Clint’s arrival on UK Home Video Cassette

Clint’s arrival on UK Home Video Cassette

Back in August, 2017, I posted a little piece about Clint’s first arrival on Home Video here in the UK. With some recently discovered photos, I decided to dig a little deeper and update this original post. 

I originally based this simply on a rather old VHS slipcase from the InterVision video release of The Good, the bad and the Ugly (front and spines only). I’ve had this in my collection for quite some time, and in 2017 digitally restored it purely for reasons of nostalgia. We generally agreed that this originally came from late 1980.

InterVision was one of the earliest VHS labels in the UK. Managed by Mike Tenner and Richard Cooper, the company distributed major film releases (namely those from United Artists) as well as horror films through Alpha Video. The company eventually folded following the rise of major VHS distributors in the UK, but not before they released The Good, the bad and the ugly (UA A B5010). 

I remember the campaign quite well, and the whole TV campaign that ran on UK television. I remember a number of clips contained in that advert alongside The Good, the bad and the ugly, such as Network, Carrie, Lenny, Annie Hall and Rollerball – all of course from the United Artist catalogue of film titles.

The packaging came in the shape of a cardboard slip case and the film was naturally a panned and scanned version, which was something of a travesty when it came to Sergio Leone's beautifully crafted widescreen vision. I could never recall if these titles could be bought at the time? 

The sleeve always seemed to have ‘rental only’ which probably explains why there are very few of them floating around to purchase. Perhaps some were sold off as ex-rentals once they were worn down to the bone? However, it did prompt me to go and dig out the wonderful cover (front and spines) which I have in my collection. One of the spines is a little worse for wear; remember these were made of card (and it is some 44 years old now). But I did a quick digital restoration on it before presenting it here. It is near impossible to find a good image or a scan of the packaging anywhere on the internet, so I wanted to change that. I suppose it represents a little piece of history in some respects. It was Clint’s first film ever to be available on the new format and could be watched at any given time. It certainly would shape things in respect of how we would come to view movies and arguably signified something of a revolution.

Just lately, I came in contact with someone who actually has a couple of these old tapes in his collection – and as a result discovered a few more things. It was nice to actually have some pictures of the labels on the video cassette – 2 different in fact. Firstly, there is the more common yellow version but also a much rarer pinkish version of the labels. We are also lucky enough to now have an image of the reverse of the slip case. As well as the brief story outline, it also confirms all 20 titles in InterVision’s initial launch selection. 

I looked a little deeper into the mainstream film magazines of 1980, such as Photoplay, and it was around November and December that the word ‘Video’ started to become more regularly featured in the publication, devoting a full 4 pages to the revolutionary new format! The December 1980 issue of Photoplay provided a couple of paragraphs on InterVision’s new rental releases along with a hint of a couple of reviews promised for the January 1981 issue.  

Photoplay kept to their word and the following piece on InterVision’s rental of The Good, the bad and the ugly appeared in their new year January 1981 issue – confirming that the initial UK launch was probably aimed for the Christmas market of 1980.