MovieChat Forums > Der heiße Tod (1969) Discussion > Alternate TV Version?

Alternate TV Version?

posted 12 years ago by kamikaze-4
3 replies | jump to latest

It’s been a long time since I saw this movie. I rented The old VHS version (NTA) with the lurid cover art, and I have the Blue Underground version. One thing that strikes me odd about this film is, was there an alternative version to this film? As a teenager, I saw a heavily cut TV version of this film titled: Island of Despair. Did the producers make a soft TV version? One of the prisoners (Eliza Montes) was talking about how she wound up in prison. Apparently, she murdered her rival for an older man. The scenes where Montes walks the sandy beach , and looking at a swing set rocking back and forth were rather memorable. I scanned through my Blue Underground copy (the movie is boring), and saw no such scene. Rosalba Neri’s flashback as well as Maria Rohm’s flashback were present, but no such scene with Eliza exists.
Hmm.

[–] jimmyoh 12 years ago

The Blue Underground DVD had that scene as an extra on the non-X version of the film. Don Hulette was the director of those scenes that were shot in the U.S. and added by NTA when they syndicated it as "Island of Despair" in early 1973. It was attached to the Rosalba Neri backstory rather than Eliza Montes. It went on for a good 7-8 minutes. The drawback on the DVD is that it is sourced from a Greek-subtitled print. It was on TV for years with the additional scenes, so it's surprising that they couldn't find a print without subtitles. I really liked those scenes as well.

[–] kamikaze-4 12 years ago

Thanks for the info. Of course, If I paid a bit more attention to the extras, I would have known. Geez!

[–] AnonymousReviewer 10 years ago

Wish they would have found a way to put the deleted scenes back onto the movie.

Thanks for the Info that at least they are in the DVD extras.