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

Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons is definitely at the top of the list.

The Lady from Shanghai was definitely butchered, but some still say it's a great film, even in mutilated form.

I would love to see John Ford's first cut of My Darling Clementine. (The restored 'preview' cut included on the DVD already had the bulk of Zanuck's reshoots and recuts.)

Then there's Cukor's A Star is Born, which really isn't lost, but, well....

Any others that stand out?

 

Phase IV, although that was found and screened last year. However the Bass estate freaked out and made them cancel all other showings of the print.

 

Not sure if it counts as "lost" or just "unreleased" but would love to see the original director's cut of Terrence Mallick's "Thin Red Line".

 

It's A Mad Mad Mad World. The Alamo.

 

Wow. Too bad. I'd love to see Saul's cut. It was butchered and although flawed is still fascinating.

 

Freaks
Martin
The Burmese Harp

 

Yes, forgot about Freaks! With some of these (especially Ambersons), it's frustrating because so much material that isn't the actual uncut footage do exist like still frames, production photos, the shooting script, etc., etc. or even some quick glimpses that survive in trailers and promotional materials. In some cases, you can probably picture a close approximation of what the director's cut looks like. With Freaks, there isn't much of a mystery in terms of what's missing.

Forgot von Stroheim's films, almost all of them were drastically re-edited. Greed was obviously the worst, but they were all re-edited pretty badly.

The Thin Red Line is very enticing, check out the Criterion Collection's reissue, they threw on like a handful of moments that were left out. I think it's only 15 minutes, and it's clear this stuff was chucked early and only edited together in rough fashion (bits of dialogue pulled from other takes are left out of sync). But Malick was able to make a longer cut, there is stuff that would've made it a more satisfying film: Clooney's scene with Chaplin, Rourke's brief scene (which probably needed to be developed more, but I still liked it), more stuff with Brody, etc.

 

There are some audience shot videos of portions of the ending on youtube. Hopefully it will get released at some point.

 

Thanks. I know there were bits of it in the trailer. Good to know!

 

Just read it has now been transferred to digital and played at the Alamo Drafthouse in November. So it appears to be making some appearances. Like I said hopefully it will make it to Blu-ray.

 

It would be nice. Maltzberg's novelization made it clear that the ending was much more ambitious than what we got.

 

I would think the original cut of Greed (1924) would be on this list.

 

"The Breakfast Club" is one for sure, but I don't think it's "lost", per se. Supposedly, it's an hour longer.

 

I would love to see Woody's first pass of "Annie Hall". 1/2 of the lobby cards released are from scenes dumped after the re-edit and I've met several actors at this point who said they filmed a scene for "AH" but it went unused.

Jeff

 

Those would be my choices. As I'm sure you know, they FOUND a lost, gorgeous print of the full-length director's cut of "The Alamo" several years ago. They issued it on VHS and laserdisc. Then they stored the film reels improperly and the whole thing quickly went to hell -- so it appears we'll never it see it on DVD or BluRay or, for that matter, on film stock. That is maddening. The film survives for decades outside the hands of the studio people who (should) know its value ... and then once they get their paws on it they neglect it and within a few short years that one-of-a-kind print is virtually destroyed. Grrrrrr!

 

There's a chapter in Ralph Rosenblum's book When The Shooting Stops ... The Cutting Begins which goes into great detail about that original cut. It's a great read!

 

William Peter Blatty's original cut of The Exorcist III (aka Legion). Would like to see what was there before Morgan Creek (notorious for post production tinkering) reshot a bunch of stuff, added an unnecessary exorcism and amped up the gore.

 

I want a full length "2001" and "The Shining."

And all copies of Apocalypse Now Redux burnt.

 

Ken Russells The Devils. There was some sort of version that came out a year ago but it is still heavily edited.

 

Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me.

 

Welles said the cutting of The Lady From Shanghai was basically as he envisioned, except for the funhouse sequence... originally a long, surreal tour de force. Something else against his wishes was the score, which does sound very "Hollywood." I think the movie would feel quite different if Welles had chosen the music.

There's an interesting excerpt of his memo to the studio on the subject--and also some stills of the removed funhouse footage--in the book This Is Orson Welles (1992).

 

Robocop 2 they really screwed up with this one.
I seen deleted scenes on youtube.

 

Blues Brothers (missing)
Cruising (lost)

Yes...Apocalypse Now Redux is the perfect example of the time the studio was right.

 

I read somewhere that the original story was eventually re-done (re-written and shot later) as Manhattan Murder Mystery. But I'd totally be down to watch the original cut of Annie Hall as well.

 

How does that differ from the extended cut released on DVD? For what it's worth I didn't think the added footage really improved the film (aside from seeing the full John Lee Hooker performance).