MovieChat Forums > Scrooge (1935) Discussion > Legend Films DVD is missing 25% of the m...

Legend Films DVD is missing 25% of the movie!!!

posted 17 years ago by BijouBob8mm
6 replies | jump to latest

Was very shocked and disappointed in the recently released colorized DVD of this film on the Legend label. It uses the same truncated hour-long cut of the film that's haunted bargain bins since the heyday of VHS, with almost 20 minutes of material missing. Given Legend Films' claims about film restoration, coupled with the fact that the full cut of the film has been available from a number of budget video companies for several years, even a miserable miser like Ebeneezer Scrooge would cry "Humbug!" at this presentation.

[–] double_c 17 years ago

Why would you want a colorized version of this anyway?

Elvis is DEAD

[–] BijouBob8mm 17 years ago

Good question. To Legend's credit, they do always include the original B&W version on these, and sometimes have some decent extras which make the package worthwhile. (So you could just ignore the colorized version and enjoy the rest of the set.) This release, however, sports just a few PD Christmas cartoons as bonus features. (Chances are, if you've ever bought a compilation of Christmas cartoons or shorts, you've already got these, anyway.)

[–] bok602 14 years ago

We meet again, Bijou Bob...

You have made an attack on Legend Films!

As Legend Films has made clear many times in their earlier releases and on their website, up until very recently the films they restored were exclusively those that were in the public domain. The prints they used were often television prints which -as you point out- had been trimmed down, or perhaps re-release prints issued by the studio in an abridged form to fit on a double-bill.

The restoration Legend does with the films they have access to is the best that they can do. It is entirely possible that other budget lables have put out discs of the longer version, but perhaps these prints were not made available to the Legend Films team.

Yes, it is regrettable that they did not present the uncut version, but I am pleased just the same that they have refreshed and spiffed up this otherwise neglected film.

"If you don't know the answer -change the question."

[–] jamesmccabe9 14 years ago

If the information on the IMDb is correct, in that the original US release was only 63 minutes long, Legend Films would not have had the rights to put out the 78 minute version. Not that this stopped them from selling copies of Things To Come (1936) or trying to sell colonized versions of Scrooge and Things To Come to European markets where both films have always remained in copyright.

Scrooge (1935) appears to be one of the few UK films that fell in to the public domain in the US that did not come back in to copyright with Gatt in 1996. It appears to have followed all the rules that would have brought it back in to copyright bar one, the requirement that it was first published / released in the UK at least 30 days prior to its release in the US, if the release dates shown on the IMDb are correct.

[–] shadow_priest_x 12 years ago

I can see that this post is quite old, but just in case anyone is interested, this version is now available from Legend Films in the full 78 minute running time.

DVD: http://www.legendfilms.net/retailProductPage.php?item_num=LF00426

Blu-Ray: http://www.legendfilms.net/retailProductPage.php?item_num=LF00559

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (2170) 3 years ago

The copies available on Amazon Prime range between 59 and 61 minutes, but a full length version is available on YouTube.