http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074459/"Echoes of a Summer" was apparently intended to show a softer side of star Richard Harris, who even composed and sang the title soundtrack song. The script unfortunately makes him look pretty silly at times, and though filmed in 1974 the movie sat unreleased even though 11 year old Jodie Foster had done a fabulous job playing Harris' dying daughter.
Then, in February 1976 "Taxi Driver" came out to huge acclaim and Foster became a star, eventually getting an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. Two months later "Echoes of a Summer" was released with Jodie on the poster.
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In October 2006 this movie was announced as a DVD, and a month before release I ordered it at Amazon. But when the shipping date came it suddenly started slipping and eventually it went to backordered and then to cancelled. I ordered it at another site and on eBay, both of which claimed they had it in stock, but what I learned is that websites and eBay sellers just automatically list new DVDs and assume they will get them. It takes a while for news of a cancelled DVD to catch up. I have been looking for this ever since, with no luck, not willing to overspend for a poor VHS copy due to faith it would eventually reappear.
Then a few days ago I was lucky enough to stumble upon news that in only three days it would be shown on a TV station I can get! And even better, since it was on a local broadcast station and the US is now all digital television, my DVR allowed me to transfer it directly via Firewire to my computer, a Pure Digital TV capture all the way from TV station to me with no quality-killing analog step. This is the only one I know of so far, loverboy found someone else out there who was capturing the same showing I was and torrented it a couple of days ago but used an analog camcorder to do his capture.
After watching it, I am surprised this has been "an unknown Jodie Foster movie", the performances are generally pretty good except for Richard Harris, and the story/script may bear most of the blame for that anyway. Eight year old Brad Savage is a good match for Jodie's only friend (outside of her more-friend-than-father).
The quality is limited a bit by the original transfer from film to video and the digital transmission on a limited bandwidth subchannel, and there's an omnipresent network logo and the occasional program teaser text, but this is pretty good quality and probably as good as we will get until a DVD is released. Maybe TV showings will generate renewed interest in a DVD, we can only hope.
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Like this post to see ed2k links [1.03 Gb]File Name .......: Echoes of a Summer (1976).Jodie Foster.PDTV.XviD-FLL.avi
File Size .......: 1,050.04 MB
Duration ........: 01:27:46
Video Codec .....: XviD MPEG-4 codec
Video Bitrate ...: 1544 KB/s
Resolution ......: 640 x 464
Aspect Ratio ....: 1.37:1
Framerate .......: 23.976 FPS
Audio Codec .....: MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3)
Audio Bitrate ...: 128 KB/s (CBR)
Channels ........: 2 Ch