Warning about recent re-release of "The Mechanic" (1972) (1 Viewer)

I thought I should post a warning about a Charles Bronson Action 3-Pack that I recently picked up for around $8 or so at a Rite Aid drug store.

The package contains a single disc version of "The Mechanic" along with two of CB's Cannon efforts, "Assassination" and "Messenger of Death" on the second disc. I purchased this for "The Mechanic" because I was interested in revisiting the film before seeing the Jason Statham remake. I never got around to purchasing the original MGM DVD release and only had a VHS copy recorded long ago from HBO.

This new release of "The Mechanic" runs only 69 minutes or so eliminating a whole half-hour of the movie jumping from Bronson's training of Jan-Michael Vincent for their first hit together to the Italian mountain road chase. For those of you familiar with the film, the motorcycle chase through the California hills, Bronson's meeting with Frank DeKova and the yacht sequence are all gone.

This release has the MGM and Fox logos on the back and the description has a running time of 1 hour and 39 minutes for "The Mechanic". There is also a logo for a "TGG Direct, LLC" (whatever that is) on the back as well.

Both "Assassination" and "Messenger" are complete. None of the films have trailers or even scene selections. Very "bare bones".


With the remake coming soon, I wanted to give anyone interested in seeing the original version of "The Mechanic" a heads-up warning.

Thanks for the info. I have the original MGM release of this one. I had to look it up on my library excel sheet to remember is this release was anamorphic.


MGM has a lot of earlier releases that weren't released enhanced for WS, bummer.