Need help with article: examples of films not available in original form?
 

I'm writing a law article. To support my argument, I need a couple of examples of films (or, I suppose, shows or cartoons, though preferably films) that are not available (in any legally and readily accessible format) in their original unedited form. They should be films that were edited by the studios that hold the copyrights, not by the MPAA, third-party distributors, or the government. Ideally, they will be well-known films that anyone with a very casual knowledge of film will be familiar with. Most importantly, the edits should be of clear historical or political import (for example the excising of politically or racially sensitive content) such that analysis of the edited version would be appreciably different from analysis of the original version. I am less interested in edits of sexual content, unless such content has a clear political or historical purpose.

If anyone knows of any examples, please post them here. If my request is vague or if you believe no such examples exist, please let me know and I will try to clarify or broaden the inquiry. Thanks!

Does anyone really need to point out to you the Disney and Song of the South debacle? You could do a massive paper on this thing alone.

Two words
tar babies

Some racially insensitive content was edited out of Fantasia. I don't believe an un-edited version is currently available.

Many edits have been made to Marx Brothers films to take out dialog that was either "racy" or politically incorrect. In ANIMAL CRACKERS, one line of a song ("I think I'll try to make her") is cut and it's very obvious something is missing.

Universal cut a scene from the original FRANKENSTEIN in which the monster throws a child in a lake. It, along with a line about Dr Frankenstein comparing himself to God were restored in the 80s, but were unseen for a long time.

Disney's domestic release of MELODY TIME digitally erases the cigarettes that hero Pecos Bill was smoking, and cuts a line about smoking out of a song. The european and AUstralian releases have the smoking and the line intact.

The are some Tom and Jerry episodes in the DVD sets that are edited because of racially sensitive materials. There are also several Looney Tunes cartoons that were also edited or haven't been released commercialy for the same reason.

There is also the Miramax suddenly prude mentality. They edited around 12-14 minutes of the Malena DVD, mainly because of nudity. WB also censored digitally several nude/sex scenes in the Eyes Wide Shut region 1 release. There is the Song of the South debacle. I think it was mentioned recently that the DVD release of Private Lessons had many scenes with the nudity blurred, which was done by the DVd company that release it.

So you're only interested in examples where the original version was unedited, but is now only available edited? As opposed to things which were originally censored but are now restored?

Incidentally, the MPAA has no power to edit movies. They claim that they will not even give specific examples of what needs to be cut to change the ratings, because (on-the-record) they say it would be censorship ... but it seems widely known enough that it's probably true that they will negotiate with and talk specifics with studios, where they won't with independents. Any cuts "done by the MPAA" are done by the studio holding the copyright ... even if the director and editor cut the material, they're doing so because the studio has a guaranteed rating in the contract.

A couple lines of dialogue in one episode of Jonny Quest (original series) were removed. Race Bannon taunting some Amazonians with, "Hey, you heathen monkeys" or something like that. Just the audio. But the words were still in the subtitles. :lol:

In The Wonder Boys there was a negative remark about Alan Ladd that was later deleted after his heirs protested.

Specifically, they falsely stated that Ladd had committed suicide. [I don't believe it was a malicious or deliberate falsehood ... certainly not on the part of the filmmakers.]

What, no one has mentioned the Original Star Wars Trilogy???






;)

Sorry to go MIA in my own thread...

Thanks to everyone who's given suggestions. I appreciate it. I am trying to steer clear of implicating Disney as they are a client of my employer and that would be a political headache.

The Marx Brothers example is a great one. I think I'll pursue that.

Thanks again. If anyone is interested, the article is about the first sale doctrine.

Well, his original request seemed to leave out a lot of movies which were re-cut years later by the directors, because there's no specific motivation (certainly not political) for making those cuts.

I thought of one: 'Eyes Wide Shut'. Not the censored sex, but the fact that they changed cut out the holy Muslim chant and replaced it with a similar sounding but not religiously offensive chant.

There's a film "The Thief and the Cobbler" which has a notorious history of being chopped up.

http://www.originaltrilogy.com/forum...56&STARTPAGE=1

This has all kinds of stuff on a fan restoration someone is doing.

Just a short summary of what happened to it:

- Roughly an hour of completed, filmed animation (and about 20 minutes of pencils-only animation) before taken away
- The new owners finished the animation cheaply, with the pencil animation finished in Korea
- Extensive editing threw out a lot of completed animation, as well as the new owners never having a lot of pencils-only animation finished
- Extensively re-dubbed save for Vincent Price's voice and a few minor characters
- Original score (part original/part classical and jazz) replaced with mediocre work (as well as a lot of synth stuff)
- This is just the first "The Princess and the Cobbler" version released in Australia. When Miramax bought the film, they further edited the film, added more music, added more redubbing - over silent characters. This is "Arabian Knight" which was released in the U.S. The video keeps the original title.

Even worse, this was filmed in Panavision and only available on DVD here in pan and scan. It wasn't even formally released - it became a freebie on cereal boxes.

The original animation produced by Richard Williams (he directed the animation for Who Framed Roger Rabbit) is some of the most beautiful, subtle, and graceful ever made. Totally on "ones" (one drawing = one frame). The animation made without his supervision is on twos and is usually off-model. Some sequences were inked and painted in Korea from the excellent pencil animation not filmed yet, but they suffer from inferior photography (the original hour of photographed, finished work used wide-angle lens, backlighting, and diffused lighting - the later stuff is flatly lit) and continuity problems (eyes were airbrushed to look realistic in the Williams work, flat colors on the later stuff).

Possibly the "Magnificent Ambersons" of animation. Excellent film in its original incomplete form - turned into a wreck by incompetent moneymen.

Oddly enough, the first re-edit did stay somewhat faithful to the storyboards, but they added four song sequences, inept additions (turned the female lead into a feminist), and even spoiled some surprises by moving around shots.

Thanks, I will look into both of these as well.

Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade
Paramount no Cuts, however, in the initial Theatrical Release of "The Last Crusade", Walter Donovan points to a Chest of Gold Items and says to the Sultan of Hatay "... donated by the finest Jewish families in Germany." In all subsequent releases of The Film, including the DVD, the word "Jewish" has been edited out of the dialogue

what about Fritz Lang's Metropolis? The original version will never be seen again... Or Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau

Isn't that just because complete versions simply don't physically exist, and not because they were censored?

I'm not completly sure why Metropolis doesn't exist anymore, but I believe it was because it was censored... Nosferatu was definitely censored (in it's entirety) as it was banned and all the known copies were destroyed because it resembled "Dracula" too closely.

I thought Bram Stoker's estate ordered it to be destroyed, but copies were already out. And that it's the same one that's out there in public domain today :hscratch:

E.T., dude. Fucking E.T.

I'm pretty sure you are right. Stoker's estate did file suit and it was supposed to be destroyed (not censored), but as you say some copies were already out. fargreg: there's a bit of a difference between "censored" and "destroyed", there was no way the Stoker estate was going to let this movie play, even if it was censored in any way, they wanted it completely stricken from the record.

I would think that being destroyed is the same as censorship and I think there is a possiblility that the surviving prints were missing some material from the movie. Anyways, the author of the thread does not really specify that the films had to be censored, just that they have been changed.

Original theatrical version of E.T. is still readily available in the 2-disc edition.

The two-disc special edition and the three-disc limited edition are both OOP. The only version available to purchase at the moment is just a single disc edition of the 2002 edit.