Journey To The Beginning of Time - Marketing and Retrospectives

Marketing and Retrospectives

In 1966, another version of the film was released in the US by William Cayton whose company had been marketing Russian animated cartoons and feature films from the 1940-'50s, especially those of the famous Soyuzmultfilm studios (well known titles included The Firebird, The Frog Prince, Beauty & the Beast, The Space Explorers, and The Twelve Months). The films were dubbed, sometimes re-titled, partitioned into chapters and distributed to US TV stations. In the case of Cesta do Pravěku, Cayton replaced the opening and closing scenes of the original with new footage of American boys who entered the film in a dream squence whilst visiting the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The film was copied to poor quality film stock and edited into short segments (about six minutes each) for presentation as a serial, syndicated to various children's television programs. The US version was released on VHS video by Goodtimes in 1994. Because of the new sequences, none of the actors' faces could be shown until the original footage began.

In April 2001 Cesta do Pravěku was screened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York, as part of the retrospective entitled The Fabulous World of Karel Zeman. In 2010, it featured at the 50th Zlín Film Festival (May 30 - June 6) in the Czech Republic, one day of which (June 4) was dedicated to Karel Zeman to honour the centenary of his birth. The four original actors also attended the ceremonies (three from the Czech Republic and one - Vladimír Bejval - from the US).

In 2004 a DVD version of the film appeared in Japan, in Germany in 2005, and Spain in 2007. The Japanese and Spanish versions had different digital masters. The first German DVD had no digitally remastered images, but another German version with Czech and German dialogue, and 15 min of extras showing some of Zeman's filming techniques, was released in Jan 2010. This version used some modified sound effects for the dubbing, and the picture quality is below that of the original. Unfortunately the announced DVD of the original was held back for licence-juridical reasons and it remained unavailable commercially (as of April 2011) although copies of the original circulate amongst enthusiasts.