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)
