I'm delighted to report that I recently acquired a pristine (only one repaired frame) 35mm print from the British release of HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, complete with the British 'X' Certificate before the MGM lion logo.
Best of all, is the print is an incredibly rare IB Technicolor print. While the US release were all Eastmancolor prints, UK theatres were blessed with these beautiful Technicolor prints.
The essential difference is that Eastmancolor prints are made photochemically, while IB Technicolor prints use a series of color dyes pressed into the print. It makes the colors far richer, more saturated and they 'pop' more when placed next to contrasting colors.
And IB Tech prints do not fade, so a print made 30, 50, 60 years ago has the exact same colors as it had on opening day, whereas Eastmancolor prints faded terribly. If you've bought 16mm Eastmancolor prints or frame clippings, unless they were cold stored from day 1, and vented regularly, the colors lose the yellow area of the spectrum and become more and more pinkish until they're almost entirely red and colors are completely unreadable.
Eastmancolor prints looked fine when new, but IB Technicolor ones look
stunning.I've had the opportunity to bench examine the print and the colors would astound you. There's such a rich array of pastel blues, yellows, oranges, reds etc., it's like seeing the film for the first time. (Think Liz's yellow/green dress was garish before? You ain't seen nothin' yet!)
While Technicolor prints do not telecine well (the density of the dyes block light and you end up with muddy blacks and poor contrasts), its helpful as it can be used as a reference in the film-to-tape transfer color timing session. I would like to use it to make the future DVD release as accurate and vivid as possible. All video releases are a bit shy of the intended color values and also have the day for night scenes a little too bright.
And the print is the standard US cut we all know and love. No extra scenes.