circle kay

Hi to all, have just been watching the print of 'The Cruel Sea' from the Studio Canal British War DVD Collection 4 DVD box set. I think that the cut of the film on this DVD and the one shown for the last 10 years or so on British TV have scenes missing. I'm sure that from my childhood I remember scenes after the Compass Rose sinks of Ericson visiting Morell's widow and Lockhart visiting Ferraby in hospital. Both 'scenes' are eluded to when Ericson and Lockhart meet in the hotel bar. The DVD runs for 121 mins. I can't find my copy of 'Forever Ealing' (suspect the wife has sent it to Oxfam!) so can't check up, can any one of you help me out?
CK

Steve Crook

The IMDb lists 121 mins as the time of the US release. But it also lists a UK re-relase at 126 mins. So there could well be scenes which aren't on the DVD

Steve

dylan

Charles Barr's Ealing Studios gives a running time of 126 minutes.

DAVID RAYNER

I suspect that the Studio Canal DVD has been transferred from the American print of the film...as most of them are...and that would account for the missing five minutes of film. Few people would notice the difference in this case, unless they had seen the full length version, because the British and American titles are the same.

DB7

Can't see it myself, they grudgingly re titled the odd film (Tight Little Island) but I can't recall any films being cut for the US market apart from say Dead of Night.

DAVID RAYNER

Well, Sammy Going South (1963) was cut from 128 minutes (UK running time) to 87 minutes for the US market and retitled A Boy Ten Feet Tall. That's a cut of 41 minutes, which must have played hell with the narrative.

DB7

An old Ealing fimmaker but not one of their productions.

Steve Crook

There are some that were cut for the American market because they offended their sensibilities (or the distributors thought they might). A few examples from the films I know well:
Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941) - cut from 123 mins to 104 mins
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) - cut from 163 mins to 120 mins. Hacked beyond recognition
A Canterbury Tale (1944) - lots cut & a few extra scenes added
A Matter of Life and Death (1946) had the scene with the naked goat-herd cut

Steve

DB7

I was referring to Balcon's Ealing-era films rather than the industry as a whole. Hammer in particular would do anything to a film if it guaranteed US distribution.

And that Archers twosome were always trouble... [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif[/img]

Wetherby Pond

The UK release print of the film is 11,352 feet long, which translates to just over 126 minutes based on the standard theatrical projection speed of 90 feet per second (24 frames per second).

However, the optimum speed for the European PAL video system is slightly faster - 93.75 feet per second (or 25 frames per second), a speed that's apparently related to the standard AC mains frequency of 50 Hertz. In practice, unless you have perfect pitch and a very good memory, you're not going to notice any difference - but it does mean that British and European video transfers of cinema films generally "lose" one minute in every 25. Or, in this case, five minutes in 125, as you do indeed end up with a running time of just over 121 minutes if you recalculate the figures at the higher speed.

So it sounds as though the DVD is essentially identical to the theatrical print, which I'm afraid doesn't answer the original question - but I hope it clears up some of the confusion about running time discrepancies generally.

Incidentally, I absolutely would not treat IMDB running times as gospel - all too often, they're input by people who are ignorant of PAL speedup issues, with the result that they're all too frequently useless as far as serious research goes (you may detect the acrid smell of scorched fingers here!).