Over the past month or so my run of good luck with 16mm (and 8mm) purchases ran out.
From a dealer, i bought Fright which had most of the sound missing and a few trailers which had red hue and a 16mm print of Dick Tracy which had part three missing. Back it went at my cost.
At last, my wait for a replacement film, the Blues Brothers, a very sought after title was over. A month long wait while it was, (allegedly) checked. It turned up Saturday and as soon as i saw it on a full to the rim 2000ft reel and a 1600ft, (not full) i knew something was not right, the full feature runs for 2 hours 13 minutes. Here we go again was the first impression, when will this supply of faulty/poor/incomplete prints form a dealer end? It isn't good, the disappointments are really starting to tire me out and seriously consider which way i go with this hobby.
Onto the print, today, after checking the first reel on rewind arms, i viewed the reel, reel two will be tomorrow but im not holding out too much hope. Quality is good, colours are quite spectacular and sound is excellent. As soon as the reel opened i could see it was two minutes into the title sequence, some wear on this print tells me it has been viewed a fair bit, but the lines are ok and would greatly improve with a good clean. It is edited in some places for language so already that gets on my wick! After the Blues Brothers visit the Nun in an early scene there is then a chunk missing. Oddly enough, the film still makes sense, if i were to keep it, the film would be a shortened version but it isn't what i bought into, nor is it what i expected coming from a dealer who should have checked it after the two crappy previous experiences. This one makes it three and final for me. Until the next reel is viewed tomorrow i dont even know if the ending is there but i will report back. For what its worth.
I will add this, let my experiences warn you if your buying at Blackpool, if you know what i'm saying.

It seems to be maybe an ‘edited for television’ print, but if you can live with the edits, maybe you would want to consider keeping it, at least until a complete print comes available. The colors DO look good. :-)

It is definatly a tv version but there is a reel missing. The whole sequence where the Brothers go to the diner where the singer Aretha Franklin and the staff they need from the old band is missing altogether. Tonight when i view the last reel i will come back on and see if anything else is missing. I wont mind keeping it as long as the seller is prepared to drop the price very very substantially.

Such a shame another ruined print, I remember a while back there were prints going around with sections missing and then you see a compilation reel of bits of film,mostly musical sections on one reel.Even a film I remember advertised as having all the musical numbers but no connecting sections.Very odd.
This looks good regarding colour but a reel missing so much for checking,I think they should give you the film Tom.was this from the dealer you had a couple of features from you spoke to me about when I saw you.
I guess you could hold out for the full feature or hope to turn up the missing reel but if the film has come from a reputable seller something sucks .Hope you can get it sorted.

It is definatly a tv version but there is a reel missing. The whole sequence where the Brothers go to the diner where the singer Aretha Franklin and the staff they need from the old band is missing altogether. Tonight when i view the last reel i will come back on and see if anything else is missing. I wont mind keeping it as long as the seller is prepared to drop the price very very substantially.

Gwyn, sorry i missed you today, hopefully try again soon,
yes this is from the dealer up North so when i ring tomorrow to see whats going on with it i will ask what deal i will get, i wont mind keeping it as a short version, but we will see.

When I sold off my super 8 films, I lost money, but I wouldn’t have dared to try to profit off of films that had issues, such as sound or color fade. I was very honest about the condition of them.

Tim, i'm the same, when i sell films, (as i hope many will have seen on my listings) i always state if they have lines, emulsion scratches, splices or fade, there is no point in hiding it as it will only come back to haunt you. I do sometimes buy a film i already have in order to replace it with a better copy, then i will sell the original. We sell at present time to fund the 16mm films but equally, i need to reduce the numbers of titles we have as we get older, i want to be able to manage the collection rather than have it endlessly growing to the point i cant find the time to watch the same film twice. Then the hobby really does become expensive.

Anyway, tonight i viewed reel two. I know the film is defiantly around 25/30 minutes short, very sadly, the whole concert scene including Cab Calloway - Minnie The Moocher is missing which of course is one of the main points of the movie, the concert is to raise the money they need for the Nun at the start of the film. Putting this aside, the Aretha Franklin scene that i thought was missing is actually at the start of reel two, so it is basically spliced together in the wrong order, obviously i can put this right and then be left with a shortened version of the movie. I wont mind that so much if the price ends up correctly and hopefully i can do something to restore some of the missing link.
Again, the sound is excellent, the colours are pretty stunning and the reel does have some black baselines but nothing out of the ordinary. A good clean should improve things. There is around four or five jump splices but i think i can easily improve these.

Tom, glad you found a missing section,you would think the seller would check the order,still hope you get a good outcome to your satisfaction.
Look forward to next part😁.

Well, a real turn up for the books todays, and some great news for this print, the missing reel has been found and it is on its way to me. I will wait to view it before saying too much to ensure that its ok and here's the odd thing, apparently, the previous owner really likes musicals and cuts the music scenes out, then joins them onto one spool. What a div!!.
That explains why this film was on four, (five as it turns out now), cores. Unfortunatly, when the seller to me put it together he put a part in the wrong order so now i need to spend some time going through it with a fine tooth combe to sort out one or two poor splices and getting it into the right running order, once i receive the concert reel i then need to give it a good clean up and a short piece of magic from Italy and it should be the film i want and a very good title to own. Once its all done it will get a full review of the print up.

Well what can one say, I knew I remembered about film owners cutting up musical’s (comment4), I am glad your print will hopefully be all sorted in the not too distant future Tom.let’s hope the missing reel turns out to be fine.You will have fun splicing this one in the correct order but it should make for a great feature come the end.
I still find it difficult to think someone would chop up prints,take out the bits they want re splice those sections together. I wonder if the original prints ever go back together let alone in the right order.All those splices.Buy a dvd and fast forward each time!!
Look forward to the next instalment,rather like Saturday morning cliff hanger📽📽📽📽📽😃

Good one to have Tom, you got lucky with that one, nice find given the source and reputation !!!!!!!!!, worth the wait, but why would any genuine film collector separate that from the rest of the feature, the mind boggles mate...........

That sounds very promising Tom! Looking forward to your report of the restoration of your print!

Thank you,
I am, like Gwyn and Paul, a bit at a loss why any collector would take a film of this quality and popularity, and cut it up. As Gwyn said, just go and buy the Blue ray and select the parts you want. It is a shame because this copy will have more splices to add to the ones already in ti, however, thankfully, i will ensure the splices will be redone properly. I am hoping the a gently clean will help make some of baselines either invisible or greatly reduced. Overall, it is a pretty good print.
Hopefully, it wont be going back after all.

At least you have a chance to redeem this print mate, by returning it or wait and see what this reel looks like, my guess is that it will have been watched much more, and maybe in not so good a condition, hope i'm wrong mate, but my steve mcqueen print will never be redeemed , the twat i bought it from refused to accept it back and said "he could not afford to give me the money back ", but then went on to shoot a 16 mm movie, self financed , the cheeky b******, i hope i never meet him, he 'll end up wearing it ............... good luck Tom

Yeah i know what you mean Paul, im keeping fingers crossed that it isn't too bad, otherwise, as you say, it may have to be returned. The problem is, it's ok to have a few minutes made up here and there, but a twenty minute segment would cost as much as the film. Simply not worth the hassle.

Some great news for me on this title, the missing reel is actually the best of all of them, no splices within and it appears to be 99% of the missing film. A bit of Italian magic will restore this film to full glory. Rather than add images from this single reel, i will now wait until later when i have the few missing minutes made up, the film edited in correct order and cleaned. A full review will follow so it'll be a month or so for those interested.

Glad the missing reel has turned out ok look forward to part three and the Italian magic.

On the subject of censored TV prints my print of Hopscotch had a couple of swearwords that were visible on screen, but no audio. On closer inspection the offending words were restored by taking some blooping tape of the soundtrack.

As it happens, i noticed this tape on this print, there was only one single word cut out but i think that may well have been done by the previous owner, it is only a short section which i will have replaced.