MovieChat Forums > Ashanti (1979) Discussion > Free DVD with Mail On Sunday

Free DVD with Mail On Sunday


Had'nt seen this film in over twenty years, and yet they cut Caine's character shooting the slave trader Sullaman, plus the nomad's knifing of the other trader when they come across more children in a hideout. To be honest it ruined the concept of the film being 'free' on DVD when it was cut to shreds.

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Not only that but because it was hacked from widescreen, as seen to good effect in the credits, to 4:3 full frame you effectively miss half the film - a tragedy in a movie so much depending on scenery and local colour for its atmosphere. When are these guys going to realise that releasing movies in this form , even if they are free with a newspaper, totally spoils the viewing pleasure for many people, including myself

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Totally agreed.

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It would be interesting to know who was responsible for cutting the film. I doubt it was the BBFC.

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I can only talk about the PAL format here, as I have not seen the NTSC versions. When submitted to the BBFC, the film had a running time of 117m 18s. They also state that when the Video (VHS) was submitted to them in 1987 and 1992, the work had a running time of 112m 53s and no cuts were made. Considering the PAL format at 25 fps, the running time will be shorter by approximately 4%, so no cuts seems correct.

I also remember watching this film on VHS tape a number of times in the late 80's, and I remember the scenes of the slave trader Suleiman (Peter Ustinov) being shot by Dr. Linderby (Michael Caine) and the knifing of the other trader at the children's hideout. Also, there was an apparent rape of the young slave boy by Suleiman's slave driver. It was there on the VHS tape, but those scenes are not on my DVD.

The DVD was submitted to the BBFC in 2002. This time, the work had only a running time of 109m 43s, and it was passed with no cuts made. So, where has the 3 minutes of footage gone?

I demand the studio (Mosaic Movies) to re-release this DVD in the original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN WITH NO CUTS.

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Yes I agree that this is deeply questionable. I can only assume that the most recent version was pre-cut by the distributors for some peculiar reason - though, as the film had a 15 rating anyway, there was no logic in them doing so.

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Since the DVD is bargain basement, maybe they simply used an old censored TV master tape. That would account for the 4:3 ratio too.

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Why'd they cut the movie for?.

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I know at one time there was a debate about whether 15 rated movies should be given away with newspapers in case the underage would be able to view them.
However films such as Highlander, The Fourth Protocol, Last Orders and more recently Sympathy For The Devil were all handed out free, so maybe this debate petered out.

I can only assume that this print was taken from a pre-cut or TV version. The BBFC have never edited it.

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Ok It appears that this problem isn't just with the Daily Mail DVD.


I have just rented the proper R2 DVD from Blockbuster and it's the same. It is cut and is fullscreen.

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