A film i am sure every collector in the super 8 gauge must know about so i wont delve into the story. For decades this title was available as four separate 200ft extracts from Columbia home movies via Mountain films. All four were available as b/w sound and silent as well as colour sound and silent. Part one, Talos, was our first one as the 200ft version, we had several prints of this title and the length varied. One we had showed the opening where Pelias slays one of Aristo's daughters after she seeks sanctuary in the temple of the goddess, that one went back with poor sound and the second one turned up with soft focus and a different opening from later in the movie, after the temple scene. We ended up with four before receiving a good one, but still with the temple scene missing. Mountain were pretty dire to deal with. Eventually we ended up with all 200ft version with part four, the golden fleece, being a pretty poor image, it had a fog like look which, again, Mountain didn't want to deal with.
A few decades later Dreann released the full feature which price wise, was way out of our range for that time. As luck would have it , they also released a 400ft part titled "Talos" of there own, this is one we did buy and the quality of this first part is outstanding in every way, pin sharp image, nice saturated colours and excellent sound.
So this brings me to our own print which is now mounted onto an 800ft spool containing the Derann part one which also contains the full title sequence, and parts 2,3 and 4 are made up of the 200ft colour versions from columbia.
Reels 2 and 3 are now faded with the quality of the image being average, and part 4, The Golden Fleece, which does have excellent colours, good sound but slightly soft. I have to add, i prefer the very slightly soft to the faded.
This makes for a very good 35-40 minute edit which almost fills the 800ft spool.
The images are clear to work out which part is which.
If only Derann could have continued to do there own 400ft versions of the other three parts. I suspect Columbia may have stopped it, but when i enquired, i was told there wasn't enough interest. Do you believe that?

Tom,
That is a fun 40 minute compilation to watch. The first Derann digest is beautiful, and, as you say, the last part is a little softer in focus. That is a fantastic film to have. Seems odd that someone thought there was a lack of interest, even faded digest prints from this title are still in demand.

Would make a good 600ft digest , and would sell well i think, could be a David Baker special if he's watching, always a favourite of mine this one..........

The colour is really good on the Derann digest. The feature was too expensive for me too at the time. It was the film I wanted more than any other at that time. The scene with Talos has always been my favourite.

The thing with this title is the abrupt sound interruptions on a couple of parts on the reels 2 and 3, i really do not get how anyone editing a film as a cut down can make such ridiculous errors, just a second or two difference is all it would have took to sort it.