The FRENCH poster for Speed Driver. Same poster used for the Blue Shine Corporation SECAM VHS.
So I got my little Sony VCR working yesterday and it's quite brilliant. It's super quiet and has lots of whirry noises and things that all sound very high tech and lovely and, well, everything!
I figured I'd have a look through my mini collection of Speed Driver VHS cassettes as I have a bit of a project to do with them. If you can help at all with some of it that would be excellent and much appreciated.
So I have 3 different copies of Speed Driver (unlike exospherically magnificent 1986 HYPERFILM, Death Flash, which I have a rather sumptuous 3 exact same UK big box copies of
). Those are:
Speed Driver - 1980 Blue Shine Corporation FRANCE SECAM
(Big Box) VHS - Runtime Unspecified
Speed Driver - 1988 ITALY Titanus Distribuzone re-release (Big Box) PAL VHS - Runtime 113 mins
Speed Driver - 1986 JAPAN Toshiba (Regular Box) NTSC VHS - Runtime 106 minutes
Note that the SECAM cassette is a French dub, the Italian PAL cassette is original Italian audio (mono), and the Japanese NTSC cassette is an English dub with hard-coded Japanese subtitles. All of them are presented as 4:3 and have weird aspect ratio's. Between the Italian and Japanese releases, the Italian release is the best quality in my opinion. It has dirt and cue marks throughout that signal to me that this is some sort of telecine of the original negatives. The Japanese release is more washed out and has the traditional VHS softness to it. It has the same odd aspect ratio masking. The SECAM cassette is a disaster because, well, it will only work on about 6 video recorders in the entire known world. Because it's French. And SECAM. The only people that like SECAM are Julien, a shirehorse in it's late 40's named Colin that lives round the back of a bakery in Berwick-Upon-Tweed, and Pope Gregory The 9th.
Sound is mono (guessing the proper, original audio track) for the Italian release and Stereo for the Japanese release. No surprises with the audio. Both are great, though of course the original Italian audio is preferred for Poliziotteschi connoisseurs!
I haven't gone through each release carefully enough yet to check for any potential censorship or alterations of any kind. However I did notice that the opening titles to the film are totally different!
The original Italian release has a green Speed Driver logo and yellow credits in Italian. The Japanese release has a red Speed Driver logo and red credits in English. The same applies to the closing credits on both releases. Here's some screenshots I took with VLC after quickly capturing both cassettes with my Elgato and lovely new little Sony VCR!
The Italian opening header:The Japanese opening header:Title logo differences. Green (Italy), Red (Japan):Italian credits (sample):Japanese credits (sample):Note that the title card that first appears, Salvatore Smeriglio presents, does also appear on the Italian version as Salvatore Smeriglio presenta. It doesn't appear for as long as the credit on the Japanese release and I couldn't get a quick enough snapshot of it to show you alas.
What I would love to do is find some subtitles for the Italian release and use ALASS to time sync them up. I can't find any anywhere though. Sure this film is rare as hell to find as it is (no not online you sailor of the Seven Seas, I mean the actual releases of the film). The Japanese VHS popped up once (in any searches that I myself have made, YMMV) over the last 7 years or so, and it was commanding a ¥30,000 price tag. The Italian Titanus release has also only turned up once in the same time frame. Though I did spot another release from Italy a couple of years ago that has a nice emerald green back cover and the poster art on the front. It may or may not have been an earlier release, closer to 1980 perhaps? The French SECAM
release I found in a village classifieds outside Nantes, or somewhere near there I think. The cover art if in French, with the English title Speed Driver underneath it.
To round off my little Speed Driver collection I also have an original 1980 cinema lobby poster which was found in the vaults of an old cinema in Palermo that had closed down a few years ago. I completely treasure that poster. Mainly because of it's provenance, not because it's in anywhere near acceptable condition. I don't have the soundtracks on anything other than streaming services. To the best of my knowledge there was no official release from 1980 so I've not looked further.
So anyway, what's the deal with Speed Driver? Why this film?
No particular reason at all to be honest. It's just a poliziotteschi that I've taken to heart. I hope you get to watch it some day too. Just not via some moody Potatovision® bootleg.