Duke's Deleted Scenes and Missing Footage

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    Hi Robbie,


    Here's a post that may interest you.
    A much older film, of course,
    but apparently, with missing footage

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Hi Keith


    That was interesting, thanks for highlighting that for me. Most of the information is wasted on me however as I have yet to see this movie.


    Robbie
    :agent:

    Regards
    Robbie


    Hi Robbie,


    As you can see from, I get the feeling maybe,
    nothing much as been cut, to bother us,
    unless of course, theye were significant
    scenes involving Duke.
    However from what he's seen in the film, I find that
    highly unlikely!!



    Baby Face 1933

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Quote

    Originally posted by Danny Wilde@Dec 2 2006, 11:40 PM

    I bought the official Region 0 DVD release of this movie in the 90s, and recently bought the Region 2 Warner DVD release of this movie, with a trailer as an extra and I stumbled across a strange thing: the European release is 2 hours and 16 minutes! While the Region 0 release was 2 hours 21 minutes just like the Region 1 Warner DVD release. The European DVD release was cut by 5 minutes! This is really a shame as they also deleted the biography notes that were on the Region 1 release. In the first 45 minutes of the movie they managed to cut about 3 minutes of the movie, does anyone know which scenes were cut?

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    Hi Danny Wilde,


    Thanks for your post, and bringing up this difference.
    I have never compared the two, but it is
    a subject that both Robbie and Rough Rider
    would be keen on solving.

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England


    Hello, Danny


    I don't think Warner would release a Region 0 DVD. The studios fought for region coding so to me it sounds like the official Region 0 DVD you cited is actually DVD-/+R. Regardless, Rio Bravo is 141 minutes in film and NTSC time just like the DVD you have; the other DVD you have is 136 minutes. Let's investigate....


    You say the first 45 minutes of the film had about 3 minutes cut, but are you basing this on obvious cuts or just comparing the two DVDs and their index times on your player?


    The UK DVD of Rio Bravo is 136 minutes so there can only be two reasons why it's not 141 minutes: the film either has PAL speed-up (plays 4% faster) or it was cut. To determine which of these two variables will require watching the film with intimate knowledge of all the scenes, or doing sync tests using another DVD to check for PAL speed-up. An easier way to confirm PAL speed-up, although not conclusive, is to take the PAL running time and use a timecode calculator to determine NTSC time. In this case the UK DVD is 135m:13s (according to the BBFC) which translates to 140m:51s in NTSC; the Region 1 DVD runs exactly that time (give or take one or two seconds).


    So it's either an incredible coincidence or the UK DVD is cut. But without analyzing the Region 2 DVD firsthand, I would says it's the same film as the Region 1 DVD -- it's just being played 4% faster.


    Adding to the confusion is that the initial (1986) Warner UK home video release of Rio Bravo was heavily cut. The BBFC lists the video at 125m:03s which is equivalent to 130m:15s in film and NTSC time. So if the initial UK VHS has PAL speed-up, there's about 10 minutes cut; if it doesn't have PAL speed-up, there's about 16 minutes cut. The VHS probably does have PAL speed-up, but without analyzing the tape itself I'm just guessing. But the initial UK VHS certainly was cut, perhaps reflecting the fact that the film itself was passed with cuts in 1959, but to what degree I don't know. (The book John Wayne and the Movies, generally accurate for UK running times, makes no mention of a cut UK release. So the film was probably released theatrically over there at 141 minutes, too. But again, the initial UK VHS may reflect those theatrical cuts.)


    Regardless of the initial UK video release, the 136-minute DVD most likey has PAL speed-up.


    RoughRider
    John Wayne on DVD: A Filmography

    Upon reading these posts here on this thread, let me start out and say that I happen to have the complete version of the theatrical version of The Alamo with the total time of 3 hours 22 minutes from MGM/UA. It is called the restored original director's cut. This is my copy from the VHS copy that I purchased over ten years ago.


    According to The Complete Films of John Wayne, they released this movie in theaters at 199 minutes (3 hours 19 minutes). I can only imagine that the 3 extra minutes is in the beginning or the intermission. As for the DVD release the running time 2 hours 42 minutes. So what happened to the other 40 minutes? I haven't compared movies to see. I haven't seen the VHS in a long time. The film company seem to have lost or had damage with the negative, so I don't know, but there must be something that can be done since I have the 202 minute version in my collection.


    Let's go to the subject that Robbie is talking about. Are we talking about cuts or edits from the theater to home video or from the cutting room floor to the theater? If the latter, then I am afraid that it is probably lost forever. We see a lot of director's cut movies today, but not movies later than 30 years ago. They didn't see any need to keep such a thing because they didn't know that these would be treasures today. If we are talking about edited versions from the theaters, then it will be up to the production companies and studios to released them as they were in theaters.


    I did not see Hondo back in the 50's. I wan't born yet. I didn't see it until the release on VHS in the mid 90's. So, I don't know what was cut or not except what The Complete Films of John Wayne say, and it has this movie with a running time of 84 minutes. The DVD has a run time of 83 minutes and the VHS run time is 84 minutes. I can not tell you if these movies round their minutes and seconds up or not, but we are talking about a minute difference.


    Well, there is more, but I'll stop for now.


    Cheers B)



    Quote

    "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it"

    - John Wayne quote


    To my knowledge the DVD of Hondo is the same film shown in theaters right down to the second -- it's either 83 or 84 minutes depending if the theater is half full or half empty.


    A minute can make a difference, though, if the running times are accurate to the second. Encode the Hondo VHS to DVD-/+R then calculate the running time and compare it to the official DVD. Even though VHS is a rather dirty analogue format, it'll still represent an accurate time for comparison to the digital DVD. If the running times vary by more than a few seconds then there could be something cut.


    As an example, the UK DVD of War of the Wildcats is 19 seconds longer than the official American VHS (the film hasn't been released on Region 1 yet). I compared both films and found the UK DVD had additional scenes which accounted for the time difference. Such minor differences reflect the varying attitudes towards censorship at the time, on both sides of the pond.


    I would tend not to trust the recollections of someone who remembers a scene from many years ago -- the human mind plays tricks, especially after such a long time. Now I'm not saying such a declaration by someone is incorrect, but it's most likely the mind playing tricks. As for a trailer showing scenes not in the original film, this isn't uncommon. Another factor of potential cuts would be if the film was viewed early in its release, before cuts were made to what would become the general release print. For instance, if you saw McQ in Los Angeles or New York on its initial engagements, you would have seen the 115-minute version which was later cut to 111 minutes.


    And how about people in the UK who watched The Big Trail VHS, which from 1990-1998 was the longer version than the one released on VHS in America. The initial American VHS (1988) was 112 minutes, soon cut to 108 minutes which is how it appears on DVD worldwide. Yet the UK VHS is 120 minutes, replaced in 1998 by the standard 108-minute version.


    As mentioned earlier, according to the book John Wayne: All American, The Alamo's premiere in San Antonio was 206 minutes. So this was probably the longest version seen by the general public. Whether this version included more narrative or music is unknown to me. By the time it premiered in Los Angeles the film was 192 minutes, which is the print found in Toronto and released in all forms of home video except DVD (which didn't exist at the time). Interestingly, the book Spectacular: The Story of Epic Films lists the running time as 213 minutes.


    I don't know what video format MGM used to archive the print found in Toronto, but it's probably not high resolution digital (not in the early 1990s). If that was the case then the studio could have easily released it to DVD and HD when they came on the scene. My guess is that it's stuck in a lower resolution digital format, perhaps not even conducive to the full glory of DVD (hopefully I'm wrong). So the Toronto print that later deteriorated from poor storage would have to be restored, then archived in high resolution digital -- ready for any future home video formats. As it stands now, the best home video source for the 192-minute version is the LaserDisc. I really wonder if MGM could release the film in all its DVD glory, or if for technical (resolution) reasons it can't be done.


    RoughRider
    John Wayne on DVD: A Filmography

    Hi Rough Rider,


    Here is the piece you mentioned,




    Quote

    Jay J. Foraker
    post Sep 26 2006, 06:46 PM


    Keith - I have a copy of that VHS uncut version as well. It makes the storyline smoother and it is in a letterbox format (though not the full letterbox that it should be). Too bad that this version cannot be shown on the big screen.
    Cheers - Jay

    :D







    this was of course also discussed in great detail
    in the Movie Reviews


    The Alamo

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Quote

    Originally posted by Hondo Duke Lane@Dec 4 2006, 05:22 AM
    Let's go to the subject that Robbie is talking about. Are we talking about cuts or edits from the theater to home video or from the cutting room floor to the theater? If the latter, then I am afraid that it is probably lost forever. We see a lot of director's cut movies today, but not movies later than 30 years ago. They didn't see any need to keep such a thing because they didn't know that these would be treasures today. If we are talking about edited versions from the theaters, then it will be up to the production companies and studios to released them as they were in theaters.


    Cheers B)

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    Hi Mike


    I'm afraid not many older movies do contain deleted scenes on their DVD releases as an extra and not only this but alternative endings. One example is the old classic Casablanca, the Maltese Falcon as contains an different ending that was filmed but not used in the final cut.


    I'm afraid its only Dukes movies that don't seem to have any deleted scenes.

    :agent:

    Regards
    Robbie


    Thanks very much for your detailed answer. Sorry but I didn't spot it earlier.


    I didn't know that PAL speed up was 4%! That could make up for the difference in time, assuming that the speed up is not linear. I have an "official Chinese" Region 0 version of Rio Bravo from the early years of DVD, I stopped the picture at 48 minutes and then used a different DVD Player to check the Region 2 Warner release. The same picture appeared at 45 minute, so 3 minutes were already lost in the first 45 minutes running time of the movie. That would mean the total movie would speed up 9 to 10 minutes in total if the speed up was linear (the same speed up of 4% during the total movie).


    But as you mentioned although I've seen the movie maybe 12 to 15 times already I haven't compared the two versions scene by scene, I've just done an index time comparison.


    Thanks for the information about the earlier UK VHS release and the reactions about the other movies from other visitors (Alamo, McQ, Big Trail). The DVD releases should have included the 'missing scenes' in unrestored version in any way. Just like they included the unremastered featurette on the DVD of McQ these things are what make DVD the most interesting medium above VHS.


    An "official Chinese" Region 0 DVD from Warner Bros. is a misnomer. It might look official but it's probably not the real McCoy. Regardless, for this discussion the main thing is that the Chinese DVD has the complete print.


    PAL speed-up will always be consistent so 3 minutes in 45 minutes is too much. 45m:00s with PAL speed-up is equivalent to 46m:26s in NTSC.


    Do the credits start at 0:00:00 on both DVDs? The test you did is worthless unless the index times are compensated for any offset at the start. You need to eliminate the offset variable before such a test can be deemed valid. But by the sounds of it, the offset looks to be about 1.5 minutes which doesn't make sense -- it seems too much for any introductory heralds or notices.


    The index time of the official Region 1 DVD of Rio Bravo is 2:20:55, and doesn't include any extraneous material (i.e. pure film with a few seconds of black, silent video). If the official UK DVD is uncut then that index time should be equivalent to 2:16:04 (assuming PAL speed-up is present and there's no extraneous material).


    If your official UK DVD is 2:16:04 then it can be assumed the film is uncut. Mind you, it could be coincidence that the PAL to NTSC times just happen to correlate perfectly (or within a few seconds).


    If I had the UK DVD myself I could confirm the presence of PAL speed-up in a few minutes. But since I don't, of course, we'll have to narrow things down by looking at the index offsets (if any) of both the Chinese and UK DVDs and their actual index times.


    The running time of the Region 0 disc (NTSC) is 2:20:36 and of the Region 2 disc (PAL) 2:15:17. Both start exactly at zero seconds. I played both discs on a Phillips DVD player and I can watch both discs alternatively because I have two cart cables attached to my TV.
    I've been through the two versions of the movie and haven't found any missing scenes so speed up could be the cause of this strange difference in time.


    I've got the USA release of Angel and the Badman (Laser Light version with introduction by Tony Curtis) and a Region 2 version of this movie and they differ about 1 minutes (and excluding the missing intro "Republic Pictures presents" that's not on the Region 2 disc). Can speed up differ that much between a 100 minute movie and a 140 minute movie?

    Quote

    Originally posted by Danny Wilde@Dec 7 2006, 04:15 PM
    The running time of the Region 0 disc (NTSC) is 2:20:36 and of the Region 2 disc (PAL) 2:15:17. Both start exactly at zero seconds. I played both discs on a Phillips DVD player and I can watch both discs alternatively because I have two cart cables attached to my TV.
    I've been through the two versions of the movie and haven't found any missing scenes so speed up could be the cause of this strange difference in time.


    I've got the USA release of Angel and the Badman (Laser Light version with introduction by Tony Curtis) and a Region 2 version of this movie and they differ about 1 minutes (and excluding the missing intro "Republic Pictures presents" that's not on the Region 2 disc). Can speed up differ that much between a 100 minute movie and a 140 minute movie?

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    A correction on my part. The index time of the official Region 1 DVD of Rio Bravo is 2:20:55, as I said earlier, but in PAL that would be 2:15:16:20. I just checked using the WFT Timecode calculator. Ignore the 20 frames at the end, although technically this is two-thirds of a second. So your UK DVD is the full version and has PAL speed-up.


    As for the variances in Angel and the Badman, one minute is too much. I have various copies of the film, including the somewhat official version from the Hal Roach library, and the times don't vary by more than 10 seconds. But such minor differences are probably caused by varying reel transitions. The minute difference you mention could be an encoding issue, though.

    Quote

    Originally posted by RoughRider@Dec 7 2006, 05:13 PM
    A correction on my part. The index time of the official Region 1 DVD of Rio Bravo is 2:20:55, as I said earlier, but in PAL that would be 2:15:16:20. I just checked using the WFT Timecode calculator. Ignore the 20 frames at the end, although technically this is two-thirds of a second. So your UK DVD is the full version and has PAL speed-up.


    As for the variances in Angel and the Badman, one minute is too much. I have various copies of the film, including the somewhat official version from the Hal Roach library, and the times don't vary by more than 10 seconds. But such minor differences are probably caused by varying reel transitions. The minute difference you mention could be an encoding issue, though.

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    Thanks a lot for your detailed reactions! I am glad that the Region 2 disc is the full version of Rio Bravo.

    Quote

    Originally posted by Danny Wilde@Dec 8 2006, 03:36 AM
    Thanks a lot for your detailed reactions! I am glad that the Region 2 disc is the full version of Rio Bravo.

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    You're welcome -- mystery solved.


    Because I'm a picky bugger, and fumbled with some math, I'll correct what I said about 45m:00s with PAL speed-up being equivalent to 46m:26s in NTSC. It's actually 46m:52.5s.


    Further to what you were saying, the Hal Roach print of Angel and the Badman is 99m:30s including the opening Republic logo and closing Republic logo (as the music ends). The film would probably have 11 reels of 35mm film, so a small variance between other DVD prints is most likely from how the reels flow into each other. A half-second or one-second difference for each reel can put the times off.


    I've seen some PD titles where the reel transitions are just awful. This is something you won't see from quality labels, though. But a full minute variance in running time like you experienced is suspicious -- the film is either cut or simply runs a little faster. If properly telecined, though, it shouldn't run faster than the literal film. In the days of VHS, some cheapo labels would time-compress a film so that it took up less video tape!

    With the talk about possible cut scenes in Hondo, I looked into the film's running time a little deeper.


    The American Film Institute lists a footage total of 7,532' which is 83m:41s. The DVD runs 83m:23s. When 'submitted' to the UK censors on January 29, 1954, the film was 83m:25s which pretty much matches the DVD time. (The 'submitted' time, in this case, was before any cuts were made by the censors.)


    Hondo was filmed in 3-D, of course, but according to the book John Wayne: American it was released 'flat' after only one week. It makes me wonder if the flat print had a few scenes cut compared to the 3-D version -- which is perhaps what the AFI lists at 7,532' or 83m:41s. I don't know the answer but the two prints vary by 18 seconds, which could account for a scene or two.


    Another factor to consider is what print was viewed to notice the cuts. This really applies to people across the pond because many John Wayne films were cut for UK theatrical release. With the advent of home video, some of those cut films made it to VHS. The official UK VHS of Hondo released in 1995 had a running time of 83m:06s (based on a PAL time of 79m:47s), so it was cut. Hondo was cut for its UK theatrical release so the VHS probably reflects that fact. Without analyzing the VHS to confirm PAL speed-up, it was probably cut by 17 seconds -- this using the official DVD as a benchmark, not the longer version listed by the AFI (in which case the difference would be 35 seconds).


    Now, if the US VHS was exactly the same print as the UK VHS -- they have the same cover -- then someone mentioning cuts might be referring to the VHS (or their DVD-/+R copy) and not the longer DVD. But if someone bases a cut on the DVD with memories from the past, the chance of that cut becomes more realistic.


    Does anyone have the official VHS who can verify its running time? I wouldn't be surprised if it's 17 seconds or so shorter than the official DVD.

    Quote

    Originally posted by ethanedwards@Dec 15 2006, 05:51 AM
    My VCI VHS VC3462


    From 1995, shows a run time of 80mins approx

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    Hello, Keith


    That's the official UK VHS by Video Collection International which runs 79m:47s in PAL (equivalent to 83m:06s in NTSC), so it's 17 seconds shorter than the DVD. If the tape doesn't have PAL speed-up then there's almost four minutes cut (which I doubt). The official US VHS released by MPI Home Video in 1994 has the same cover art, with a listed running time of 84 minutes.


    I can only assume the cut running time since I don't have the VHS to analyze.

    Quote

    Originally posted by Robbie@Dec 17 2006, 09:11 PM
    Can you explain this picture of a deleted scene from the Searchers and how it related to the overall context of the movie.

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    Regarding the image you quoted, which without the URL encodings is:


    http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/graphics/searchers.jpg


    In the documentary titled The Turning of the Earth: John Ford, John Wayne and The Searchers, included with the recent anniversary DVD, there are many 'unseen' snippets from the film. The documentary opens with a sequence that looks like the image above. So instead of the film opening with Ethan Edward's immediate arrival at the ranch house, we see him travelling the desert wasteland on his way there.


    I created a thumbnail image sequence, from left to right, but for some reason can't attach it to this post. Try the link below:


    http://www.vanc.igs.net/~roughley/the_searchers_seq.jpg