Speaking of the mono track included on each of these -
1980s Paramount Hi-Fi VHS: A flat, completely unprocessed transfer of what sounds like a clean low-gen optical track. Tonnes of hiss, but very natural sounding and plenty of real detail. Everything is time-compressed by a factor of 0.959971 (nearly PAL speed-up) except for a 2.5 minute segment near the end of the film. This is the tape with the grey front cover and a 1979 rear copyright.
1992 Paramount Hi-Fi VHS: Terrible. So much noise reduction that it's difficult to understand lines of dialogue.
2001 R1 Paramount DVD: The mono track syncs well with the early VHS tape after manipulation, but sounds like a new mixdown of the dialogue/music/effects stems. Compared to the VHS track, all music here except the opening theme is much quieter relative to dialogue. Even after compressing everything significantly, the music remains buried. Dialogue is clearer, with highs that extend further (more legitimate detail), but it also sounds treble boosted and heavily noise gated. The effects have more detail too, but the music resembles that of the VHS. I suppose the track succeeds in attenuating everything that isn't spoken dialogue and thus (to some) makes that dialogue easier to follow, but much of the surrounding ambience is gone. It all sounds artificial.
The 5.1 isn't very different, but it is a discrete multichannel mix with slightly different effects-to-dialogue sync, indicating that the mono isn't a direct downmix of it.
2009 R1 Paramount DVD - Centennial Edition: Identical to the earlier DVD.
2013 Paramount Blu-ray: Identical to the DVDs.
2022 Paramount UHD Blu-ray: A downmix of the 5.1, which is like the DVD 5.1 but with additional noise reduction.
