There will be a number of readers who know the story concerning our deal from 1968/9, a landmark contract for Derann in which we acquired the rights to several Universal/Paramount titles that included ‘The Evil of Frankenstein’, ‘Magnificent Obsession’, ‘Flower Drum Song’, ‘The Mummy’, ‘The Invisible Man’, ‘To Hell and Back’, ‘Blue Skies’ and its crowning glory ‘Psycho’. However the deal came to an end just a few years later when it was discovered that the employee Derek had dealt with did not have the authority to make the deal and it was cancelled. Recently I was talking to a good friend, who’d worked in the film industry for many years and we were discussing the current trend of reclassifying older films like ‘Watership Down’ which now has a PG due to its “mild violence, threat, brief bloody images and bad language” and then broached modern censorship. He then said ‘I bet your 8mm release of Psycho was the uncensored version!’. ‘How come’ I said and this was his reasoning. ” As your deal was with MCA it’s just possible that any master material supplied would have been from America and threfore uncut. Unlike the UK, where the BBFC had demanded cuts, and unlike the later video market, 8mm films didn’t have to submitted to the BBFC for classification. [Here’s what IMDb state for Psycho: ‘United Kingdom:X (1960, original rating, cut) BBFC required cuts to stabbing sounds and visible nude shots; United Kingdom:15 (2003, video rating, cut) and finally United Kingdom:15 (2021, Blu-ray rating, uncut’]. So was our standard 8 release of Psycho uncensored, if so it means that our prints were over 50 years ahead of the Blu-ray release!! I only saw two or three prints of this title pass through 99 High Street and never had chance to view them… so is there any one who can answer the question, were the Derann standard 8 cut or uncut?
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Derann and its Standard 8 Prints of Psycho… Uncensored?
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Comments
6 responses to “Derann and its Standard 8 Prints of Psycho… Uncensored?”
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My friend from Norway, Jan Andresen won a standard 8mm print at the Blackpool raffle. Maybe he can confirm if the print is uncut.
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I haven’t come around to watch it yet, but when I do, what do I have to see after to find out if it’s cut or not? He’d mentioned sound was cut in UK, but there would also be some scenes that are shorter?
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Nice read. I still have my Std8 feature and enjoy it every time we project it.
In my opinion one of the best features on Std8-
But is it uncut..?
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Would have loved a super 8 feature of this film
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I only have the 200ft standard 8 extrect and that has shots not in the UK Blu ray disc. I saw a comparison with a German(?) release on-line and the shots that are in that one ARE in the 200ft Derann extract. I would assume they are also in the Dearnn Standard 8 full feature release.
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