On my Father's Day want list.;)

Really considering getting Penda's Fen on the way home from work as a treat in advance of my taking an exam a week today. I wont be watching it as I have revision to do but in our HMV they tend to only get these things on initial release and then you have to special order them.

I think you'd like it, Justin. :nod:

Can anyone tell me how much longer The Firm directors cut is to the original version please?

Also as i'm still dvd only is it actually worth paying a tenner for when i could pick up the tv version for a quid.

Finally, @Stephen, if you could link that review you mentioned it would be brilliant.

Thanks for any help guys. It's a film i've never seen and all your chat has made me want to watch it.

It's 1 minute longer :lol:

The back lists 67 min and 68 min, but it might be a case of alternative footage.

From what Reaper was saying it's a strong minute of footage then. It's probably extra seconds of stabbings or punching.

The broadcast version is 66:59, the director's cut is 68:06 - so technically just over a minute.

But that doesn't tell the whole story, because the broadcast version also contains unique material - the entire opening sequence with Bex doing his estate-agent day job (concluding with the monkey impression, which also isn't in the director's cut), the initial scene with his dad (after his car is vandalised), a near-final scene where the police visit Sue, etc.

Also, running-time comparisons are blurred by the fact that there've been a few shot substitutions - the scene in which Sue is trying to seduce Bex in the kitchen is conducted in long shot in the director's cut but medium shot in the broadcast version, to eliminate some fairly blatant crotch-rubbing - and some dialogue has also been modified. So it's a bit like The Devils, where the running-time gap between the US and UK versions makes the differences seem a lot less pronounced than they actually are.

Thanks, Michael.

It sounds like the directors cut is the one to go for then.

It's swings and roundabouts. It's certainly Clarke's preferred version, but it's been unavoidably compromised by the fact that it only survives as an ungraded workprint in fairly rough condition - presumably because the original negative was censored and the offcuts discarded. The BFI conscientiously replaced all the common-to-both-cuts footage with far superior material sourced from the original neg, and they've done their best to colour-match everything, but the picture quality dips fairly dramatically whenever it cuts to material unique to the director's cut - sometimes within the same shot.

By contrast, the more familiar broadcast version is the same superb quality throughout.

Thanks for the detailed info Michael. You've been a big help. :thankingyou: