1970-1980 F1 season reviews to be released on DVD

An interesting snippet in this week's Autosport, in an advert from Grand Prix Legends (the shop, not the game...) :

1980 Formula One season review

Never before have you been able to acquire season reviews for years prior to 1981 but all that is about to change as videos and DVDs of the 11 years from 1970-1980 will shortly be released.

The very first year of the series, 1980, is available shortly but for avid collectors we are offering amazing deals for those who want to collect the entire set. Phone the Orderline for details.

A guarded to this... let us hope this is the original TV footage at last, not the dodgy old Marlboro promo films doing the rounds again.
No mention yet on the Grand Prix Legends website (at least I couldn't find it), but I did find this at Alex Reade International. The write-up on the page is slightly worrying though, let's hope the actual DVD is a bit more accurate....

After a long wait you can enjoy John Watson's championship year in digital quality.

it's GOT to be those ol' Marlboro films, I can't see it being anything else.

Well, there wasn't a Marlboro film for 1980, AFAIK. The last one I have is 1979.

Found it referenced on another site now as well. Release date 19th April.

http://www.mvc.co.uk...ml?pid=50204684

DOUBLE FIRST: WILLIAMS AND JONES:

This is the 'missing year' in F1 history. It has never been made available on DVD before.

It showcases a classic season, which was notable for two firsts: Alan Jones' championship and Williams' constructors' title.

The film is a truly candid portrayal of F1 at the time. It features plenty of racing action plus great close-ups of the major personalities and behind-the-scenes footage.

Fans of F1 have been waiting for this production for a long time, ensuring high demand for this product - backed by an extensive advertising campaign.

I sure hope you are right about this dolomite, but I fear that this is a release (under a different label of course) of the documentary in which they followed Frank Williams during the 1980 season.
I remember it was a fair piece of film, but nothing to get too exited about and for sure not a proper review of the 1980 season.

I don't remember the title and my VHS is stowed away somewhere in the basement, but I'm almost sure that the length is suspiciously close to the aprox. 50 min. of the 'new' DVD.
And what fires my suspicion the most is the fact that this film was aired by Dutch television a couple of years ago and they anounced it as... the season review of 1980.

But I haste to say: I hope you're right and I'm wrong!

Will these be availible in a format for the U.S.A.?

More details now on the Duke Video site for the 1980 DVD
http://www.dukevideo...oducts/3790.htm

Brunswick Films were one of the few producers filming Formula One in the days before global TV coverage and official season review videos. The previously unseen footage from their famous archive has been utilised to create a review packed with on-the-limit driving (including an in-car lap of Brands Hatch), great close-ups of the major personalities and intriguing paddock-side discussions that give the sense of a story unfolding as the season progresses – the story of ‘car wars’ and the battle between set-up, streamlining and engine power.

I would venture to say that these films are the same ones I taped from the TV while living in Europe in the 90's - and the Frank Williams film was one of them. I believe the '78 season review was entitled "The Shape Of Things To Come" (with a Mclaren slant) - could be for '79. Taped them in PAL format and so now not currently accesible. Not anywhere near a record of each season, some races are missed but they all are excellent and different in format/approach. Lotta hand-held stuff. The '74 season review ends with Emmo at Monaco drifting in super slow motion towards the camera...but one example.

I understand that all these Brunswick and Marlboro films uses (especially in the 70s) poor film stock. (perhaps also in the early 1980s?)

Doug Nye mailed me a few years ago:

-snip-

The main problem with 1970s material is that much of it was shot on extremely short-lived
colour film material which has deteriorated very badly with age. If you notice on TV, much of the 1970s news film footage is very poor quality compared to news film shot in the 1960s or even the 1940s and 1930s! It's all down to using cheap original film stock. This situation only really improves into the 1980s as video takes over from chemical film.

(...)

Lutz - at the time the poor film stock was in general use they had no idea how rapidly it was going to deteriorate. When first processed it was as crisp as you like, within a couple of years it had started to merge dies and lose definition

-snap-

But I know there's really superb footage around:



This is from 1977 (!) - excellent tv-quality (Austrian GP/ORF)



Alan Jones winning his first GP

I would love to have for example the 82 saison in that quality on DVD!
But I fear it's poor quality footage...

Has anybody ordered the DVDs yet (1980-83)?

Lutz

According to the Grand Prix Legends site "Bruce Jones won the title"

Originally posted by Maldwyn
According to the Grand Prix Legends site "Bruce Jones won the title"

Yap - and next year Colin Piquet .

Lutz