Mad Max 1 fans owning the original VHS - we need YOU!

[Uncle Entity]

They had it since day one.

However someone post the italian VHS sounds just like the Australian mono as found on the 4K UHD disc.

We need to trace the lineage. That's a conumdrum, but aren't they fascinating?

It's always good to find new stuff on films we love.

I need to do two things:

- Sync the Warner australian dub to the 4K.

- Cut a video comparing the stuff.

I own the Italian VHS and I'm "promoting" it as reference material for the Australian mono audio. Since the Italian dub of the VHS has no added sounds. I guess they did a new Italian audio track for the DVD?

That said, what are the differences between the original Australian mono audio track and the "Unfinished Mix" Australian mono audio track? Which one is the best and why?

[Stamper]

The comparison video highlight them, but overall, the "new" or "with added effects" track has all the foley effects sounding better and most of them different, like gunshots, crashes etc. The dialogue is also much more balanced with the music. All in all it feels like a finished track vs the other which feels like it's a premix.

I'm wondering if for DVD they didn't restore all the dub tracks, but here's the problem, they each have unique EQ that is consistent all the way through. So they can't be all based on the same dub with the languages changed.

Is your italian VHS a print scan? With burn marks?

I'm wondering if following the success of Mad Max and Mad Max 2, George Miller did finance a remix to finish up the soundmix, that he probably though was sub-par. As Mad Max was re-released in several countries to go with Mad Max 2.

That would explain the existence of the two different mixes. But then why finish it in mono instead of stereo if you have the money? Maybe the extra cash needed was too much even then.

In France, we got two releases, one censored, the other uncut. As far as I know, the uncut was the same mix as heard on the Warner disc, and I saw it countless time in both french and english in theaters, without noticing any difference for the mono (though all my viewings were from 1981 on).

[Uncle Entity]

Stamper,

There are no added effects or music balanced with sounds/dialogue on the Australian mono audio track of the UHD release. It seems to me that it's the original, first Australian mono audio track, not the unfinished mix.

[Stamper]

It's different from the one on the Warner disc. I'll align them and see where they have variations.

[Uncle Entity]

Okay (thumb up like Max II).

[Stamper]

Hi Uncle Entity. So I have more news.

it would appear that out of the two australian TV airing found on the internal organ, ONE FEATURES THE "MISSING NOISES" MIX (ATV10 85) WHEREAS THE OTHER FEATURES THE "ADDED FOLEY" MIX (WDAU 85) in the famous shot in the knee section!

I got the UK Warner Pal VHS and it also features the same mono found on the MGM DVD.
It sounds a bit muffled, but doing a comparison with headphones, they are clearly the same aussie mix!

This tape was released after years of people complaining that only the american dub was featured in all UK VHS.

So what does it means?

There are four possibilities:

1/ Somewhere along the line in the 90's, when they decided to remix the film, they grabbed a wrong, unfinished back up tape off the shelf, and it's the one that ended up being used for the 5.1 remix, that was then downmixed and passed as the old mono, producing endless confusion on release after release.

or

2/ Two different mono M&E tracks mixes were produced, one in Australia, one in America, which could be plausible as AIP always doctored the soundtracks of their foreign films releases. It would appear all the foreign dubs were produced using the AIP M&E track. You can hear this by listening to them on the Blu-ray discs.

or

3/ The original mono australian found on the Warner Europe DVD and all the foreign dubs on the Blu-ray and DVDs were doctored and reconformed from the AIP dub (ie composite mixes where the not speaking parts were all taken from the US dub and they just edited the dialogue parts in). But some of those have unique EQ that would be hard to be consistent all the way through if one made a composite hodge podge of tracks. And also, after carefully listening with headphones to the UK Warner VHS rip, it's clearly the same mix as the one found on the Warner DVD (only sounding a bit different and bassy due to it's VHS origins), and this predate the Warner DVD by about 5 years, plus we now have 1985 australian TV airings with the same mix! So this shaky theory doesn't gel.

or

4/ Some countries mix their dub with the Aussie, like the italian, and when Mad Max is re-released after Mad Max 2 success, some countries remix their dubs using the AIP track. Maybe the Australian do it too and this would explain the existence of the alternate aussie/AIP hybrid found on the Warner DVD and the alternate italian earlier track on VHS and also why the same year in 1985, Australia airs two different mixes of Max Max on TV.

This need research by putting all mixes in a timeline, syncing all of them and making comparisons. This will take time! But I'm starting to gather all the necessary videos including TV airings from Australia. If you want to provide me the italian alternate vhs mix, please PM me I'll be happy to include it.

[Junonion]

it would appear that out of the two australian TV airing found on the internal organ, ONE FEATURES THE "MISSING NOISES" MIX (ATV10 85) WHEREAS THE OTHER FEATURES THE "ADDED FOLEY" MIX (WDAU 85) in the famous shot in the knee section!

The WDAU '85 broadcast found on the 'internal organ' is actually a US broadcast and not an Australian broadcast as you claim. WDAU was Scranton's CBS affiliate (As noted in the description) and the broadcast itself features the US dialogue, not the Australian dialogue. It's also in NTSC, which isn't used for broadcast in Australia.

[Stamper]

Oh thank you, I didn't scan the whole tape!

[Junonion]

Oh thank you, I didn't scan the whole tape!

No problem.
I think this is a case of Occam's razor if I'm honest. I do believe that Kino offers the original Australian mono, whilst Warner probably just overlaid the Aussie dialogue over the AIP Music & FX track for whatever reason. The original production budget wasn't very high and the release dates between AU and US are almost a year apart according to IMDb, giving AIP more than enough time to spruce up the audio and add the US dubbing.
Looking at the UK VHS sleeve from a pedantic perspective, it says "Features Original Australian Dialogue" as opposed to, say "Original Australian Mono" - Granted the latter might not have been a selling point when the tape was released anyway.
It's fair to say that both audio mixes have their own merit and it's understandable to prefer one over the other. If the TV broadcasts aren't reassuring, then I guess the most realistic way would be to track down an Aussie Roadshow Home Video release from the early 80s.

(For the record, the R1 MGM 'Special Edition' DVD actually does feature the same mono audio that Kino uses, but for some reason the BD, which was bundled with the 'Special Edition' DVD, uses the downmix, evident by the 'ankle' line missing on the BD mono but being present on the DVD mono. Because, logic.)

[Stamper]

I may need to revisit those mono from 2001 on and correctly label them.

I agree, it's apparent that there was two mono versions made for the Aussie dub, one being the same as found on the UHD and airing on 80's aussie TV, the other being the one from the Warner UK DVD.

As the Warner UK DVD use the same AIP produced redo (with different foley and sounds) as all the foreign dubs, one must conclude that there was two pipeline: The Australian one, and the AIP one, and probably AIP handled all foreign sales save a few countries, thus giving all the countries their own M&E track for dubbing.

Actually it makes perfect sense. As AIP created their own american dub, they had to create a clean M&E track free of any dialogue, that had all the effects in. If most of the sound we hear in the film on the mono aussie were live sounds, they had to leave them out, as they would be on the vocal track, and redo all the foley and crashes etc.

Why the alternate aussie version then? Because most countries would play the film in both original language with subtitles, and dubbed. AIP probably did the Australian language remix at the same time as their american, as countries would ask for real original language and not a redub due to the audience being purists. As far as I remember, I never saw the american dub in theaters in Europe, but some might have a different experience.