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

I would guess that a three-hour "Planes, Trains..." was the rough assembly. Virtually every movie is super-long in its rough cut. That just means the editor takes every filmed scene and puts it into one big mess of a movie - they then edit it down from there.

I can't imagine John Hughes ever created a three-hour cut of "Planes" as something semi-finished. While it'd be fun to see rough assemblies, I suspect most wouldn't actually be good - they edit films for a reason...

 

Thank you for the clarification.
I guess it would be really stretching the term "director's cut" to include the rumoured 3 hour version.
On further thought, I don't suppose we'll ever know now.

 

Oh, it's possible that Hughes made a three-hour "Planes" that he really liked - my comments were a guess. It seems unlikely, though - 3 hours is a length suited for dramatic epics, not light comedies, so I find it tough to imagine Hughes felt a three-hour "Planes" would've played well.

I think the original rough cut of "Spinal Tap" was something like four-to-six hours! Might be misremembering the length, but given how much footage they shot, I assume the rough cut would be incredibly long. The same would go for the Chris Guest "mockumentaries"...

 

Isn't there an extended Spinal Tap kicking around the internet that 3 hours or so? Includes lots of stuff not included on the official DVD deleted scenes.

 

Dunno, but I'm sure there's a fan-made assembly out there. If you combine the cut footage from both the Criterion and MGM DVDs and you'll easily get a version that's three-plus hours...

 

the three hour Young Frankenstein rough cut

 

Ther Spinal tap "workprint" is 4-5 hours long and been kicking around since the VHS trading days. Some of the non-commercially available scenes are up on youtube.

 

I would love to see an extended version of Dragonslayer. Can you elaborate on what was removed?

 

Does anyone recall was there ever any kind of a conclusion reached, if the King Kong spider sequence was actually filmed ?
I think I read part of it in Filmfax (don't have it in front of me)
Is there any record of someone speaking to Willis Obrien about the sequence ?

 

The 1980's!!!

Wow that's pretty late for studios to be having that attitude.
Even the BBC was searching the globe for junked footage from the late 70’s. Special editions were already on appearing on the laserdisc format and film preservation was topical at that time (i.e. anti-colourization etc.) – I can’t believe the lack of foresight.

 

In the 1990's, the 4 and half hour rough cut was kicking around on many VHS bootlegs. It shouldn't be hard to find.

 

Apparently, the 2012 release is the original UK theatrical release, but it is unfortunately still missing a few minutes of footage from what would be the director's cut.

 

This would interest me, mainly because the released film is pretty bad in places and has, as far as I can remember from seeing it at the cinema in 98/99, an inconsistent tone.

 

Would love to see the full 3 hour + version of Michael Mann's: The Keep. Actual release was half this.

 

I haven't seen it, but this one isn't technically "lost" per se. I was thinking it even came out on DVD, but I couldn't find it in a quick search. Either way though, it's definitely been screened a few times in recent years so I imagine it'll probably turn up on video eventually (though from the reviews I've read, it sounds like the DC is better but that it's still a very flawed film).

 

The original 4/3.5 hour cut of Blue Velvet.

The Blu-Ray adds some of the deleted scenes as extras.

http://welcometotwinpeaks.com/lynch/blue-velvet-deleted-scene-nipple/ - (NSFW)


Here's an article on the guy who found the lost footage: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/nov/03/blue-velvet-flaming-nipple-deleted-scenes

 

What extra footage was on the VHS of Event Horizon??

 

Isn't there a school of thought that suggests, some directors should assemble together every foot of film that came out the way they wanted to (or at least the way they saw it at the time)? Would you consider this a 'rough cut'?
Because, I would just consider this a part of the process of "sculpting" the movie, i.e, ya can't chip away everything that doesn't look like a guy throwing a discus, unless you've got a complete rock with a guy throwing a discus inside of it.

I suspect there are lots of "directors cuts" of films on shelves somewhere that were never really considered to be finished works that would be handed over to the studio in that form, even as a gambit to give them something to cut out,
while leaving something else in there the director wanted to get past the suits.




Now playing on Ariel Stream: Emiliana Torrini - Easy

 

A complete Wizard Of Oz preview version with all of the excluded (and mostly now missing) footage restored:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/alternateversions

The only lost scene that still exists is the Scarecrow's extended dance number, and I'd love for them to restore that back into the film.

 

I think you're right that a lot of people confuse "rough cuts" with "Director's Cuts". As you note, a "rough cut" usually takes pretty much every sequence they shot and puts it in order and that's about it - it's never intended to be the final version, but it's just a starting point.

IIRC, "Spinal Tap" was something like 6 hours long in rough cut form - obviously Rob Reiner never intended to release it that way and wouldn't call it a "Director's Cut".

I think the "Director's Cut" has become too much of a gimmick in recent years. It used to mean a movie that was genuinely compromised for reasons beyond the director's control - ie, the studio forced changes upon the filmmaker. Now it usually means "alternate cut that the director claims to prefer a wee bit more than the theatrical cut but that really exists to re-sell the same movie to you again"...

 

Technically Blatty reshot all the stuff at their insistence including adding an exorcism since they also,insisted on the title as Exorcist III.

 

A few years ago somebody told me that he had seen a 3 hour version of the Batman (Michael Keaton) movie.

Any one able to verify this?

 

The 4 hour version on Spinal Tap on Blu-Ray would be awesome!

 

the television cut of Superman 2? I always thought that was the best cut out of the respective versions

And, I outta know!