http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...97&category=198
Just saw this lobby card for sale: Here, "Lady Takes A Chance", is promoted as "The Cowboy and the Lady", probably for the British Release (interesting enough since Gary Coopers version from 1936 had just that same titel), so maybe there was a slightly different version if the film actually WAS released during the war years.
To get back on this rare Lady-takes-a-chance-version:
It's quite possible that there are different versions.
During the war years ("Lady" was made in 43) the US government established different bureaus of censorship, checking on different points:
- suitable to be released to US citizens in terms of morale?
- to allies, such as the British? To show Americans playboying around, as Wayne here surely does, could be such a case. His "Allegheny Uprising" was withdrawn from the British market and severly cut, then re-released later as "The First Rebel".
- to neutral countries, again: would it hurt the American image?
- the Catholic censors had their 2-cents- words, as well as censors in the different states
Now "Lady" sure was ahead of its time in terms of sex-comedy. Therefore I could imagine that there could be different versions. That scene in the desert is a tricky one: audience weren't supposed to see a couple going to bed together (they had to have their feet on the ground when seen even only sitting on a bed). Now here they sleep in the same desert away from each other - but they wake up together!!! So - and I'm guessing here - the dreamsequence could have been put in there to tell audiences: she was busy dreaming the whole night.
Nobody ever saw this version?
can't do, sorry! that 35mm print is the whole movie in two reels. I've seen it's possible to scan single film cells (although, I don't have a scanner - yet!) it's quite impossible for me to put on that scene. Well, it's not an additional scene at all, just a repetition, so no broken hearts over missing scenes with that one. Just wondered how common/rare this version is.
Apropos "dreamy" and Jean Arthur:
I've seen a very old rare 35mm copy of Lady Takes A Chance, and in the night-sequence, after Jean stole the horse blanket and falls asleep, she actually dreams!
The picture gets blurry and she recaptures some of her adventures - we get to see their meeting with Duke and parts of the brawl again. Then she wakes up. Now this is the older German copy and I wonder if the Germans just took the liberty to include this (but then again, why should they?).
Has anybody ever seen this version?
