The most sought after "Director's Cuts" that are still lost

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by C6H12O6, Jan 16, 2013.

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  1. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    I thought there is a DVD commentary track?
     
  2. SoundAdvice

    SoundAdvice Senior Member

    Location:
    Vancouver
    I think it's blu exclusive
     
  3. Slokes

    Slokes Cruel But Fair

    Location:
    Greenwich, CT USA
    James Cagney's The Public Enemy is still missing 12 minutes that were screened in its original 1931 showing, mostly dealing with the backstory of Tom Powers as a boy and a bedroom scene between Joan Blondell and Edward Woods. Other scenes excised were found and put back in years ago, including a scene where Powers is tape-measured by an effeminate tailor, but there's still missing footage that hasn't been found.

    I wonder if any of it explains the disappearance of Jean Harlow's character better than the finished film does.
     
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  4. Maggie

    Maggie like a walking, talking art show

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    I gather that the long version of This Is Spinal Tap would be a very different movie, more like Dont Look Back and other "verite"-type rock documentaries than the version we got with the talking heads. Some of the interviews I've read and seen with Guest (out of character) over the years have suggested that the talking-head interview scenes in the finished version were an attempt to punch up the footage they had with some more obvious laughs. In the process, they found the rhythm that he has worked with in almost all his movies since.
     
  5. captainsolo

    captainsolo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Murfreesboro, TN
    Ahh! That explains why it feels so jumpy at parts! I knew about the few bits such as the tailor scene but didn't realize there was even more still missing.
     
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  6. Slokes

    Slokes Cruel But Fair

    Location:
    Greenwich, CT USA
    Suspect that the jumpiness is more due to Warner's fast-paced signature style.

    The way I understand it, the missing pieces aren't in the form of a dozen or so trims and snips but three or four whole scenes that were seen as lacking in propriety or slowing down the plot. The film takes long enough to get to Cagney as it is, so it makes sense they'd ditch some extra material about Powers' bad boyhood, which as I understand it dealt with a neighborhood hoodlum Powers grew up being impressed by.
     
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  7. antoniod

    antoniod Forum Resident

    Von Stroheim's WALKING DOWN BROADWAY, which was extensively reshot and released as HELLO, SISTER(1932). Even if Fox had saved Stroheim's version, it likely would have gone up in flames in N.J. Legend has it that we lost WALKING because of a power struggle between Winfield Sheehan and Sol Wurtzel, but would Fox, in financial trouble at that time, really have spent good money re-making a film over studio politics? It's likelier that WALKING was just too dark for general audiences in the 30s. The director assigned to the re-takes, Alfred Werker, was known as a film"fixer", not a film ruiner.
     
  8. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Terminator Salvation is a guilty pleasure. Also, a Directors cut of Hex would be appreciated as well.
     
  9. jkauff

    jkauff Senior Member

    Location:
    Akron, OH
    Someone already mentioned this a few years back in this thread :yikes: but it sure would be great to see what Sam Peckinpah originally envisioned for Major Dundee. The studio interfered early and often, and Sam is long gone, so we'll never know, but I suspect it would now be considered a total classic.
     
  10. Slokes

    Slokes Cruel But Fair

    Location:
    Greenwich, CT USA
    There was more to do with the massacre that opened the movie, I think I remember reading. There are still frames from that which may survive. A lot more was in script form but never got filmed, because Sam went overbudget and the studio jumped in, even with Charlton doing all he could to save the project.
     
  11. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dixie
    The pie fight from Strangelove exists, cut and scored, in a storage vault. The Kubrick estate blocks it from being screened publicly.

    Does the Peter Sellers footage from Kiss Me Stupid still exist? Sellers' co-star Cliff Osmond -- who is superb in the film himself -- called Sellers' scenes "genius". Unfortunately Sellers' miscast replacement Ray Walston is what keeps the film from being a total classic -- it would nice to see what might have been.

    [​IMG]

    It would also be interesting to see the three weeks or so Harpo Marx shot for Androcles And The Lion (1952). Harpo of course was working in pantomime, and eventually the producers decided the role needed to be a speaking one as in the GBS play. There is a rumor that Frank Sinatra was considered to replace him -- whether he actually worked on the film I don't know, but as Ol' Blue Eyes and RKO owner Howard Hughes despised each other, I'd think it unlikely. Eventually the role went to Alan Young.

    I wonder if the complete Horsefeathers exists somewhere, with the complete Connie scene, as well as the climax where the college burns down.

    The Marx Brothers fiddle (at cards) while Huxley College burns

    [​IMG]
     
  12. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Vancouver
    Are there any well known cases of a studio or other entity taking someone's sprawling cut of a movie and improving it?
     
  13. Rocker

    Rocker Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    A director's cut of TS has been available since 2009.
     
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  14. Maggie

    Maggie like a walking, talking art show

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    As another poster has noted, the director's cut of this film has been available for years, and it is not very different from the theatrical cut. It just adds a love scene with Moon Bloodgood and a couple of other scenes of dialogue.
     
  15. Sadly unless they find the early cut he had (three hours) and notes I doubt we will ever see this. There are some out takes without sound and we don't know if they were intended for the film or not and most of the participants are gone.
     
  16. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    After Wild Bunch, Columbia offered Sam to chance re-edit and restore Dundee. For some reason he turned them down. Unclear if he was being cantankerous, or perhaps felt that some of the essential scenes were never shot. It's such a frustrating film - the first hour promises to be one of the best westerns ever.... and then it kind of falls apart. Just like Dundee!
     
  17. Takashi Miike's Agitator.
     
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  18. Rocker

    Rocker Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    *bump*
     
  19. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    I'd love to see an extended cut of The Wizard Of Oz with all of the deleted scenes re-inserted but most of them are gone.
     
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  20. Holerbot6000

    Holerbot6000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    They did release a version with a bunch of restored scenes that I thought did make the second half of the film seem more cohesive, but who knows if it even comes close to what Sam intended. Such a shame because it really did have all the making of a classic. Richard Harris and James Coburn are both very good and I think this is one of Charlton Heston's best performances, especially the break down scene. Heston is one of those guys who could really chew the scenery, but in the right hands and the right role, he was quite a commanding actor.

    I love the extended version of Stripes. It doesn't make the movie any less sloppy and I totally get why they took out the Guerilla scene. That is a long way to go to pay off a Tito Puente Joke. But the Levitation/Kung-Fu/Winnebago speech at the beginning is hilarious and absolutely crucial since it sets up a batch of later jokes that don't land without it. Why they decided to trim that few minutes is a real mystery.
     
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  21. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    They could put the extended Scarecrow dance scene back in (which they considered doing for the 1999 theatrical re-release) but that's the only deleted scene that still exists.
     
  22. David Egan

    David Egan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oakland CA
    Friday The 3th part 2 is a good movie but was sliced and diced by a suddenly frightened ratings board before release and if the footage had been found there would be a restoration. At least we have My Bloody Valentine.
     
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  23. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    as of today in the US the DC of Armageddon is unavailable on BR and Anamorphic DVD! WTF?
     
  24. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    Re: if you're interested in Major Dundee: Nothing is Written: A Film Blog: Major Dundee ยป

    Few film promise so much in the first hour and fail to deliver much in the second. Several perfectly calibrated conflicts are established and then... the energy just sort of dissipates. Regretfully some keys scenes were never filmed. While the additional footage in the last 'special edition' improves the film and clarifies some of the characters, there's some substantial material still missing. So I think it's as restored as its going to be. I don't think even a fully realized 'Major Dundee' would have rivaled 'The Wild Bunch" - Peckinpah was still sometimes directing like he was on a television backlot - but it would have come close. Perhaps he channeled all the churning anger (he was booted from the Cincinnati Kid too) into making the the Wild Bunch the way he did: editing as they went along, protecting his cut and unwilling to back down. Think about what it was like for an audience strolling into a theater in 1969 thinking they were 'just going to see a western...'
     
  25. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    Strange film. It looks far too realistic and stark for a comedy, the jokes aren't funny and are even often offensive. Dean - pretty much playing 'Dean Martin' which is the one funny idea, is somewhat unscathed, Felicia Farr is poorly used, and Ray Walston is terribly miscast. IDK that Sellers could have saved it.
     
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