This is one of our favourite films, we had the Iver 400 footer for well over 10 years, it wasn't too bad an edit was but marred by fade and a few heavy black lines. We were one of the Iver customers who placed an order for the upcoming 3 x 400ft version, unfortunately, they went bust before its release. I wonder if there is an iver 3 x 400ft version anywhere that may have been a test print.
Move onto 2016 and behold a 16mm feature print appeared on ebay. It was advertised as a near mint feature print. The few screenshots looked fabulous so i put in the buy it now price, thankfully, no one appeared to spot it beforehand.
The film arrived on 3 x 1600ft spools in plastic cans, it all looked very good, i gave it a good clean up with filmguard, put it on, and was very pleased to see it really was an excellent print in great shape and with excellent vibrant colours throughout, pin sharp image and great belting sound. It does appear to be a TV print, thankfully, the Americans dont mind the violence, which in a Peckinpah films is detrimental. However, they dont seem to like to show titties or bums . The result is two very slight edits which although minor, do make you wonder in one part what happens to the guy who goes into the room with the girl and dissapears, this is three minutes that will be restored back in.
The image appears to be slightly masked for widescreen, my guess is 1.85:1
What these images dont show is how bright and vibrant the greens are, the stock on the side of the film is 2 S (or 2 5), i have no idea what it is but it's like a new print. There is virtually no marks on any of the movie. Three very good splices only thoughout the whole film.
All in all, a great action war movie with some great actors including James Coburn, James Mason, David Warner and Maximilian Schell.
Cross of Iron (German: Steiner – Das Eiserne Kreuz, lit. "Steiner – The Iron Cross") is a 1977 war film directed by Sam Peckinpah, featuring James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason and David Warner. Set on the Eastern Front in World War II during the Soviets' Caucasus operations against the German Kuban bridgehead on the Taman Peninsula in late 1943, the film focuses on the class conflict between a newly arrived, aristocratic Prussian officer who covets winning the Iron Cross and a cynical, battle-hardened infantry NCO.
The film is noted for featuring historically accurate weaponry and equipment such as Soviet T-34/85 tanks (which were obtained from the arsenal of the Yugoslav People's Army, and kept especially for cinematic purposes), Russian PPSh-41s and German MG 42s and MP40s. According to star James Coburn, the Yugoslav government had promised that all the military equipment would be ready for the start of filming, but Hartwig's lack of budget meant that considerable delays occurred when half the equipment was missing just as the production was about to begin.