Tomorrow night, AMC is showing Carpenter's THE THING, which means it's the dark, p/s, edited, narrated version, with pointless originally deleted footage of various characters prowling the corridors reinserted to beef up the running time.

It's a masochist's delight!

I confess I'm a little addicted to AMC ruined versions of good movies. It's the dialogue tracks that are the best, like PLATOON's repeated use of "maggot farmer" and PULP FICTION's use of "Mother Hubbard" for a particularly Oedipal interjection.

I used to try to get through Sci-Fi's POLTERGEIST, with cuts within scenes, and new dissolves from scene to scene, leaving out material. I couldn't.

Then there's the version of PRINCE OF DARKNESS,which occasionally airs on STARZ. It seems almost an entirely different movie.

I love Bruce Willis' senseless new sandwich board in DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE: "I hate everybody."

Nothing will ever beat THE BIG LEBOWSKI's "This is what happens when you have fun with a stranger in the Alps," though.

I've been trying to get a copy of the alternate television cut of VIDEODROME for some time now. It used to be the one which aired on A&E all the time.

If anyone notices that it is going to air again, please feel free to post it here.

Merci beaucoup.

I'm in the market for the TV version of FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH.

I find the TV cut of VIDEODROME pretty fascinating and wish that it was included on the Criterion DVD.

What about "motherfather Chinese dentist" from PALLIES?

I'm not sure how true this is, but I once read that a network was preparing a "TV safe" version of BLUE VELVET and decided to give up halfway through due to how much work they had to do to change the film.

Nope, they actually finished it. It wound up being only one minute shorter than the original running time.

Ironically, that was what was originally written on the board when they shot the scenes, as the producers did not want to incite genuine violence on location, or have the photos featuring the actual epithet leaked to the press lest they be taken out of context.

The "Universal Debut Network" edition of WEIRD SCIENCE had an amusing loop where Kelly Le Brock refers to Gary's incident where "She kicked you in the guts and called you a braggart." It also features a few extra scenes.
The same barter package had the Second City alumni misfire GOING BERSERK with all manner of extra scenes that cleared up its confusing story, albeit with some ridiculous dubbing.

But the best TV editing story hands down to me is still when Alex Cox supervised the TV cut of REPO MAN, he decided that his next movie, STRAIGHT TO HELL, would have no cursing. And sure enough, while bullets are flying and blood is spilling, characters run around yelling "Gosh darn it!"

I happened to catch the end of an AMC showing of EASY RIDER and just about fell off my couch. When the redneck tells Dennis Hopper to get a haircut, Hopper flips him the bird -- only now it's a clenched fist as his middle finger has been digitally removed!

this is a lesser film then those mentioned above, but how about jason mewes's character in the tv version of MALL RATS? they dubbed his ENTIRE performance!

Probably not with Anton Diffring, though. But isn't it pretty to think so?

the "mickey-ficky" cut of DO THE RIGHT THING deserves a mention....

...as does Tony Montana's SCARFACE origin, eating "pineapple"

For a pure moment of nonsensical bliss, Marty's note of the sign in the TV edit of Die Hard With a Vengeance, but I think this may be my favorite TV edited movie. It loses all properties of making "sense" and becomes very nearly surreal in how its plot pieces fall together with large sections of connecting material cut, redubbed or hacked apart.

Ala the difference between the UK and US video cover art for Peter Jackson's BAD TASTE.

The TV cut of Ken Russell's CRIMES OF PASSION is mind-boggling. Tim Lucas wrote about in VW. Stupefying. "The big pimple" indeed...

Actually, they didn't, which made it even more amusing. You'd hear Jason's actual voice for a couple of lines of dialogue, then an entirely different sounding vocal actor/surfer-dude wannabe would take over and finish lines within scenes. I think the "vocal double" had more dialogue than Jason, but they'd still sneak as much of Jason's stuff in there as possible. It was pretty incredible.

Almost as amusing was how it was advertised when they aired it on TV- entirely Ben Affleck-centric. Also, the store "Rug Munchers" became "Rugs" thanks to some digital tweaking, and they even included some cut footage, some of which was entirely redubbed with new dialogue, giving the scenes completely different meanings.

Vincent

Watching THE THING right now. Boy, life sure is hard for those monkeyfellas.

Ala the difference between the UK and US video cover art for Peter Jackson's BAD TASTE.

On my old Image laserdisc, the company put a sticker on the artwork giving the alien an extra finger, so he's now making a quasi peace sign instead! Peter Jackson had a good laugh at that when he signed the jacket for me way back when.

I remember catching an afternoon TV screening of Bob Clark's BREAKING POINT on a Buffalo station many years back. Instead of looping in new lines or dropping just the offending words, entire sentences were instead deleted from the version. It was ludicrous, but professionally done: characters stood around saying now non-existant lines while the room tone and foley FX remained.

My friends and I love the TV version of SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, which has--I'm pretty sure--character actor and frequent cartoon voice Henry Corden (!) redubbing Jackie Gleason's cursing, often with the word "scum-bum" substituting for "sumbitch." The dubbing is so bad, it looks like a parody of a bad dub job. Not just the stupidity of the dubbing, but it's also technically awful.

Aside from the extra scenes that the television version offers, we also get plenty of great overdubs.

"You dick" becomes "You nerd."

In one of the extra scenes, Anthony Edwards and Eric Stoltz meet up with Sean Penn in the men's room. A look at the original script shows that they call Ray Walston's Mr. Hand a "fucking dick," but in the tv version the line becomes "fuzzy nerd." :lol:

Later, Judge Reinhold's Brad recalls Gleason in Smokey and the Bandit when he calls James Russo's convenience store robber a "scum bum" in lieu of "sonuvabitch." Seems like a pattern in Universal television cuts of their films. Perhaps the best moment comes right before Reinhold douses Russo with hot coffee--"Get off my case, motherfucker!" becomes "Get off my case--dammit--will you!" The overdub sounds like two voices were used in addition to Reinhold's. Hilarious.

The best part, once again, about these dubs is their clunky nature.



"Did you hear about the surfer who pulled a knife on Mr. Hand?"
"No, he just called him a...NERD."

As a child, it confounded me what could possibly be happening during the opening scenes of ZOMBIE LAKE via local TV broadcasts. All the "skinny dipping girls" footage was replaced with slowed waaaaaay down footage of the surrounding foliage of the lake while the soundtrack rolled on. I finally rented the VHS tape 25 years later to see what all the fuss should have been about.

That reminds me of the "no nudity"alternate footage De Palma shot for CARRIE, in the locker room title sequence.

I was in South Beach this weekend, and I happened to catch some of THE THING.
"Windows," the cute radio-operator, had a redub early on, telling Wil Brimley that he hasn't been able to "reach a SOUL." There seemed to be added footage of Donald Moffat, as Gary, emerging from the compound after shooting the Norwegian, and more of the "dog" slyly reacting to the American helicopter taking off (or was I imagining that?)

I recall the presciently Ed Koch-like actor playing the mayor in the TV version of THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE-TWO-THREE exclaiming, as he loses all control of the situation, "Fudge, fudge, fudge, fudge, fudge!"

Thomas G. Waites. Many years ago he came to my college in New Haven to speak to our drama department when he was appearing with Al Pacino in AMERICAN BUFFALO at The Long Wharf Theater. He was very disdainful of having been in THE WARRIORS and an advocate of yoga. Twenty years later and he was a regular in my (former) favorite Manhattan watering hole, The West Bank Cafe. He's quite stocky now and looking his age but keeping his hand in in TV and film and also by directing theatre.

Yeah, Waites works in TV all the time. Seems like he's always playing cops.

His voice is included in the recent WARRIORS videogame, though I don't know if it's newly recorded or just sound clips from the film.

No, that's newly recorded voice work on the video game. Waites has changed his tune about The Warriors as the years have gone by and its reputation has grown.

He and director Walter Hill apparently did not get along so well during filming--Waites was not working out in the role, which was originally much more prominent. So Hill had Waites written out of the film in the middle of production, which explains the bad stunt double during his death scene. In the DVD documentary, Hill expresses regret about how the Waites affair was handled at the time. For his part, Waites has admitted that he was probably a little too haughty on set.

Now, that was really interesting - I hadn't heard about that fracas and the aftermath.

:lol:

He must not have mentioned this during the casting process of The Warriors. Though, on second thought, this probably would have helped with the physicality of that shoot.