Sensation Of The Century

This was an interesting curio I saw last night: 

Even among film fans, how many knew that the organizing committee for the 1964 Summer Olympics were so displeased with Tokyo Olympiad that they commissioned a pair of directors (Hiroshi Maeda, Tatsuji Yamagishi) to use the same pool of footage to create a more matter of fact chronicle of the games... and of course add in a healthy dose of nationalism, as most of the early Olympic films did. The score-when present-is also more traditional-It does seem superfluous, especially considering that some-though not all-of the new footage here also appears as a special feature (over 80 minutes long) that is both on the disc version and is a bonus on the Criterion Channel page for Tokyo Olympiad.

All that said, this is still fine. While the Olympic Torch relay and opening ceremonies are even longer (over 35 minutes) there are more sports covered, more winners are shown and identified, & the highlights are still covered; this is fine and was an easy watch despite being almost as long as Olympiad. It's just that in comparison most film fans won't give a damn about this as they will much prefer the more artistic usage of the footage. For example, the marathon is presented as is and the clips which demonstrate how grueling a marathon is... that was excised. The last sporting event presented was women's volleyball as that was a surprise victory for the host nation.

Judging by Letterboxd and IMDb, not too many have viewed Sensation of the Century; I am thankful Criterion included it in their box set release of the Olympic films. If nothing else, it was a rare opportunity in the movie world to compare and contrast two different versions of the same story or subject.