@Pickwick It would appear the whole thing depends on whether IMDb are correct with the time. I've no idea if they are usually accurate especially on this kind of film.
I'm just a bit concerned an incorrect internet entry that may be a bad approximation is causing all the confusion here.
79 minutes does suspiciously look like a 25fps to 24fps adjustment of 75 minutes. It almost looks like 75 minutes was taken as the complete runtime but was thought to be at 'PAL' 25fps.
Don't know if one copied the other but BFI's old Screen online project website has 79 minutes like IMDb:
BFI Screenonline: Goose Steps Out, The (1942)
On the Vintage Classic thread on the Blu channel from post 404 they are discussing the same thing and thinking the IMDB run time is wrong as they can't find anything about these 4min.
Do you have a link to this thread? I can't find it. Is it on avforums?
I've just found this.
Watch The Goose Steps Out online
So the BFI online version is also 75 minutes.
Bri
It may be worth asking the BFI what they think the correct runtime should be as that article mentions they collaborated with SC on this.
Interestingly I did an online search on their national archive and the longest version they have in feet of this feature calculates to no more than 76 minutes. That was listed as 1978 stock date though. Of the 1942 film stock date they have, the longest they have calculates to 75 minutes. See here if you like:
Collections Search | BFI | British Film Institute
Part of the problem seems to be this rumour that the BBC hold the only complete print, but if that's what they used to broadcast it in the 1980s/90s at 72 minutes 25fps speedup then it looks like SC have used it for the blu ray.
I see the blu ray has been confirmed on here as 75 minutes but is that from looking at the player counter as well. Is it confirmed to be encoded at 24p? Sometimes blu ray can be encoded at 50i for 25p material.
Also is it confirmed that the two famous missing scenes from the old butchered DVD are definitely there: i.e. "Slough & Cirencester" in the classroom and later on the "The Pincer Panzer Movement" over the invasion map.
The old butchered 2009 DVD was 66 minutes at 25fps speedup. At 24fps corrected it would be about 69 minutes. If 75 minutes is indeed the correct runtime for this film then any missing scenes would be 6 minutes long. At 6 minutes difference that DVD wasn't quite as butchered as I thought - still bad though.