Blue Underground, with sales and distribution support provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has a new 4K film restoration (from the original camera negatives) of the writing and directing team of Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi’s 1971 film release of Goodbye Uncle Tom (aka: Farewell Uncle Tom).
The release date for this double-disc 4K Ultra HD releases (with Blu-ray and CD companion discs) will be Apr. 23
Following up their Mondo Cane success (among others), Jacopetti and Prosperi were quick to seize upon the cult success of Melvin Van Peebles’ spring of 1971 game-changer film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song with a gritty black narrative film of their own. Note, both Sweetback and Goodbye Uncle Tom reached theatres before Junius Griffin coined the term Blaxploitation in the summer of 1972.
Released in Italy in 1971, Goodbye Uncle Tom didn’t reach domestic shores until a full year later in October of 1972. By then it was a radically different film — cuts and changes were demanded before domestic theatrical exhibition.
What Blue Underground has done is to provide both the original Italian-language cut (136 minutes), with English subtitles, as well as the 123-minutes English-language theatrical cut.
These two different versions of the film are presented on separate 4K Ultra HD discs. The bonus features are on a companion Blu-ray disc.
Included as bonuses are two feature-length documentaries. The first is Andrea Bettinetti’s 2009 film, The Importance of Shocking: Gualtiero Jacopetti, while the second is documentary filmmaker David Gregory’s 2003 release of The Godfathers of Mondo.
Additional bonus goodies include 50 minutes worth of 8mm “behind-the-scenes” footage and a pair of featurettes — “Mondo Mercenaries” and “Abjection Under Authoritarianism.”
There is also a CD soundtrack included with this 4K Ultra HD release from Blue Underground.
