I suppose the most famous of these is “The Biggs Scenes” on Tattooine from Star Wars, the scene that survived every edit of the script and was filmed but never released.
Some scenes that I know exist (or at least that I know were filmed) but that have never been included on a DVD and that I would love to see: Harold & Maude- the DVD includes the original trailer for the movie which shows a scene in which H & M are passionately kissing. Presumably this comes just before the scene in which they are in bed together, but it is not in the movie itself. I would like to see this (and I wonder if the reason it was struck was because people didn’t mind seeing a 20 y.o. guy and 80 y.o. woman in bed together but seeing them actually kiss was disturbing to them). The Color Purple- The original movie ending (which was actually shot- there are even silent three-second clips from it on a documentary on the DVD) was of Celie and Mister sitting on her porch, both with old age make-up, basically two old friends discussing the past (very much from the book). Instead it was decided to end the movie with the reunion scenes. I would love to see this original though.
I’ve brought this up on the Board before – apparently in Young Frankenstein there’s a scene where, before Gene Wilder as Frankenstein goes onstage with Peter Boyle as The Monster, he encounter’s Igor without his hump. There follows the dialogue:
Frankenstein: Wha-… What happened to your hump?
Igor: Never with a tux!
A lot of people (including my wife, Pepper Mill) have sworn that they saw this scene, but I never have. I have no doubt that it took place – after the Monster storms offstage, elga and Igor rush to Frankenstein’s side, and you can see Igor has no hump, but in existing VHS and DVDs this is unexplained.
DVDs have lately been issued with lots of “bonus materials”, so we can see a lot of the missing stuff, but the enhanced DVD of Young Frankenstein, crammed with other material (and many other, much lesser cut scenes) laxcks this scene.
I always wanted to see the missing animated scenes from John Carpenter’s The Thing, but this is one of those cases where they showed up on the DVD.
The one scene in theater I always wanted to see was the scene cut from the musical 1776 where Adams and Franklin share a bed while inspecting the troops in New Jersey. One reason I wanted to see it was that the place they may have stayed – the Indian Queen Tavern in New Brunswick – was stioll standing at its original spot at the time. The tavern still exists, but has been moved to East Jersey Olde Towne. The scene never made it to the movie. (By the way, the DVD restores at least two scenes cut from the4 film before its release, and restores the original title music in its proper place. Well worth seeing for “Cool Considerate Men”, which Nixon was apparently annoyed with, and nixed.)
This kinda counts: The original ending to the musical Little Shop of Horros was included on the movie’s first DVD edition as an extra, but for some reason someone up high didn’t want it to be seen, so that version was recalled. The current edition doesn’t have the scene. I’ve never seen it, and I’d like to.
Speaking of Mel Brooks, he claims that the following line was cut from Blazing Saddles: The scene as shown has Madeleine Kahn been asking “is it twue what they say about bwack men?” whereupon the lights go out and she says “Ja! It’s twue! It’s twue!”. Brooks said that in the original version, you hear Cleavon Little say Excuse me ma’am, you’re sucking on my arm
but censors wouldn’t allow it at the time. I don’t know if it’s been restored as I haven’t seen the DVD. (When Mel Brooks told this story on a Larry King interview you could literally hear the camera-men and tech crew in the studio laughing.)
The Addams Family (the Julia/Huston/Soderbergh version) had a long song/dance segment called Mamushka that even appears on the soundtrack, but because college-age test audiences didn’t like it the studio deleted it and it has not reappeared. (Only the first line or two and the knife fight finale remain in the film.)
I bought the CD for the most recent B’way revival and very unusual for a stage show cast recording: it includes cut songs at the end sung by their composer. The best are the alternate dentist song (“I Found a Hobby*”) and Audrey’s disturbing “The more he hurts me/the more he loves me” number.
*When describing going to a “gruesome horror feature” with his friends as a child he sings the line And when I saw the awesome torture chamber in that flick/I found I got a hard-on while the other kids got sick.
I heard there scenes in the 2nd Austin Powers movie with Fat Bastard that grossed out test audiences so much they were cut. They may be on the DVD for all I know, though.
Are you sure? I clearly remember a Mamushka dance scene that was more than just a couple of lines and a knife fight. I rember Gomez and Uncle F. dancing around each other for a part of it, arms linked almost liek in square dancing.
Others: Metropolis – I get the impression that there’s more of this available than made it onto the recently-released “restored” DVD. Possibly the owners don’t want to cooperate. But I’d like to see as much as they can scratch together. King Kong – well, the footage has probably been destroyed, but there was a lot of stuff cut, including a surprisiong amount of special-effects work. In particular, I’d love to see the Giant Spider scene. AFAIK, only one still of that has survived. I also heard there were different opening titles somewhere.
Forget Dan O’Bannon’s Dune (did he really do one? I knew of others…), I’d like to see the rest of David Lynch’s stuff that got excised, as edited by Lynch himself (not the TV-edited extras version that has “Allan Smithee” listed as director). Creator – the version broadcast on TV has a scene of Peter O’Toole’s character and his wife (only briefly glimpsed in recollection on the existing film) at Coney Island shortly after they were married. It’s not in the as-released film, but oughtta be, along with whatever else got cut. 2001 – they shot extra scenes,. including one of Dave playing HAL at Pentominoes. The makers of Pentominos were hoping for big sales from that scene, and printed it on the box cover. They musta been pissed when the scene was cut (although Clarke later used pentominoes in his book Imperial Earth) Again, not on the DVD
** From Russia with Love** – they shot a wonderful scene of Kerim Bey and his bunch (his sons?) cornering the Russian agent and boxing him in so he can’t move his car, or get out of it. They had to cut the scene, though, because by the time this scene takes place that character had already been very visibly killed. This is why they have people watching continuity. AFAIK, the shot isn’t available anywhere. Certainly not on my DVD.
Ooh, yes! And to hear the cut song (IIRC, it was entitled “Increase and Multiply,” and Franklin sang it with a lady of ill repute from the room next to theirs while Adams tried to read). The rest of 1776 is so much sheer perfection that I would love to see this scene.
Sampiro is correct. The song and dance routine was originally much longer than in the theatrical release. College-age preview audiences yawned, and most of the scene was axed.
As for the Blazing Saddle line, I saw it in the theater when the movie was first released. It may have been removed in later releases – mostly because people laughed so hard at the first line that they missed the zinger completely. Considering ALL the stuff that has been edited from that movie at one time or another, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were 3 or 4 “original” versions released to different theaters.
The Mamushka I saw lasted several minutes and was considerably more complicated than a line or two and a knife fight.
Jean Simmons had two nude scenes in Spartacus that had to be “covered up” to satisfy the censors. When the film was restored and rereleased, some of the graphic violence and the suggestive “snails and oysters” scene were put back, but these scenes remained bowdlerized.
In the first, Simmons’ character Varinia is brought to Spartacus’ cell. He (or she, can’t remember which) removes her tunic. Originally, her breasts were visible in a couple of shots. But in both the theatrical and restored versions, the lowest quarter of the screen was artificially darkened.
The other scene showed Varinia bathing naked in a pond, her breasts occasionally breaking the surface of the water. To mask the offending flesh, a tree branch was strategically inserted in the foreground. The branch remains in the restored version.
Malick’s The Thin Red Line. Several prominent actors were cut from the film, including Mickey Rourke, Viggo Mortensen, Lukas Haas, Jason Patric, Bill Pullman and Martin Sheen; in the original script, Fife, the character played by Adrien Brody, reportedly had a considerably larger part. There’s also an unused narration by Billy Bob Thornton.
You’ll find more than this listed in Goldner and Turner’s invaluable book The Making of King Kong. Goldner was part of the effects crew, so he knew whereof he spoke. Incidentally, the lizardy thing crawling up to menace Armstrong in the shot in this link isn’t what was originally there, according to Goldner – originally it was a spider or something that crawled up out of the abyss at him. They replaced it with the lizard-thing.
The book also contains a shot of Kong falling from the top of the Empire State building that’s much more dramatic than the one in the final film, but which wasn’t used because of other effects “burning through”. There’s also a shot of an Arsinotherium (and extinct giant mammal) not in the film or listed on the linked page.
To tell the truth, I’m still annoyed that King Kong isn’t available on DVD. I hope, when they finally do release it, that they include a lot of this peripheral stuff.