Well, actually ... I finished DLing it, thank you! The German VHS video is a little over 86 minutes, including 6 minutes of coming attractions, so the movie itself is 80.5 minutes. It does indeed have additional (body double) footage.deadman wrote:The VHS version I posted a link to has some coming attractions previews at the end so even that 100m version is probably shorter than it claims. The film clearly still exists at the studio since they were able to do a DVD release (despite it not being the best quality)
Full disclosure:
It is also in 1.33 aspect ratio, but cropped on the sides compared to the 1.85 DVD version. This is NOT a case like "Pretty Baby," with its open-matte home video releases having more image on the top and bottom. This has the same top and bottom detail, and less on the sides. Sorry. IMDB lists the aspect ratio as 1.66, which means the film as released ought to have more top-and-bottom information than the 1.85 DVD. (That is, it was shot spherically in open-matte at 1.33, then cropped top-and-bottom for various aspect ratios.)
Question about the various DVD releases: are ANY of them official releases by the original producers? Any grubby bootlegger can telecine a scratched-up print and press DVDs, or make use of existing telecine made for television. All I can find are 76 minute (cut) DVDs in countries other than Italy. I don't doubt the possibility that the copyright owners / production company / studio (if they still exist) have at least some prints of the theatrically-released 86 minute version, and maybe even the 86-minute negative, if they have not stored it poorly and allowed it to disintegrate. I simply do not believe they are likely to have saved odds-and-ends of edited footage that could be used to construct the fabled 100 minute version. In those days that stuff got thrown out. They did not think about future DVD extras.
For that matter, it does not seem that even the full 86-minute version is here at FLM, am I right? I have to call bullshit on any claims of 100 minutes. Wishful thinking on blogs is not evidence for its existence. I would be happy to be proved wrong!