Don't buy horrid looking bootlegs. Warner Home Video is now selling an official DVD of this film exclusively on their webstore:
http://www.wbshop.com/Defector%2c-The-+MOD/1000088099,default,pd.html? cgid=ARCHIVE
Warner Archive is such a fantastic concept and a great move for film buffs. Focusing on films never released on dvd, Warner is reaching into it's film vaults and producing an official dvd on demand instead of a mass release.
To me, this is similar to the Elvis Presley imprint, Follow That Dream. Assuming that most Elvis fans have all of the "official" material released during his lifetime, Follow That Dream releases special limited edition releases in special packaging with tons of extras and outtakes. These releases are not meant for the casual fan, only the collector, completist or serious fan.
Knowing that retailers are reducing shelf space for dvds in favor of displaying the most popular titles, and wanting a way to offer the rest of the titles in their vaults (thus far, Warner has released about 1,500 of the 6,000+ movies in their vaults on dvd), Warner Archive gives the studio a way to offer these films without dedicating massive resources to a mass production and without utilizing a largescale deployment of dvds across the country. Only those who want the film will order it, eliminating the "shotgun" approach used before.
With films like "The Defector" and others revealed in the first round of titles offered, Warner has given film buffs like myself a way to finally own these rare titles in an official, high quality print. Thank you, Warners! I will definitely look forward to future releases.
I obtained a copy of this movie from Warner's Archive On Demand Series. I'm quite unhappy to discover that its version is incomplete, no longer than TV prints. I have a short scene (from a showing on TNT) which is missing from the Warner version. At about 18 minutes in, after Clift's first meeting with Hardy Kruger, just prior to his Art Gallery visit there is a short scene at his hotel (clearly cut for TV) in which Clift runs into a female hotel employee clad only in a towel. She seems to have been bathing, and asks Clift not to tell the management because she isn't supposed to use the bathroom and will be fired. She then calls him Professor. He asks how she knows he is a professor. She makes a lame excuse and you see a Hotel manager signaling he wishes to see her. This tips him off that he is being observed. This scene ISN'T in the Warner version. HR
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Wow thanks for that! Not only is that scene missing from the Warner version, but also from the Italian print, which is clearly using the same master (I compared them as I own both).
Does that scene mean anything though?
I have this movie off a couple of tv stations in Europe but never watched them, I shall look into it, good stuff.
The running time (109 minutes) for the picture does not come close to what is out there. Even allowing for a possible Pal/NTSC discepancy, the film is probably 12 to fifteen minutes short. HR
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