GOING STEADY, THO EVIDENTLY NOT WITH THE CUTTING SCISSORS!

Watched the APPALING Israeli DVD transfer today of "Going Steady" with the muffled and poor quality original Hebrew language track accompanying a scratched (light black cross-scratches affecting around 95% of the film) and very worn and damaged print.
It's the version of choice at the moment, as I don't like any dubbing and this DVD is at least English sub-titled and in the language it was filmed in. I want to hear the original actors performances!

Noticed many bad jumps and severed music cues through-out too. Also it's not only in the incorrect aspect ratio but the DVD master just dumps the image in the centre resulting for horrendous visuals like this....

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/8669/vlcsnap1573838.png

(who cut off poor Benzi's legs and left them in the corner!!?) ;)

Which prompted me to download the sublime sounding German Universum remastered edition, just to check out the difference in quality. A quick Rapidsearch soon located one!

It's largely useless to me of course as it's German dubbed with no English or indeed ANY sub-titles and to be honest, the dubbing seemed so over the top (adding a silly laugh to Tammy's quiet giggles in the library for example) it totaly spoiled the film.
So forgetting the obvious MAJOR leap in quality (you've NEVER EVER seen "Going Steady" looking quite as great as the Universum remaster; fantastic colours and a mostly clean print in the correct aspect ratio!!! PERFECTION!) there was a lot of other oddities that sprung up too!

Aside from the obvious ones such as alternate English language titles, going from this....

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/248/vlcsnap1561069.png

to this....

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/8901/vlcsnap1556984.png

with the inevitable switching from....

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/3922/vlcsnap1565856.png

to....

http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/4341/vlcsnap1560161.png

(This at least points to the fact that Golan-Globus probably only struck two visual masters for the film, one English, one Hebrew, no German)

But guess what? It doesn't stop there either!!!!

Benzi/Benji and Tammy in the library obviously had two takes for the American market; Hebrew and English text versions! Comparison's listed in order!

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/5941/vlcsnap1561744.png
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/3766/vlcsnap1557546.png

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/200/vlcsnap1562216.png
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/886/vlcsnap1557688.png

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/5507/vlcsnap1563541.png
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/5899/vlcsnap1558666.png

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/8506/vlcsnap1563698.png
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/1139/vlcsnap1558830.png

And then again at the estate agents....

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/695/vlcsnap1565200.png
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/4566/vlcsnap1559322.png

Re-rendering text by visual effects would've been too expensive back then, particularly for a low budget Israeli film, which means they actually re-filmed scenes as part of the production! It's hard to tell if there's subtle performance differences as both versions are sized differently with vastly different colours and contrast.

Here's the weirdest thing though. Cuts. Both versions are a victim of cuts in some way to the scene where Benzi and Tammy are about to make love, seemingly to remove actress Yvonne Michaels' nudity.
You can tell how much is missing by the jumps on the accompanying song to the scene; "My Little One".
The Israeli version jumps significantly missing Benzi getting up and a view of Tammy nude from the side. Counting the beats of the song (taking into account the Israel version plays the song a little faster) there seems to be around 8 seconds of the song missing, also meaning around 8 seconds of missing visuals too!
Maybe Michaels is now disputing the use of her nudity, or when she filmed the scene she was younger then would be legally allowed now, or maybe none of these things!!
Either way, her nudity is completely missing from the Israeli version.
How do I know those visuals were most likely her nudity? Well the Universum remaster restores this shot....

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/8258/vlcsnap1559738.png

A scene where Benzi rises sharply from the floor and Tammy is seen nude from the side. And the song still jumps on this version, tho with no accompanying sound effects for the scene, it makes it very easy for all concerned to re-jiggle the song to get around edits, which Universum at least have done neatly, if still obviously.
What are the cuts is the question? And why are the cuts!!? Although Universum claim FULLY UNCUT I doubt any theatrical version would feature the song sounding so obviously dis-jointed??? Something funny's a foot...!
(Anyone have any earlier versions of the film to see if the song plays complete with no jumps or atleast less of them?)

As suspected the Israeli version gets around damaged reel changes (the most handled section of film where one part begins and another starts) by completely removing them severing music and resulting in missing footage.
This is evident on the scene where Y'hudale/Huey is crying on the steps with Brecha/Brenda as Benzi/Benji walks away. "Sleepwalk" plays and as the end of the song closes the scene it's abruptly cut short in this version. The Universum master restores the last chords of the song and a longer take of Brecha/Brenda comforting Huey/Y'hudale. There's quite a few instances of similar errors throughout the Israeli version as reel changes would be approximately every twenty minutes so no doubt any damaged ones have been 'clipped'.

This doesn't bode well for a definitive Hebrew with English sub-titled version becoming available.
Even if you used the visuals from the Universum remaster, clearly the best Hebrew language audio that could be found is this muffled version with audio missing due to the footage missing with it.

This paints a better picture as to why mastering these films correctly is seemingly becoming impossible without a pure untouched master negative.

Sad times.....

"IT'S AN OPPINION - IT CAN'T BE WRONG!" - The GREAT Jack Black!

M A R C