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Post by John Wall on Feb 24, 2018 0:51:28 GMT
its also possible that while some prints were to be destroyed localy and others were requested to be sent back to BBC Enterprises that the employees took the easy way out and simply sent all the film prints they had back instead of sorting out which ones the BBC wanted and which ones they did not want There are all sorts of possibilities - if you can’t find the prints that are required you substitute others in the (probably correct) assumption that no one at the other end will unwind the reel to check.
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Post by Douglas Wulf on Feb 24, 2018 7:08:31 GMT
TIEA may not have had "hubs" exactly, but there were somehow offices or representatives of some in various places, to include in Africa and in the Middle East.
For example, from a picture (from 1972) on the Broadwcast website ...
T.I.E. (SALES), LTD., P.O. Box 3738, BEIRUT, LEBANON Cables: Habibsatel, Beirut. Tel: 235570.
Someone was checking the P.O. Box at least and answering the phone.
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Post by Douglas Wulf on Feb 24, 2018 7:11:29 GMT
There is also
T.I.E. (Europe) Ltd. Plantage Middenlaan 38, Amsterdam.
Place Malesherbes 24, Paris 17e.
Place du Cirque 4 Geneva.
with names of representatives and phone numbers.
Also, as the Broadwcast website indicates, “TIE engages the services of a shipping agent, Messrs B & B Couriers Ltd, who maintain offices at London Airport and have representatives in New York, Africa and the Far East.” There could be shipping records with this company that could indicate where films were sent, etc. I assume that's all be looked into already.
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Post by John Wall on Feb 24, 2018 11:34:16 GMT
There is nothing to lose by checking things, if available.
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Post by John Wall on Feb 24, 2018 14:25:58 GMT
There is also T.I.E. (Europe) Ltd. Plantage Middenlaan 38, Amsterdam. Place Malesherbes 24, Paris 17e. Place du Cirque 4 Geneva. with names of representatives and phone numbers. Also, as the Broadwcast website indicates, “TIE engages the services of a shipping agent, Messrs B & B Couriers Ltd, who maintain offices at London Airport and have representatives in New York, Africa and the Far East.” There could be shipping records with this company that could indicate where films were sent, etc. I assume that's all be looked into already. This shows that there weren’t “hubs”. There would be no justification for a “hub” in Paris AND Amsterdam AND Geneva.
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Post by Douglas Wulf on Feb 24, 2018 17:08:34 GMT
There is also T.I.E. (Europe) Ltd. Plantage Middenlaan 38, Amsterdam. Place Malesherbes 24, Paris 17e. Place du Cirque 4 Geneva. with names of representatives and phone numbers. Also, as the Broadwcast website indicates, “TIE engages the services of a shipping agent, Messrs B & B Couriers Ltd, who maintain offices at London Airport and have representatives in New York, Africa and the Far East.” There could be shipping records with this company that could indicate where films were sent, etc. I assume that's all be looked into already. This shows that there weren’t “hubs”. There would be no justification for a “hub” in Paris AND Amsterdam AND Geneva. I would guess that they are offices where TIE, Ltd. representatives work, but there may be no films stored. Maybe films were simply kept either at the UK hub or else with the various stations. However, TIE, Ltd. had to be kind of a big organization because it set up a dozen or more independent stations around the world from scratch. That would take a fair number of people to accomplish.
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Post by John Wall on Feb 24, 2018 17:28:42 GMT
This shows that there weren’t “hubs”. There would be no justification for a “hub” in Paris AND Amsterdam AND Geneva. I would guess that they are offices where TIE, Ltd. representatives work, but there may be no films stored. Maybe films were simply kept either at the UK hub or else with the various stations. However, TIE, Ltd. had to be kind of a big organization because it set up a dozen or more independent stations around the world from scratch. That would take a fair number of people to accomplish. The simplest solution is to “store” prints at the various stations. Of course in some instances there was probably a predetermined route that prints took.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2018 21:54:01 GMT
Were any prints sent elsewhere after being screened in Singapore, or have all the bicycling chains been examined? In the case of 'The Celestial Toymaker', its final screening took place in Singapore in 1973 - the same year the serial was removed from overseas sales, despite information suggesting that a print was returned from Sierra Leone the following year in 1974. The difficulty is in making the distinction between where prints were screened and where they were stored ready for return. The old T.I.E. documentation makes reference to 'bicycling hubs' (London was one of them). I feel that if we find out where the other hubs were abroad, we'd have more information as to the movement of the overseas prints, but it would appear that the documentation either hasn't been looked for or no longer exists. The key point is that a final screening date is not indicative of a time-bound recall/destruction date as it would appear that prints were systematically destroyed from country to country, as opposed to serial by serial all in one go.
Not necessarily. Not all the documentation of the time still exists or can be located. Recovery experts in the past have said that Singapore is a black hole in terms of surviving documentation.
My research has taken into account various statements made by the experts on these forums and elsewhere (Phil Morris, Paul Vanezis etc.) and the information provided by BroaDWcast and Missing Episodes BlogSpot to essentially join the dots. It is purely speculative with a good dose of logic, but to me it makes a lot of sense.
I've made a spreadsheet that tracks the year-by-year movements of prints, their final screening dates and the final recall/destruction dates. It shows when the master tapes were erased, when the films were removed from overseas sales, which audits they appeared in (1976 BBC audit, 1977 Film Library audit and 1978 Villiers House audit) etc. Using the spreadsheet, I can clearly see correlations between when things were destroyed and whether they exist now. I've then ranked the serials in terms of how likely a print is to survive based on the number of countries that purchased the serials. This has produced, in my mind, a highly accurate probability tracker for the return of missing serials. As you'd expect, serials such as 'The Power of the Daleks' and 'The Tenth Planet' are near the very bottom as its thought that only two prints were ever struck of these serials. However, there are a couple of interesting anomalies. For example, 'The Wheel in Space' was removed from sale during 1974, with all prints being destroyed that year - but it was shown in Nigeria in 1975. Obviously, the 'sales' period is separate to the 'broadcast' period, but there is no record of the serial being returned in 1976/77 when the broadcast rights would have ended. This is why I believe it to be such a strong candidate for recovery, though in saying that, 1976 was also the year 'Galaxy 4' was destroyed (and from which #3 has been recovered) potentially along with 'The Space Pirates' having recently been returned from Zambia.
I don't listen to news reports as they are highly inaccurate - one only has to think back to the Daily Mirror falsely stating that over 90 missing episodes had been found back in 2013. All my research comes from people in the know, and the information that has been found out about these things.
Thanks for sharing this, Chris. I hoping that once Phil Morris search is over that we get a few more insights into the situation regarding the episodes sent to Singapore, and also Zambia. I think we're going to hear a few surprise facts, not some much on the returns front, but revelatory new information on the the whole 'bicycling-chain movement'. I think a lot of what we believe to be the case up to now may well be turned on it's head. Why I say this is because, prior to Phil visiting Sierra Leone, it was generally believed that much missing material was kept in the TV station there up until the civil war. Phil discovered records that showed differently. Statements by experts, and bicycling-chain research thanks to BroaDWcast and other sites are invaluable and crucial at this stage, but I believe the best research is 'boots on the ground'. Phil has been doing this, and as a result, I believe the fruit of this will be will more documentation discovered in grey-areas like Singapore and Zambia. As for only two prints struck of The Tenth Planet and The Power of the Daleks, one print of each episode is all you need to make a recovery. Phil said in a Doctor Who Magazine interview in 2013 that he believed The Tenth Planet is still out there. The more prints there are of an episode I think the higher chance of survival, but then also that means as many chances of said prints being discovered sitting on a shelf and subsequently junked by an employee. I think though that speculating, discussion and debates on the moment of these episodes and where they ending up is really interesting, but the debate can eventually become an end in itself. I'm speaking mostly about how so much discussion and circular-debating has been going on the other forums now since 2013, that it feels like everyone is jaded to the point now that even if 90 missing episodes did present themselves, it would be like, so what, we knew that anyway, so what else can we debate about now?
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Post by Chris Wilkinson on Feb 25, 2018 12:50:54 GMT
Thanks for sharing this, Chris. I hoping that once Phil Morris search is over that we get a few more insights into the situation regarding the episodes sent to Singapore, and also Zambia. I think we're going to hear a few surprise facts, not some much on the returns front, but revelatory new information on the the whole 'bicycling-chain movement'. I think a lot of what we believe to be the case up to now may well be turned on it's head. Why I say this is because, prior to Phil visiting Sierra Leone, it was generally believed that much missing material was kept in the TV station there up until the civil war. Phil discovered records that showed differently. Statements by experts, and bicycling-chain research thanks to BroaDWcast and other sites are invaluable and crucial at this stage, but I believe the best research is 'boots on the ground'. Phil has been doing this, and as a result, I believe the fruit of this will be will more documentation discovered in grey-areas like Singapore and Zambia. As for only two prints struck of The Tenth Planet and The Power of the Daleks, one print of each episode is all you need to make a recovery. Phil said in a Doctor Who Magazine interview in 2013 that he believed The Tenth Planet is still out there. The more prints there are of an episode I think the higher chance of survival, but then also that means as many chances of said prints being discovered sitting on a shelf and subsequently junked by an employee. I think though that speculating, discussion and debates on the moment of these episodes and where they ending up is really interesting, but the debate can eventually become an end in itself. I'm speaking mostly about how so much discussion and circular-debating has been going on the other forums now since 2013, that it feels like everyone is jaded to the point now that even if 90 missing episodes did present themselves, it would be like, so what, we knew that anyway, so what else can we debate about now? Any new information from people such as Phil Morris would be interesting even if there are no actual recoveries. It would be good to discover what Ian Levine said he saw in the 1970s when he first got into this - a wall chart depicting the entire bicycling chain movements. This might be useful for other missing television programmes who used the same system and may lead to a great number of lost episodes being recovered successfully.
I hope the pieces of the puzzle do eventually fall into place, and that the documentation for Singapore/Zambia still exists, but I would also say that we should be prepared for nothing much. Documents that are fifty years old in the hands of people who don't consider them of use are not likely to last that long. What exists today is but a fraction of a much more complete past.
I honestly believe the comment about The Tenth Planet #4 still being out there is seriously wishful thinking. Just because three of the four exist doesn't mean to say the last one does. Remember, it's likely that the #4 print that still existed (and was likely returned from Singapore earlier in 1973) was the one that was cut up by the Blue Peter team to extract the regeneration scene. It could very readily been thrown out afterwards - and there's nothing to say the Australian print of 1975 survived either. Therefore, The Tenth Planet #4 is likely gone forever.
It's all about probability at the end of it all. There have been 49 recoveries, of which only 26 have been sourced from overseas. Out of a total of 253 episodes from that era, the overseas recovery rate constitutes 10.3% of all 1960s Doctor Who episodes. The likelihood of an overseas recovery from that statistic alone is not very high, but then again not impossible. That's why, based on the anomalous evidence, I'm suggesting The Wheel in Space would be a strong candidate for recovery and perhaps the last full serial still in existence overseas. Only time will tell...
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Post by John Wall on Feb 25, 2018 16:35:10 GMT
Any new information from people such as Phil Morris would be interesting even if there are no actual recoveries. It would be good to discover what Ian Levine said he saw in the 1970s when he first got into this - a wall chart depicting the entire bicycling chain movements. This might be useful for other missing television programmes who used the same system and may lead to a great number of lost episodes being recovered successfully.
I hope the pieces of the puzzle do eventually fall into place, and that the documentation for Singapore/Zambia still exists, but I would also say that we should be prepared for nothing much. Documents that are fifty years old in the hands of people who don't consider them of use are not likely to last that long. What exists today is but a fraction of a much more complete past.
I honestly believe the comment about The Tenth Planet #4 still being out there is seriously wishful thinking. Just because three of the four exist doesn't mean to say the last one does. Remember, it's likely that the #4 print that still existed (and was likely returned from Singapore earlier in 1973) was the one that was cut up by the Blue Peter team to extract the regeneration scene. It could very readily been thrown out afterwards - and there's nothing to say the Australian print of 1975 survived either. Therefore, The Tenth Planet #4 is likely gone forever.
It's all about probability at the end of it all. There have been 49 recoveries, of which only 26 have been sourced from overseas. Out of a total of 253 episodes from that era, the overseas recovery rate constitutes 10.3% of all 1960s Doctor Who episodes. The likelihood of an overseas recovery from that statistic alone is not very high, but then again not impossible. That's why, based on the anomalous evidence, I'm suggesting The Wheel in Space would be a strong candidate for recovery and perhaps the last full serial still in existence overseas. Only time will tell...
There is a certain amount of misinformation being perpetrated. Ian Levine was the subject of an article in something like DWM in, I think, the eighties - someone scanned it and posted a link to this forum but I haven't been able to find it. In that he recounts what was the “received wisdom” at the time - that every overseas sale had a separate print. There was no knowledge, or contemplation, of bicycle chains at that time - that came later.
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Post by kurt devery on Feb 25, 2018 22:43:17 GMT
There has been some talk on here of the Wheel In Space just curious as to why the Abominable Snowman isn't referred to as that was also in the same sales batch as Enemy and Web wasn't it? ...
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Post by kurt devery on Feb 25, 2018 22:53:37 GMT
This is just my personal hope that the next release after Enemy special will bring us a surprise
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2018 22:56:13 GMT
There has been some talk on here of the Wheel In Space just curious as to why the Abominable Snowman isn't referred to as that was also in the same sales batch as Enemy and Web wasn't it? ... The Wheel in Space recovery, I heard on a recent podcast, came from a recovery of already existing episodes of The Wheel in Space from a film collector who had passed away in Australia. Word got around on the forums that missing-episodes of The Wheel in Space were in this find. Not so. Where else have you heard this story, Kurt? It has been raised before about why The Abominable Snowman was not with Enemy and Web. Was this the "something else" swiped item (along with WOF3) or was this Marco Polo? Hopefully we'll know the full details of this intriguing story one day?
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Post by kurt devery on Feb 25, 2018 22:59:29 GMT
Sorry for any confusion certainly not wishing to start any unfounded rumours it was purely conjecture from a couple of mention's on here.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2018 23:01:12 GMT
It's all about probability at the end of it all. There have been 49 recoveries, of which only 26 have been sourced from overseas. Out of a total of 253 episodes from that era, the overseas recovery rate constitutes 10.3% of all 1960s Doctor Who episodes. The likelihood of an overseas recovery from that statistic alone is not very high, but then again not impossible. Possibly this low statistic is because there haven't been enough thorough 'no-stone-unturned/boots-on-the-ground' searches to establish if there are indeed more lost episodes overseas?
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