The Last Valley is one our favourite movies so when ABC announced a batch of Super 8 feature films with this title in the mix, we jumped straight in for a copy.
Released as a 5 x 400ft abridged feature the movie fits easily onto two 800ft spools. The print is good but not quite pin sharp, sound is good however, on this print the second 400ft reel does have a couple of slight drops, mainly the odd single word, colour originally was very vibrant, this is now a 35 year old print so does sadly have some fade. Fortunately, much of film is set during Autumn and spring so much of it has that red/orange Autumn look. All the blues yellows and green are still very much in there. Aside a couple of scenes the film still looks very good for its age.
The Last Valley is a 1971 film directed by James Clavell, a historical drama set during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). A mercenary soldier (Michael Caine) and a teacher (Omar Sharif), each fleeing the religious war in southern Germany, accidentally find the valley, untouched by the war, and there live in peace. Based upon the novel The Last Valley (1959), by J. B. Pick, the cinematic version of The Last Valley, directed by James Clavell, was the final feature film photographed with the Todd-AO 70 mm widescreen process until it was revived to make the film Baraka in 1991.
This super 8 edit is ok but as is often the case there is one abrupt edit within the first five minutes, clearly you hear the cut in the music which i can never understand when you have this sort of length of film to play with. Another edit shows Omar Sharif's character referring to a part of the film that is not in the super 8 release. The full feature runs for 128 minutes while this abridged feature is approx 90. Overall, this is still a very good movie and this 35 year old print os holding up well with only a thin single line during the last 400 feet and another excellent soundtrack by John Barry.