Sammy Going South

[JohnB_Toronto]

To be released on June 28. This was announced by Movie Mail - not sure yet if it's one of their exclusives.

[chas speed]

name='JohnB_Toronto']

To be released on June 28. This was announced by Movie Mail - not sure yet if it's one of their exclusives.

It's being released by Optimum Home Entertainment and can be bought at amazon.co.uk or anywhere else for about 10 pounds.

[JohnB_Toronto]

name='chas speed']It's being released by Optimum Home Entertainment and can be bought at amazon.co.uk or anywhere else for about 10 pounds.

That's good to know - Amazon's mailing charges are lower. I think Movie Mail must be quicker off the mark at getting their website updated because when I first listed this it hadn't yet appeared on Amazon or HMV.

[darrenburnfan]

I received my DVD of Sammy Going South today and played it this morning. Optimum have done a splendid job on it (even if they did spell Fergus McClelland's name wrongly on the DVD menu...as McLELAND). A beautifully clear transfer of an obviously pristine CinemaScope print. 2.35:1 aspect ratio and anamorphically enchanced for 16 x 9 monitors and televisions. Very clear sound, too. In his on screen interview on the DVD, Fergus says how originally the film came in at over three hours, so it must have been one epic journey. But Sandy Mackendrick eventually edited it down to just over two hours and Fergus says that he wasn't pleased at the time that what he regarded as some of his best scenes didn't make it to the premiere. He also states that he was chosen from thousands of other boys for the part and eventually got it because all the other boys had their hair combed by someone before they went for the audition. But when it was Fergus's turn, he refused to have his hair combed by anyone and combed it himself. Mackendrick was very impressed by this and said that's just what Sammy would have done and Fergus was given the part on the strength of his independant spirit. BELOW: A frame capture from the DVD of eleven years old Fergus in a dramatic scene from the film and a frame of Fergus forty-eight years later (aged nearly sixty but looking nowhere near it) being interviewed on the DVD about the making of the film. I highly recommend this dvd of a wonderful, classic British film.

[SirOllyBolly]

Radio interview with McClelland on this movie here (when it gets to the films part):



http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...ht_27_06_2010/

[darrenburnfan]

name='SirOllyBolly' date='28 June 2010 - 07:20 PM' timestamp='1277749254' post='445606']

Radio interview with McClelland on this movie here (when it gets to the films part):



http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...ht_27_06_2010/

Many Thanks for the link, SirOllyBrolly. I just listened to it by moving the cursor along to the film part and it was very interesting. I hadn't heard it, because I'm usually in bed for 10 pm. Very interesting and by the way, the guy Fergus refers to who started the thread about Sammy Going South on a website that's now had over 10,000 hits and numerous replies is me and on the Your Favourite British Films section of this forum. Fergus got to know about it because I let him know by email and gave him the link to this forum. So you never know who's looking in here, do you?

[darrenburnfan]

I see that amazon uk have already sold over three thousand copies of the DVD and it was only released yesterday. There's definitely a demand for it. At that rate, they could sell over 21,000 copies in a week.

[Steve Crook]

name='darrenburnfan' date='29 June 2010 - 09:03 PM' timestamp='1277841829' post='445997']

I see that amazon uk have already sold over three thousand copies of the DVD and it was only released yesterday. There's definitely a demand for it. At that rate, they could sell over 21,000 copies in a week.

That line saying

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank:: 3,013 in DVD

means that it's at position number 3,013 in their list of best sellers on DVD. Not that they've sold over 3,000 copies



Steve

[TimR]

name='darrenburnfan' date='28 June 2010 - 02:30 PM' timestamp='1277753416' post='445642']

Many Thanks for the link, SirOllyBrolly. I just listened to it by moving the cursor along to the film part and it was very interesting. I hadn't heard it, because I'm usually in bed for 10 pm. Very interesting and by the way, the guy Fergus refers to who started the thread about Sammy Going South on a website that's now had over 10,000 hits and numerous replies is me and on the Your Favourite British Films section of this forum. Fergus got to know about it because I let him know by email and gave him the link to this forum. So you never know who's looking in here, do you?

How interesting. You're right - you never know who is looking in.



What memories that film still brings back after so many years. Thanks for all your work on this.

[darrenburnfan]

name='Steve Crook' date='29 June 2010 - 09:31 PM' timestamp='1277843474' post='446009']

That line saying

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank:: 3,013 in DVD

means that it's at position number 3,013 in their list of best sellers on DVD. Not that they've sold over 3,000 copies



Steve

Thanks for correcting me on that, Steve. I didn't know that's what the figures meant. However, I'm sure they've sold quite a few copies by now, as many of them would have been pre-ordered.

[darrenburnfan]

name='TimR' date='29 June 2010 - 09:36 PM' timestamp='1277843807' post='446012']

How interesting. You're right - you never know who is looking in.



What memories that film still brings back after so many years. Thanks for all your work on this.

Thanks, Tim. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that all the interest that's been shown in this film since I started the thread in March last year had a lot of bearing on persuading Optimum to release it on DVD. If you have a player that can pay Region 2 discs, I urge you to buy this release, as the image quality is far better than the DVD-R disc of the film I sent you a year or so ago, which was transferred from a VHS video recorded off Channel 4 ten years ago in 1.85:1 and the new full width 2.35:1 transfer, although containing the same footage shown on the Channel 4 transmission, is much clearer and more of the image can be see at the sides. Oddly enough, one of the cuts in the film removes a few seconds vital to the narrative, where Sammy tells the Syrian "My mummy and daddy are dead", for without those words, the Syrian wouldn't know that Sammy was an orphan. Strangely, the words were left in the American version, even though that version was far more heavily cut. And, of course, with the new DVD, you get to see brand new on screen interviews with Fergus McClelland and James Mangold.

[darrenburnfan]

BELOW: Frames from the new DVD of Sammy Going South.

[darrenburnfan]

I notice that with this new DVD release, Sammy Going South has been uprated from its original "U" certificate to "PG", the modern equivelent of the old "A" certificate (children not allowed to see it unless with an adult). Does this mean then that the modern BBFC consider it too disturbing to be classified as a "U" film...and if so, why didn't they think so back in 1963? After all, it's the same film today that it was forty-seven years ago. Excepting the fact that the DVD is a transfer of the version with ten minutes missing out of it.

[darrenburnfan]

For the first time, I've just been playing a DVD-R of the heavily cut American version of Sammy Going South sent to me by a friend and which is retitled A Boy Ten Feet Tall and that has so much cut out of the first half of it that Edward G. Robinson appears in it half an hour before he does in the new DVD release. In fact, the American version is cut so much that the entire pace of the film is completely ruined and the sense of the enormous distance that Sammy travels on his epic journey is lost. Coupled to this, the entire Tristram Cary score has been replaced with another one by Les Baxter, in his psuedo-overly romantic White Slave Ship style that just doesn't fit the film at all and often, the music co-ordinator has put music onto scenes that had none in the British version and were the better for it. Some scenes in a film are the better for music and some are not. The entire sequence where Cocky (Edward G. Robinson) talks to Sammy (Fergus McClelland) at the river crossing about how he (Cocky) came to run away from home and learns from Sammy how the boy came to be orphaned at Port Said...vital to the narrative...has been cut out, along with many other scenes vital to the narrative. How this butchered version, cut by at least forty minutes, made such an impression on young American boys in the mid-1960's is a mystery. The whole thing seems designed to fit on a Paramount double-bill at the time with another 85 minute picture like Crack in the World. I'm not surprised it wasn't nominated for any Academy Awards in the States if this was the version that was released there. The American distributors practically ruined a classic film. I hope that now that the near two hour British version has been released on DVD that former fans of the heavily cut Stateside version will be able to see it in a new light. Forty minutes gone! Phew! That's four thousand feet of film! Two reels! In fact, over a third of the picture!

[Able Abel]

It's nice to see Sammy Going South get a DVD release. It was, after all, chosen as the 1963 Royal Film performance, so it would have been quite a significant film in it's day and therefore it's a part of 'British cinema history'



Now, if only we could also get a DVD release (in OAR) of that Royal Film performance from 10 years later, that was considered a bit a car crash of a film ... Lost Horizon (a guilty pleasure of mine! )

[darrenburnfan]

name='Able Abel' date='08 July 2010 - 10:50 AM' timestamp='1278582605' post='449106']

It's nice to see Sammy Going South get a DVD release. It was, after all, chosen as the 1963 Royal Film performance, so it would have been quite a significant film in it's day and therefore it's a part of 'British cinema history'



Now, if only we could also get a DVD release (in OAR) of that Royal Film performance from 10 years later, that was considered a bit a car crash of a film ... Lost Horizon (a guilty pleasure of mine! )

I agree, Abel Abel. As I recall, it's got a Burt Bacharach / Hal David score with excellent songs such as The World is a Circle (released on an LP and a single at the time, 1973) and if it was considered good enough for The Royal Film Performance, it should be on DVD, as should the 1950 royal film, The Mudlark.

[darrenburnfan]

BELOW: A frame from the opening titles of the completely re-scored and heavily cut American version of Sammy Going South. The Les Baxter opening title theme here sounds very much like Bronislau Kaper's music for the 1962 version of Mutiny on the Bounty, where the Bounty is leaving harbour under full sail (transferred from NTSC VHS video to DVD-R).

[darrenburnfan]

I've just received the latest Movie Mail catalogue and they say that Sammy Going South is currently number 2 on their Top Ten Best Sellers list, so it must be selling well.

[darrenburnfan]

Fergus McClelland replies to DVD customer comments about Sammy Going South on amazon.co.uk, including one from me.

FERGUS: There was a sequence filmed - unfortunately never in the film - where Sammy goes down to the bottom of the stairs as he leaves the flat to retrieve his helicopter. Under the stairs is the janitor, played superbly by Marne Maitland. Sammy and the janitor talk about the troubles. The janitor is the best friend - Mahmood's - father. The janitor is killed in the raid. Oh, and when Mahmood hits Sammy in the alleyway? Mahmood was a local boxing champion and Sandy MacKendrick wanted total realism. Mahmood was instructed to really slap me hard in the face and I was instructed to roll with the blow to prevent it from hurting too much. We did several takes on that shot! Ouch!



DAVID: The part where Sammy watches in total horror from a distance as Cocky's camp is destroyed by the police and he later goes into the ruins and, realising he has lost his home for the second time, falls to his knees and sobs his heart out, has to be one of the most heart-breaking and tear-jerking scenes ever put on film.



FERGUS: I drew on personal experience for that sequence, David. It was getting near the end of the filming in Africa, and although we had a lot of studio work to do in England, I knew it wouldn't be the same. I knew my life had changed. The night we flew out of Nairobi on two planes, actors in one plane, technicians (who had become family to me after 3 months living cheek by jowl) in another, I stood watching the techs plane fly away into the night and sobbed just like Sammy for a good ten minutes before going exhausted into the departure lounge - with all signs of crying wiped away of course.



When my small sister went to the press showing in 1963, there was a scene where the audience laughed - as they were supposed to, halfway through the film. My sister aged 5 stood up and shouted "It's not funny! His Mummy and Daddy have been killed!" and sat down again to stunned silence. She was a loving little sister at home that evening, convinced that in some way her elder brother had lost his parents in Africa!

[darrenburnfan]

MORE FRAMES FROM THE DVD







Terrified, Sammy runs for cover as Port Said is bombed.











The journey down the River Nile. Sammy has his hair examined for lice by a native woman and watches the Muslim pilgrims at prayer.







“If I died, no one would know…aunt Jane wouldn’t know…nobody!�







“Now, listen to me. I told you we have been on the road for seven years. But that is nothing. Many spend thirty or forty years on the road. Some even die on the road. You, too, are on a sort of pilgrimage. A man’s whole life is a journey. Are you listening, boy?�

“Yes.� “Oh no, you’re not. You’re scratching again.� “I try not to, but I itch.�







Sammy and Cocky get on wonderfully together in Cocky’s hideout in the bush.