10 Rarely Seen Deleted Scenes Not On DVD

"If this was a movie, you'd be on the cutting room floor" - Second Hood (Jon Polito) THE SINGING DETECTIVE

These days, nearly every DVD has some deleted scenes on the special features menu. Most of the time with few exceptions we can see that they were deleted for a good reason. But what about those scenes we hear talk of and maybe see a random clip or photo of here or there but are currently unavailable on DVD? The ones that have some cache of history or interest that may actually make them worth seeing?

Well, I decided to round up some of the most interesting cinematic suspects right here:

1. The War-room pie-fight that was extracted from DR. STRANGELOVE 

“Gentlemen! Our gallant young president has been struck down in his prime!” General Turgidson (George C. Scott) exclaims after President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) gets hit in the face by a pie.

This moment occurring in the pie-fight that was originally intended to end Stanley Kubrick's 1964 classic DR. STRANGELOVE was thought to be potentially offensive to the Kennedy family for obvious reasons. The original test screening of the film was slated for November 22, 1963 and had to be re-scheduled, again for obvious reasons but that wasn’t the only problem: Kubrick said that the scene was “not consistent with the satiric tone of the rest of the film” and others thought that the actors covered in cream pie were indistinguishable - therefore ineffective.

The pie-fight, which would be replaced by a stock film sequence of nuclear explosions, is well known to fans and film buffs because photographs of it have shown in the bonus features of nearly every edition of the DVD but the scene itself remains missing in action. Wikipedia reports that “the only known public showing of the footage was in the 1999 screening at the National Film Theatre in London following Kubrick's death” but then there’s that telling [citation needed] notation.

So will this scene that Kubrick once called “a disaster of Homeric proportions” ever see the light of a DVD player’s laser? Probably not any time soon though I think when they’re preparing the 50th Anniversary edition on whatever format will be popular at the time - it’ll be a prized bell and whistle selling-point.

2. Luke's bonding with his long-time buddy Biggs being edited out of STAR WARS

When I was a kid I was perplexed by the pictures (including the one above) in THE STAR WARS STORYBOOK (Scholastic 1978) – which I still have by the way - of 2 scenes that weren’t in the movie I saw many times at the theater. The stills were of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamil) viewing the space battle the movie opens with on his binocs and his chat with Biggs Darklighter (Garrick Hagon) that helped inspire his adventuresome spirit. 



Lucas has said that he cut the scene because he wanted the film to center on the droids' mission from their point of view so we as an audience wouldn’t meet Luke until the droids met Luke. It would be nice to have the full sequence of Luke on Tatooine pre-C3PO & R2-D2 as a bonus on a non-special edition 1977 theatrical cut of STAR WARS (not calling it A NEW HOPE damnit!). This would be great because apart from Biggs we would all get to see some of Luke’s other friends – Deak, Camie and Fixer. Camie, incidentally was played by Koo Stark – later a British soft-porn actress who dated Prince Andrew.



The footage known as "the Anchorhead scene" (because it took place at the Toshi power station in Anchorhead - got it?) was screened for the first time at the San Diego Comic Con in 1998 and released at the same time on a CD-ROM “Behind The Magic”. Now it can be found in many different cuts on YouTube – I would link it here but Lucasfilm constantly cracks down on copyright violations so it probably wouldn’t last long. Just type in “Luke and Biggs” in the YouTube search engine and you’re bound to find it. Just why this isn’t available on any of the many editions of STAR WARS is unknown. When the bank calls and tells Lucas they’ve located another vault in which he can store more money – he may consider its release.



3. Steve McQueen as Sam Spade on THE LONG GOODBYE's cutting room floor:



In the short documentary “Rip Van Marlowe” on the DVD for this Robert Altman should-be classic the words “deleted scene” flash on black and white production stills of McQueen, Elliot Gould, and Altman while Gould reminisces:

“The first day when I walk in to see what was going on – I think Sam Spade was going up in an elevator and I think some of this may have been edited…”

Wait Elliot, sorry Mr. Gould - are you saying McQueen had a cameo as Sam Spade?!!? Are you kidding? No research on the internets will confirm or deny this and I doubt this scene will ever surface because it’s most likely destroyed like much Altman footage of that era so I can only sigh.



4. The original Audrey II eats everybody ending from LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS:





Many demographic-tested endings have been changed through the years but none more notorious than this one from Frank Oz's 1986 sci-fi comedy musical masterpiece. 



It is the definitive “alternate ending” - a 23 minute sequence which cost 5 million and was true to the stage production’s narrative, in which Seymour (Rick Moranis) is defeated by the ever-growing plant and even feeds Audrey II the dead Audrey (Ellen Greene) before getting eaten himself. 



Audrey II and its many clones take over the planet as the song “Don’t Feed The Plants” serenades or better yet - warns the audience. This sequence was actually released in black and white without sound or special effects on a Warner Bros. Special Edition in 1998 but yanked off the market by producer mogul David Geffen. Early this year according to Wikipedia – “Warner Bros. hinted that a DVD re-issue featuring the original ending may be on its way” so it looks like we may be able to finally see the mean green mother from outer space in all its destructive glory at some point on the horizon.



5. Kevin Costner As The Dead Guy In THE BIG CHILL




The most significant character in Lawrence Kasdan's 1983 baby boomer cinema standard we never see. Well, we see parts of his body as it is being dressed for the funeral but never his face. So what was to be Costner’s big break turned out to be extra-work as a corpse. Costner was cast as Alex, the charismatic college glue that all the other characters (including William Hurt, Glenn Close, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Jeff Goldblum, Tom Berrenger, and Jo Beth Williams) are forever stuck to.



Costner was supposed to be seen in flashbacks but those were cut and despite much protest were not included in the 10 minutes of deleted scenes on the 20th Anniversary Special Edition DVD. Even if you hate Costner, and I know that many of you do, I think it would be interesting to see how he relates to that particular ensemble cast. Maybe he didn’t live up to his character’s implied charm and his deletion helped better ground the movie – I dunno. 25th anniversary maybe? Post-note: Kasdan cast Costner in his next film SILVERADO to make up for the Alex omission. 



6. Halloran's Death Done Differently Deleted From THE SHINING 



Another scene taken from a Kubrick classic. According to the IMDb:

“Halloran's (Scatman Crothers) death scene as filmed is not the one we actually see. The one filmed depicts a much longer, much more graphic death. In its entirety, the scene lasts almost seventy seconds, and is full of gore. Rather then just run up and hit him as seen in the released version, Jack (Jack Nicholson) runs up, hits him in the back of the head. Halloran screams. 



Jack pulls the ax back, and then slams the spike on the back of the ax into the base of Halloran's spine. Halloran screams and recoils, and then Jack slams the ax into his back and he falls down. Halloran rolls onto his back and is looking up, and Jack starts to beat him with the ax before he "hears" something and leaves.”

This is a scene I believe we will be soon able to appraise because the 2 disc Special Edition DVD will be released October 23rd this year. With hope we will also be able to see the scene that was originally at the end where Wendy (Shelly Duvall) is told her husband’s body was never found. This scene actually appeared when the film was first released but cut by Kubrick a week later.



7. Odd Promotional Photo Indicates Odd Outtake From ANNIE HALL 

None of Woody Allen’s movies on DVD have any extras other than a trailer so the prospect of ever seeing anything resembling a deleted scene is pretty slim. Too bad because this photo issued as a publicity still to promote his 1977 Oscar winner ANNIE HALL implies some juicy cut material. No dialogue is known but it looks like it takes place during Alvy and Annie’s first break-up when Alvy is randomly questioning people on the street about their love lives and they all have great one-liner answers. Can’t imagine what this guy's was. Funny how a shot from a scene unused in the movie makes the rounds as advertising but even funnier that 30 years later a blogger like me would assign such significance to it. Another sigh.
 



8. Alternate Jim Garrison Wins The Clay Shaw Trial Climax in JFK



According to Robert Sam Anson in Esquire Magazine (November 1991) as “a joke” JFK Director Oliver Stone filmed “a not-to-be used scene showing Shaw’s (Tommy Lee Jones) jury bringing in a guilty verdict.” In complete contrast to Woody Allen, Stone has had his DVDs loaded with extras – director’s cuts, commentaries, documentaries, and scores of deleted scenes so where is this gem? It would be rather amusing to see Garrison (Costner *) triumphant from the victory of being the first person to bring a trial in the murder of John Kennedy. With all the special editions of the film we’ve seen so far it’s pretty likely that we will one day see this “joke.”

* Funny how somebody whose average movie is 3 hours long still makes me want to see more footage! Long live Costner! 




9. Enid Sleeps With Josh in GHOST WORLD



This scene, which comes directly from the Daniel Clowes graphic novel that Terry Zwigoff's 2001 film was adapted from, takes place in the third act  after Seymour (Steve Buscemi) and Rebecca (Scarlet Johanssen) shun Enid's (Thora Birch) company one sad day. According to the published screenplay, Enid shows up at Josh’s (Brad Renfro) meager hotel room/apartment and shyly but slyly seduces him. It seems this was omitted because we would have even less sympathy for Enid as she goes on to sleep with Seymour causing a harmful ripple effect. Still since the GHOST WORLD DVD has such inessential deleted scenes involving incidental characters it would be nice to see such an actual major discarded plot point. The movie has never been re-released in any form so its official appearance it still a possibility but I’m not holding my breath. 



10. The Spiderwomen, Myrtle & Beryl, Removed From TIME BANDITS



There was a lot in the published screenplay – evidenced in Gilliam’s doodles, production stills, and full pages of dialogue that were not used in TIME BANDITS. This is typical of his work – all the published Python scripts are the same way (MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL has page after page crossed off in crayon) so this is no surprise but where is the actual footage? Especially of the scene from the Time of Legends sequence in which the time travelling dwarfs encounter two spinster spider-women (Myrtle and Beryl) who knit webs in which to catch passing knights. 



Gilliam recalls:

"That was another desperate moment, mainly because that sequence was an afterthought. Mike Palin and I had originally written another whole sequence about two spider women who ensnare some of the bandits in their web. We actually filmed this - and it was marvelous. But it now required a scene on either side to get us from the giant to the fortress, and we had run out of money.”

Fairly certain this bit will show up – Gilliam never seems to throw away footage (or any idea) and the many formats in the years to come will have special feature capabilities beyond our wildest dreams (or at least beyond mine) so I bet this will someday make the cut. 


The spider-women are named Myrtle and Beryl according to many sources but only Myrtle Devenish as Beryl is credited on the IMDb which makes me think that this is incorrect info. Devenish plays a game show contestant on the game show satire "Your Money Or Your Life" seen early in the film on a background television. It’s conceivable she also played one of the spider-women but the names seem off. Anybody know the deal here?

I know this is only scratching the rarely seen scenes surface so please leave your comments below or email:

boopbloop7@gmail.com






This post is dedicated to Merv Griffin Merv as a broadcaster wore many hats – game show host, talk show host, real-estate magnate, pop-crooner, etc. and while he did relatively little film work Film Babble would like to highlight his clever cameo as himself (billed as the Elevator killer) in THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS (Dir. Carl Reiner, 1983). Dr. Hfuhruhurr (Steve Martin) confronts him right after a killing and asks “why?” 



Merv’s answer:

“I don't know. I've always just loved to kill. I really enjoyed it. But then I got famous, and - it's just too hard for me. And so many witnesses. I mean, everybody recognized me. I couldn't even lurk anymore. I'd hear, "Who's that lurking over there? Isn't that Merv Griffin?" So I came to Europe to kill. And it's really worked out very well for me.”



R.I.P. Merv Griffin (1925-2007)





More later…

Ingmar Bergman - The Woody Allen Angle

Isaac (Woody Allen) : “Bergman? Bergman's the only genius in cinema today, I think.”
Yale (Michael Murphy) : (To Mary) “He's a big Bergman fan.”
Mary (Diane Keaton) : (To Isaac) "God, you're so the opposite. You write that fabulous television show. It's so funny and his view is so Scandinavian."
- MANHATTAN (Dir. Woody Allen, 1979)

Nearly every tribute to the late great Ingmar Bergman (July 14, 1918-July 30, 2007) notes his huge influence on Woody Allen. Allen’s 1988 quote that Bergman was "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera" is being heavily circulated right now. Roger Ebert quoted the line in his fine In Memory article and said that Allen has “made some films in deliberate imitation of Bergman.” So lets take a look at some of those films and see just what elements whether they be thematic, technical, personal, or personnel that Woody Allen has "borrowed" from the movie master:

LOVE AND DEATH (1975): The first Allen film to overtly reference Bergman mainly in its use of the Grim Reaper, who oddly appears draped in white not the deathly black that Bengt Ekerot wore in THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957). Set in the Napoleanic era and despite being a satire of Russian literature (Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and the films of Eisenstein) the Bergman steals are what makes the thing tick. The intense overlapping close-ups are taken from PERSONA (1966) and this strained but extremely funny Diane Keaton monologue reeks of Ingmar existentialism given a tongue-in-cheek approach:

"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down."

ANNIE HALL (1977): Allen's most popular film commercially and winner of the Academy Award for best picture has relatively few touches taken from the Swedish director - a few WILD STRAWBERRIES-like returns to childhood memories and some leftover PERSONA-like shots but it is amusing that the film that Alvy (Allen) refuses to miss the beginning of because of Annie's (Diane Keaton) tardiness was Bergman's FACE TO FACE (1976).

INTERIORS (1978): The Woodman's first drama (also his first film as director that he does not appear as an actor in) owes a lot and I mean A LOT to Bergman. The term “Bergmanesque” was coined by Richard Schickel (TIME Magazine) for this film and Vincent Canby of the New York Times wrote:

“It's almost as if Mr. Allen had set out to make someone else's movie, say a film in the manner of Mr. Bergman, without having any grasp of the material, or first-hand, gut feelings about the characters. They seem like other people's characters, known only through other people's art.”

The story is about three sisters (Diane Keaton, Mary Beth Hurt, Kristin Griffith) their suicidal mother (Geradine Page) their father (E.G. Marshall) who has a blustery new spouse (Maureen Stapleton) and all of their misery. Again the close-ups - like that shot above (also used as the poster picture) with the contemplative looks out the beach house window - definitively pay homage to the Bergman aesthetic : "For me, the human face is the most important subject of the cinema.”

MANHATTAN (1979): For the lines at the top of this post alone this film should be noted but also because Allen met Bergman during the shooting. According to John Baxter's Woody Allen : A Biography (Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1998) Bergman reporatory member Liv Ullmann (and longtime companion - while she was not one of Bergman's 5 wives she did produce one of his children) hooked up the meeting and Allen was surprised at how knowledgeable the Swedish director was of the Jewish comedian's one-liners and film work. Shortly Before MANHATTAN opened to rapturous acclaim Allen screened Bergman's THE SEVENTH SEAL and CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972) one afternoon and confided to friend Eric Lax "I see his films and I wonder what I'm doing." He needn't have worried - he was doing just fine.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SEX COMEDY (1982) : Obviously Shakespeare inspired but Wikipedia says "The plot revolves around a weekend party bringing together six people, loosely based on Ingmar Bergman's SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT (1955)". The working title of the film was even "Summer Nights" but Allen has denied this connection repeatedly saying that SMILES was one of his least favorite Bergman films. Well A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT'S SEX COMEDY is one of my least favorite Allen films so let's move on...

HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986): Truly the one notable Bergman connection here is the appearance of Bergman reparatory company member Max von Sydow who plays Frederick - a reclusive pretentious artist who has this incredible speech after channel flipping one night:

"You see the whole culture. Nazis, deodorant salesmen, wrestlers, beauty contests, a talk show. Can you imagine the level of a mind that watches wrestling? But the worst are the fundamentalist preachers. Third grade con men telling the poor suckers that watch them that they speak with Jesus, and to please send in money. Money, money, money! If Jesus came back and saw what's going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up."

SEPTEMBER (1987): Allen's first all and out drama since INTERIORS and again one which he does not appear (again I quote Wikipedia) is "a remake of AUTUMN SONATA" but then we get that [citation needed] red-flag and know not to trust everything we read. It has been a while since I've seen it so I can't really comment - I just remember extended sequences of Mia Farrow weeping among family and an ex and a potential lover in another beach house like INTERIORS in yet another off season.

ANOTHER WOMAN (1988): Longtime Bergman cinematographer Sven Nykvist (1922-2006) works on Allen's third straight drama. It concerns Gena Rowlands as a professor working on a philosophy book who becomes obsessed with eavesdropping on the sessions of therapy patients which she can hear through a vent in her office. This allows for lots of opportunities for introspection about depression aided by Nykvist's visual mastery in one of Allen's most under-rated and worthwhile films. Nykvist would work as Director of Photography for three more Allen movies. While filming ANOTHER WOMAN Allen told an interviewer:

"Bergman likes to rehearse. But the reverse is better for me. It's part of our temperaments. He's a great artist and (laughs) I'm not."

CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989): With its title, the eye of Nykvist, and through its exploration of a "Godless universe" we are almost completely submerged in Bergman at his bleak darkest territory here. Almost completely that is - because Allen's failed film maker subplot is the exception (the Misdemeanors of the title) but thematically and aesthetically we are witnessing a work made from a Bergman blueprint. Wealthy Ophthalmologist Judah (Martin Landau) suffers from existential guilt of universal proportions after having his unstable mistress (Anjelica Huston) murdered by his Mafioso brother (Jerry Orbach). He visits his childhood home and mentally interjects himself into a memory of a family dinner - yep, WILD STRAWBERRIES again. The best combination of comedy and drama Allen has ever created - it's my personal favorite of his films.

HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992): Right off the bat this film owes a conceptual copyright to Bergman's SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. It takes the mock documentary style and introduces us to 2 married couples on the brink of divorce. The first couple - Gabe (Allen) and Judy (Farrow) seem content at first but tensions are mounting especially when told that their friends - the second couple Jack and Sally (Sydney Pollack and Judy Davis) are having a supposedly amicable split-up. We follow each character through flirtations, infidelities, and temper tantrums that recall the canvass of SCENES but Allen has his own stylistic touches on display in the handheld shakiness and the odd edits. The night that Allen and Farrow (who were breaking up in real life) separate they reminisce about watching an old classic movie on TV late one night - what movie you ask? WILD STRAWBERRIES! Which also has more than a little to do with:

DECONSTRUCTING HARRY (1997): The fractured yet still sturdy structure here is definitely stolen from STRAWBERRIES - a noted academic setting out to receive an honorary award from his old university revisits major life situations and memories of lovers past. Also throw in the premise that Allen's author character disguises his private life and lovers as the lives of the fictitious characters he writes. It has been said that that element comes from author Philip Roth - evidenced in the name Harry Block (made me think of writer's block) but it also should be pointed out that the name of Max von Sydow's character in THE SEVENTH SEAL was Antonius Block. It's also been written that an artist manipulating real life for his art angle is in Bergman's THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY (1961) but I honestly can't vouch for that.

Okay, that's enough Bergman-Allen for now. I'll conclude by saying that Allen's next film after HARRY was CELEBRITY which again utilized Nykvist but Allen's films to the current day (labeled by critic Richard Schickel as "the later funny ones") have been fairly bereft of Bergman influence. They've also been guilty of an absence of quality but that's another blog entry.

This post is of course dedicated to Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) R.I.P.

More later...