Hannie Caulder, should hopefully never be re-made. I know Quentin Tarantino is a fan of Hannie Caulder, i know how his remake would look.