Chris Koenig wrote:
I had heard that MGM did restore the negatives for the American versions, but they haven't done any transfers as that would be the most expensive task at hand. What MGM did restore, if true, was the edit splices as they were deteriorating; had they not been re-spliced the negatives would've fallen apart. It all comes down to MGM doing new digital transfers of the materials and that is what is stopping them: it seems the negatives need an extensive amount of color correction as they've been reported to being close to faded.

Minor repairs may have been made when the elements were being evaluated, but there has been no true "restoration." Faded color, in and of itself, would not stop a transfer. Color correction is a routine part of a transfer; it's performed to greater or lesser degree on every film and would not add significant costs.

MGM has not always gone the extra mile to include alternate versions. They had ample opportunity to include the Danish cut of "Reptilicus": that didn't happen because of lack of interest from the studio. Same goes for the Italian cut of "Planet of the Vampires": no interest whatsoever to include that version. MGM also had open possibilities to release their AIP versions of the Mario Bava films "Black Sunday" and "Black Sabbath" which they did restore and have been shown on cable TV: that won't happen as they are under litigation with Alfredo Leone (i.e., I heard Leone did win the case to own the films, but so far nothing else has been reported about it). MGM even restored the God-awful AIP cut of Bava's "Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs" yet no DVD release is even considered...and MGM won't attempt to go as far as to release it alongside the original far superior Italian cut "The Spies Who Came From the Cool". This, from a company that put a lot of effort in their DVD release of "Killer Klowns From Outer Space", which was their big seller I might add.
Comparing making a few extras for KILLER KLOWNS to including entire alternate cuts of films is comparing apples to oranges. The KILLER KLOWNS extras probably cost a few thousand dollars, and it's for a film for which MGM has pretty broad rights. Adding the complete Danish cut of REPTILICUS or DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRLS BOMBS (films for which MGM has more limited rights) to a DVD would cost tens of thousands of dollars and would involve legal clearances, music clearances, separate transfers, separate encodings, new translations, etc. Would it result in, say, $30,000 more in sales? Not very likely.

"But wait!" you protest. "Smaller labels than MGM have included multiple cuts of genre films on their DVDs!" True, but those labels specialize, so to them something like a Bava film would be a big deal. In the case of MGM, it has hundreds of films in its library that will easily outsell REPTILICUS or GIRL BOMBS, so it's pretty difficult to justify the allocation of tens of thousands of extra dollars to those films.




Last Edited By: Jameson281 Aug 10 09 12:56 AM. Edited 1 times.