Movie Thread: The Dissection Room

[Garrett Gilchrist]

There's no way to say this that isn't rude ... but Jerry Lewis is a comedy legend, a screen legend, and in his later years he was pissing people off publicly. Upon his death, we can perhaps forget that and just look at and enjoy his work, as we did with John Heard ... . . .. .

[filmfan94]

http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2017 ... tton-club/

Edit: Turns out this may be fake news as the gentleman who brought this article to my attention on Home Theater Forum (the honorable Robert Harris) has yet to find evidence supporting this story.

[JustinHoskie]

In a cut scene from a later draft of the screenplay to The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Wich forces Dorothy to become a scullery maid (much like the Queen does to Snow White) and forces the girl to mop all the floors in her castle, as Toto escapes and runs for help.

Hours later, as Dorothy continues to mop the floors, guarded by various Winkie guards, she looks out the window and sees her friends coming to rescue her. Knowing that calling out to them would alert the guards, she begins to sing "Over the Rainbow" almost at the top of her voice, with all the emotion she can muster so the Tinman, Lion, and Scarecrow can know where she is. The Witch also overhears her and believes the child is mocking her by singing, and pops her head out of her chamber to hear the end of the song ("Birds fly over the rainbow---why then, oh why can't I?") and smiles, saying "So she wants to go over the rainbow, does she?" She then takes out an old spell book and begins to work at her cauldron.

The trio breaks into the castle and hearing someone humming "Over the Rainbow" and believing it's Dorothy, they gently enter a room, terrified to discover it's the Witch working away, with a kaleidoscope of colors reflected off her face from the cauldron. They go to kill her, they're seized by Winkie guards, and the Witch, now with the last things she needed for her plan in place (Dorothy's friends and the full-moon directly over the castle), she creates a rainbow (or what she calls a "moonbow") bridge across the towers separating the trio and Dorothy.

After making one of the Winkie guards cross the bridge, to prove the center of the bridge is too thin for anyone to cross, she forces the trio to call out to Dorothy who hears, finds the rainbow bridge, begins to cross, but as she realizes her peril, she marches on ahead and the ruby slippers carry her across.

Gee, I wonder why it was cut from the script?

[filmfan94]

My guess would be that the filmmakers felt that the rainbow bridge would be too difficult to pull off convincingly.

[filmfan94]

https://www.thewrap.com/rose-mcgowan-la ... n-company/

Supposing this petition miraculously succeeds in shutting down the Weinstein Company, who do you think would end acquiring their film assets (I'm particularly thinking of The Thief and the Bronston epics if they still own them)?

[Dennis196492]

Probably Disney since they already maybe kinda tried a small push. Maybe not.

As for the Bronston epics, Weinstein only made the Miriam Collection releases of El Cid and Fall, every other Bronston film, save for El Cid, already belongs to someone else (MGM and Paramount), which leaves only El Cid to be picked up by someone.

I hope this means that we'll see in the near future announcements of new El Cid and Fall of the Roman Empire blu-rays.

[filmfan94]

If we do get US Blu-Rays of El Cid and Fall of the Roman Empire, they’re going to have to be retransfered, especially Fall since that one was shot in Ultra Panavision and it would be nice to actually get those deleted scenes that were supposedly found too late to be included on the DVD. Going by comments Robert Harris has made over at Home Theater Forum, El Cid (my personal favorite of the Bronston epics, though I am fond of King of Kings, which is safely with Warner) thankfully doesn’t need a whole lot of work as Pinewood has the Technirama negative which is said to be in very good condition. Also, the rights situation for the Bronston epics, outside of King of Kings, seems rather questionable, especially since we don’t know if the Weinsteins still own them. What makes it even confusing is that Paramount is offering one of those payable movie things for a drastically shortened version of Fall on YouTube (ironically enough, they were the original distributors for the film).

[Dennis196492]

55 Days and King of Kings look amazing on Blu-Ray (I thought Kings was with MGM, which released the film in the first place), speaking of which I also wished The Greatest Story Ever Told got re-transferred.

I don't know about Circus World but Fall and El Cid both use obsolete restorations done in the early 90's like the first Spartacus blu-ray, though not as grimy-looking and grainy. I wonder what is the condition of the Fall deleted scenes, the DVD says that they couldn't ''remaster them in time'', whatever that meant, but I read somewhere, I think IMDb, that these scenes are in 8mm.

It would be appropriate for Paramount to own Fall of the Roman Empire, since the logo is still in the film's credits, and that they financed a good chunk of the production, as for ''drastically shortened versions'', it could very well just be a version where they took out the Overture/Intermission/Entr'Acte/Exit Music, those are usually the first ones to go when people put these films on streaming sites.

[filmfan94]

King of Kings was made by MGM with Bronston in an attempt to duplicate the success of Ben Hur, but the film ended up with Warner as part of the Ted Turner deal which also included all pre-1986 MGM films. Also, considering MGM's lack of effort in taking care of their films (they've all but condemned The Alamo to rot into oblivion, so I wouldn't have too much hope for a retransfer of Greatest Story), King of Kings is better off with Warner.

As for this shortened version of Fall being distributed by Paramount on YouTube, the overture, intermission, and exit music are much too short to explain the nearly half-hour difference in running time (the YouTube thing is listed as running 2 hours and 33 minutes where the DVD runs 3 hours and 5 minutes approx. with overture, intermission, and exit music).

[Garrett Gilchrist]

I would be curious what happens to the rights to the Thief. It's not clear to me what the rights situation was before this. I know Miramax was keen to get rid of the artwork and material they'd saved from the film. I suggested they send it to Dick Williams and I assume some of that is what's at the Academy now.