William Friedkin original Wages of Fear version

[JHoff]

Hello,

I recently discovered there exists an original theatrical version of William Friedkin's Sorcerer that goes by the original title Wages of Fear.

Was this only released on rental tape?

Here's a link to a video of the opening containing the original title 'Wages of Fear'

Czech Titles.

Here’s a peak at the titles of the recut version of Sorcerer, called Wages Of Fear, taken from a Czech print of the film.

sorcerer1977.wordpress.com

 

[DigModiFicaTion]

@JHoff I embedded the youtube video in your post. Is this a fanedit you found or is it an official release?

 

[JHoff]

@JHoff I embedded the youtube video in your post. Is this a fanedit you found or is it an official release?

I'm not sure at the moment. It has been digitized from original film and from what I've gathered so far, I think it's cropped as well.

What I'm trying to find out right now I guess is, does this version even exist besides ex-rental tapes and is anyone here familiar with a possible fan edit containing the original opening?

 

[TM2YC]

'Sorceror' is one of the stupidest and most misleading titles for a film I can recall. It doesn't even make sense when you've watched the film, nevermind as a name to try and entice people to watch it in the first place. I assume some sane person who worked in the international distribution office decided to retitle the film to try and market the film better. There are posters too:

 

[Plissken1138]

Not Friedkin's original version nor original title. That would be a scan of 35mm Czech theatrical print (with burnt-in Czech subtitles) of butchered producer's cut, aka European cut, the truncated flashbacks/nonlinear cut. Someone did a rough "restoration" that's also floating around, using unique footage from that scan and official Blu-ray.

It's the same cut as "Atemlos vor Angst" German TV rip from the ole' DivX days, only with English credits.

You could say it's palatable to average impatient movie consumer but it doesn't compare to Friedkin's original intention that is on Blu-ray.

 

[JHoff]

Not Friedkin's original version nor original title. That would be a scan of 35mm Czech theatrical print (with burnt-in Czech subtitles) of butchered producer's cut, aka European cut, the truncated flashbacks/nonlinear cut. Someone did a rough "restoration" that's also floating around, using unique footage from that scan and official Blu-ray.

It's the same cut as "Atemlos vor Angst" German TV rip from the ole' DivX days, only with English credits.

You could say it's palatable to average impatient movie consumer but it doesn't compare to Friedkin's original intention that is on Blu-ray.

Okay. Then I guess my topic title was misleading, sry.

The alternate intro reminded me of Kubrick's 'The Shining' with it's helicopter shots, eerie music and mountains.

Even though I have searched with the german title, the spanish title and even with the japanese title, I still only keep getting releases that hold the 121 minute original 'Sorcerer' and never the 92 minute CIC "international" cut.

Here's a good clip of the alternate footage in Wages of Fear (1978).

Needless to say but I wanna see this in complete format so baaad.

 

[TM2YC]

^ Oh wow, so it has about 26-minutes of alt footage and a different upbeat(ish) ending.