Movies that need a special edition Blu-Ray!

Oooh, a thread up my alley.

Actually what I want is a new Dances with Wolves bluray WITHOUT the extended cut. Give us the much tighter, more well-paced theatrical cut back please!

I was unaware it was extended.  How long is the real version?

Okay, gotcha. Thanks.

Oh. What parts were cut out?

Keywords are Italian Premiere Version. That's the one that Sergio Leone personally screened in December 1966 and made changes to based on their reaction. Sir Christopher Frayling, who wrote the definitive biography on Sergio Leone, explains this very clearly in the Blu-Ray commentary track. He's very critical of the "extended cut."



United Artists co-produced the movie. Clint Eastwood himself explained this in the DVD making-of feature. That's why the movie has a big budget and can compete with American westerns on a technical level. MGM, which bought United Artists in the 1980's, didn't randomly discover an extended version in the 2000's. As the co-owners of the movie, they've always been aware of this version. IN FACT, go find a copy of the DVD from the 1990's. The scenes that make up the extended cut are available as "deleted scenes" in the special features section - where they belong. The only reason why MGM chose to release an extended cut is because of Warner Bros. success with the European version of Once Upon a Time in America on DVD. Paramount also had similar success with their DVD release of Once Upon a Time in the West. MGM was just trying to cash in on this obsession of fans getting more complete versions of Sergio Leone's movies - even though the original 1967 American version was already approved by Leone and fans were already happy with it. The Dollars Trilogy never needed any "extended" versions. It was the Once Upon a Time trilogy that had issues with its American distributions.[/quote]

www.imdb.com/title/tt0060196/alternateversions?ref_=tt_ql_trv_5

The versions of this film can be summarized as follows:

The full Italian version runs about 175m

The "International Export" version supervised by Leone ( Dracula ) runs 161m - this is the version available on VHS, laserdisc and DVD in the UK and USA. The other 14m were never dubbed into English - these additional sequences appear as extras on both the UK and USA DVD releases and the last laserdisc release.

In the UK the theatrical release ran only 148m due to distributor cuts and censorship cuts - the main distributor cut was the removal of the entire scene with Eli Wallach in the gunshop; the censors hacked about 2m out of the scene when Wallach is tortured by Mario Brega in the prison. UK videos and DVD's are uncut and run 161m (allowing for Pal timing differences). Various other scenes may have been filmed but excised by Leone before release. One of the laserdisc releases contains a still on the inside cover of Eastwood in bed with a woman that has never appeared in any version of the film.

The additional 14min in the original version (Italian release, then DVD bonuses) are only transitions scenes, heavily depicting the gloomy war background.

The first additional scene (the longest) comes right after Tuco failed to hang Blondie. Sentenza tracks Bill Carson and investigates among derelict confederate soldiers. He learns that the 3rd regiment has flown through the desert "which is not much better than the Union prison."

After the scene in the desert where Bill Carson shares his secret, Tuco, steering the carriage in a grey uniform, asks a group of confederate soldiers where he can find a doctor for Blondie. He says he is Bill Carson then learns that the San Antonio mission is just a few miles away.

While Tuco enjoys his railroad trip (with Corporal Wallace) Sentenza and Blondie are on their way to the cemetery. They stopped for the night by a river. Strangers show up, Blondie shots one and then learn they're Sentenza's henchmen. There are 5 new comrades plus Sentenza. Blondie: "6 - the perfect number." Sentenza: "I thought 3 was the perfect number." Blondie: "Yes but in my gun there's room for 6 bullets."

In 2003, MGM Studios (current majority owner of the producing studio, United Artists) in association with Martin Scorcese, Clint Eastwood, and original producer Alberto Grimaldi, painstakingly restored the original 3-hour Italian version using the 14 minutes that had been previously cut (and used only as a supplement on the DVD). Because these scenes had never before been dubbed into English, Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach (as well as voice doubles filling in for actors who had since passed away) were brought in to re-dub their lines into English. The film was also remastered in six-track Dolby Digital. This version premiered on cable's American Movie Classics network. It has also been released in revival film houses in the U.S. and in Australia.

There you go, "full Italian version runs about 175m" (the extra 2 minutes on the "extended" version are restoration credits).  And I'm well aware that Leone "approved" the edits to the international version, it would make sense that if international distributors were demanding cuts that he'd do what he had to do to make sure that the cuts were as painless as possible but that doesn't mean it's his preferred version.

Different studios, I think.

Meh. Criterion or gtfo.