Hope for Ambersons - Long-lost Karloff film on DVD

[Harvey Chartrand]

Just came across a DVD review of THE GHOUL (1933) on the excellent DVD Drive-in Webzine at http://www.dvddrive-in.com/.
This Karloff picture was thought to be lost for several decades. Somehow a print was located and THE GHOUL has at long last resurfaced.
Mind you, this 30s horror turns out to be only a so-so picture, but it just goes to show you that things turn up if you wait around long enough.
So who knows, there could be hope for locating Welles' original uncut AMBERSONS, the Ultimate Lost Film (along with the 9-hour GREED and Abel Gance's 6-hour "triptych" NAPOLEON, the precursor to Cinerama).

[AndersE]

I too can't accept that it should be impossible to one day see the complete original Ambersons. However, the comparison with the Ghoul is not really valid as it did receive distribution and several prints therefore were in circulation. Ambersons never did and I doubt that any more than a workprint ever excisted of Welles version (and not even that one was "finnished").

As for Napoleon most of it exist today, last time I spoke with Kevin Brownlow he had restored 5 hours and something like 45 minutes (can't remember exactly, have to check). This version can't be shown in the States though, thanks to Francis Coppola (don't get me started on that one...). It was ever only the last real that was shot in triptych. Brownlow explained it something like this: "When Gance realized he had blown all the money ment to bring in all the planned films on the first one, and Napoleon hadn't even invaded Italy at that point he knew he had to come up with something spectacular to divert attention from the fact. So, the triptych sequences were born. And it worked, the audience was so gobsmacked by the sheer impact that they forgot abot not having seen Napoleon become emperor or the battle of Waterloo" (not an exact quote).

Anyway, refuse to give up hope that we will some day see the "real"Ambersons.

Anders

[Harvey Chartrand]

Hi AndersE.
Damn, I'd love to see that 5+-hour version of Napoleon.
Is it available on DVD in Europe?
Your points are well taken and eminently logical.
I don't hold out much hope that the original Ambersons will ever resurface. Then again, we all thought the coelacanth was extinct for 300 million years, until it popped up off the coast of Madagascar in the late thirties. Now it is being driven to extinction "again" by humans, of course.
So who knows? Some admirer of beauty may have made a duplicate copy of the original Ambersons, then taken the secret to his grave with him/her.
Anything is possible in this cockamamie universe.

[AndersE]

As far as I know the only DVD of Napoleon in existance is the Australian one, which is the cut-down Coppola version with his father's score (which is better than it's reputation, I must admit, but I still prefer the Carl Davis score).
take the folowing with a grain of salt, but I think this is the situation. Coppola holds the rights for the entire world exept the UK and France. This is a crime, at least morally, as the only reason any of it exists in viewable form is that Kevin Brownlow has dedicated his life to restoring it. Coppola never did anything (well, he cut down Brownlow's restauration and then did an exellent job marketing it and made a bundle out of it, and now he stops any screenings of the full version through the courts. A true film-lover ).
Allegedly he bougt the rights for $400.000 from Claude Leluche who was somehow involved with Gance. Whether he actually had anything to sell is net entirely clear.
A sad story for film lovers.

Anders

PS. I apologise for this being off topic, but at least it shows that Welles films are not the only ones to be mutilated, and that the practice is alive and well to this day.

[Glenn Anders]

Hi -- Continuing off-topic for a moment: Brownlow's version (or next to last version) of NAPOLEON was shown as a benefit at the old Avenue Theater on San Bruno Avenue, in San Francisco, in the late 1970's. The Avenue specialized in Silent Movies, and the benefit kept the theater struggling on for a while longer. The Avenue had a full pipe organ, and a classic accompanist provided a score. NAPOLEON, in that version, ran nearly five hours and 45 minutes.

One of the great film-viewing experiences of my life.

Let us concentrate our psychic energies on the legendary or mythical vault in Rio where Rick Schmidlin once said he hoped the 16mm work copy of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS sent there by Robert Wise still resides.

Regards.

Glenn

[Welles Fan]

I, too refuse to give up hope on Ambersons. I'm not saying it's likely, but it is possible.

I'm kinda surprised about the Napoleon thing. From Brownlow's book on the restoration, he explains tha the "Coppola version" had to come in at 4 hours in order to play Radio City Music Hall. Now that that event is 22 years in the past, you'd think he'd get over it.

Remember too, that the 4 hr running time was arrived at partly by "speeding up" the movie a little, and not merely with cuts. Also, most of the cuts involved the embarrassingly superfluous character of Tristan Fleuri's daughter and her unrequited love for Bonaparte (a subplot of which even Gance expressed dislike).

[Harvey Chartrand]

Another 'film maudit' that should be added to this list is the original 165-minute version of THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Even though filmed in 1969-70, the 45 minutes or so of cut footage seems to be as irretrievably lost as deleted AMBERSONS scenes shot almost 30 years earlier.
In this case, it was the director himself (Billy Wilder) who butchered his own picture for unfathomable reasons. You'd think that, having invested so much time, energy and money in THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, Wilder would have kept the original master print in a vault somewhere, but apparently not.

[Noel Shane]

Wilder butchering his own film... yes, that was Zolotow's version of the story. To the contrary, Wilder himself later said that he left for Paris and the editing fell to others. The fact that the missing episodes from the movie were never found seemed to wound him as deeply as similar events in Welles' career. He also called Zolotow a bald-faced liar, but that's another story. In any event, Welles fans can be extra sensitive to both rash biographers and filmmakers who make the mistake of orphaning their present tense films in pursuit of the next project.

Considering that HOLMES (a wonderful movie even in its abridged form) was just released on DVD [without the complete footage of the missing pieces, we may never see it all]. { - edited in light of Todd's post below.}

While we're mentioning other filmmakers' woes, let it be said that Al Ruban, without exaggeration, is the Beatrice Welles of the Cassavetes world. She may even look kind by comparison.

[Harvey Chartrand]

And some of us might live long enough to see the Valley of the Spiders scene and the Triceratops Attack scene, cut from KING KONG (1933) before the film went into general release.
Actually, the giant spiders scene was only shown once at a preview in San Bernardino. Footage of huge arachnids devouring men scared the preview audience so badly that director Merian Cooper decided the scene was too much of a show stopper and so had it cut. The ghastly footage hasn't been seen since. The triceratops scene was cut around the same time, vanishing into the mists of filmic legend.
I read somewhere that Orson loved KING KONG and watched it several times as he was establishing himself in New York.
And let us not forget ANCIENT EVENINGS, the lost Karloff-Lugosi vehicle that Ramsey Campbell used as the basis for a spine-tingling novel.

[Glenn Anders]

The cutting of THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES may be explained in that it was made just as the roadshow film, which had enjoyed a vogue, was squelched by a school of dead whales. [Ever see Robert Wise's STAR! in either its 120 minute or original 176 minute version?!!] Wilder's film, which was to be shown with Miklos Rosza's complete deeply nostalgic, homage-filled score -- including overture, entre acte and coda -- was deemed not swinging enough for 1970 and trimmed to a commercial length for the time.

I agree that the film as it stands is a very good one. I have the Laserdisc . . . SHERLOCK HOLMES, which contains strangely crippled parts of the missing footage. I'm not sure that anything absolutely essential was cut except for the full opening credits and Homes' (Wilder's) memory of a first love who turned out to be a professional prostitute.

Of course, supervised by Wilder, the missing episodes might have taken on significance not apparent in their residues.

It's a very Wellsian film, looking back on lost loves, lost empires, lost golden ages.

[Peter Tonguette]

Noel, what's the story with Ruban? Is he the reason the full cut of Cassavetes' masterpiece "Love Streams" remains unavailable on VHS and DVD? (Fortuantely, I saw the full cut projected several years ago; suffice it to say that I count it among my favorite films.)

Peter

[Noel Shane]

He's the reason for a lot of troubles with the Cassavetes catalog, as he controls the estate films, the ones Cassavetes produced on his own. As such, LOVE STREAMS actually falls outside of his jurisdiction. MGM-UA (so I guess that means Turner now? Time-Warner? I can't keep up with all the parent-parent companies) inherited STREAMS with the Canon library. As Cassavetes expert and quasi-biographer Ray Carney has pointed out, however, it's largely because Ruban doesn't have any financial incentive where this film is concerned that there's been no lobbying on its behalf. But one also has to question why Gena Rowlands, Nick Cassavetes, Peter Falk, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Sean Penn and other associates and friends haven't initiated anything (successfully, anyway) to save this and other materials that are in jeopardy.

I agree with you that the complete LOVE STREAMS is a fantastic film. And the uncut version is available on VHS, contrary to most reports; just make sure that you get the MGM-UA videotape and not the Canon edition. HUSBANDS is only available in truncated form on video. That belongs to Columbia (Sony now?) and for all I know they may be on top of things as far as a restored release goes. Let's hope.

[ToddBaesen]

-

Here's some notes on the scenes cut from THE PRIVATE LIVE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, and some of Billy Wilder's comments about the cutting of the film. Incidentally, the DVD release of the film has restored the cut scenes with as much material as could be found. In the Naked Honeymooners episode, the picture is subtitled, because the soundtrack has been lost, and in the Case of the Upside Down room, just the opposite occurred: they have sound, but no picture, so they play the soundtrack with a series of stills. It's still fascinating, as both give you an idea of what was cut better than just reading the script.

**********************************

Original running time: 200 minutes
Released version: 125 minutes

75 minutes where cut from the film, including the prologue, two whole episodes, and a brief flashback from the Loch Ness episode. Originally, the film opened with Holmes and Watson returning from Turkey on the Orient Express. There was a brief comic scene where Holmes deduces that a Italian music teacher has fled from a ladies compartment (in order to escape from the sudden arrival of the ladies husband). This segues into Holmes and Watson’s arrival at Baker Street, and Holmes boredom since he has no case to work on, which leads him to indulge in his cocaine habit. Watson suggests a cure in a Swiss clinic, then concocts a phony murder case to distract Holmes (The Case of The Upside Down Room), with the help of Inspector Lestrade from Scotland Yard.
Next eposode is "The Affair of the Russian Ballerina," which had several trenchant bits cut, including a coda, where Rogozhin visits 221B Baker St. and asks Mrs. Hudson to speak to Mr. And Mrs. Holmes. Rogozhin presents Holmes with the violin Madame Petrova offered, explaining she is now in Venice with the painter, Tolouse-Latrec, who she has selected to be the father for the baby she wanted (and hopes it will be a normal height). Rogozhin then presents Watson with some flowers, and suggests a clandestine meeting between them at the Savoy Grill.
The third episode was to be "The Dreadful Business of the Naked Honeymooners," which was cut completely, and led to the final Loch Ness episode, which had many choice scenes cut, such as Watson reading about the Loch Ness sightings at Baker Street, before Gabrielle arrives, and an important flashback that Holmes relates to Gabrielle in their train bunks on the trip to Scotland (concerning his distrust of women). Holmes first love experience—while on the rowing crew at Oxford—was falling for a girl, who it turns out was a prostitute. Final coda has Holmes taking cocaine, after learning of Gabrielle’s death in Japan from Mycroft's letter, and Inspector Lestrade coming to inquire about Holmes possible help in solving a series of baffling murders in Whitechapel, that the papers are referring to as the "Jack The Ripper" murders. Watson explains that Holmes is unfortunately indisposed and cannot be of any help to Scotland Yard.

*****************************************

from FILM COMMENT - Jan, 1979:

BILLY WILDER: The original explained a little bit more about the relations between those two men. It started off with them on a train and he is doing some of his deducing there, and then coming back (to London). There was, subsequently , an episode of Sherlock Homes in Oxford, the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, and he won the money to go out and pay for a hooker. That's where he finds out that this is the girl he was in love with. The Sherlock Homes thing was premature; after that there came a whole slew of Sherlock Homes pictures. This was sort of the first one. You only see about 60 % of it. I understand United Artists has the complete picture in London. I never inquired into that, because I never inquire into old pictures. But if it takes my permission to help restore THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES I'd be delighted to, any time they want. If they can get a hold of it, I would not ask for any money, they can show it. I would be absolutely delighted. That's the one I would like to redo.



Interviewed by Cameron Crowe - 1999:

BILLY WILDER: SHERLOCK HOLMES was a wonderful picture, but the preview went poorly and I sloughed it off. I was not too interested in a perfect rendition of the picture. It was an unhappy circumstance. The only instance where I abandoned a picture. It was shot in London, and I could not go back to fix things and re-shoot. I had to walk away for another picture. AVANTI, or another picture that fell apart in Paris. I left SHERLOCK HOLMES in the good hands of my editor, and my pals the Mirisch brothers and they murdered it. The cutting was done by an Englishman, Ernest Walter, because I had to have an English editor. A very tough movie to shoot. And episodic. Never do a picture with episodes, because some of them can be cut out. Twenty minutes can go out. And the producer had preferences in which sections to cut, preferences different than my own. I don't know, we just had a tough time. I loved the movie, and it got screwed up. It was too long, and I had the final cutting rights, but I left and didn't do the cutting myself. I told the editor, "I trust you, you know what I would like. Cut this, cut that." And then when I came back, it was an absolute disaster. The whole prologue was cut and whole sequences were cut. I had tears in my eyes as I looked at that thing. It was a very, very well done picture. It was the most elegant picture I've ever shot and I don't shoot elegant pictures. Mr. Vincente Minnelli, he shot elegant pictures.


-

[Welles Fan]

I have mixed feelings about the cutting of Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. I think the current version is pretty good. Some of the other sequences that were cut seem amusing enough, but I don't know if a 200 or so minute roadshow of an episodic, mildly amusing film would work. I mean, this thing would have approached Lawrence of Arabia dimensions. I love the Rozsa score from his violin concerto, and it seems to me to be most effective in the romantic part of the story, which is essentially the heart of the film as it exists now.

I've seen the movie several times over the years, and as time goes by, the romantic aspects of the story (which also contained the film's major mystery plot) hold up much better than the rather forced IMO attempts at comedy.

I think Wilder and screenwriter Diamond and Sherlock Holmes were an odd mix that probably did not come off in the long version. I expect that the long version was too long, not very exciting, and not terribly funny (though it was probably clever). Even if it was funny, 3 hours+ and comedy do not go well together. Maybe Wilder did not realize that he was really making a Vincente Minelli film all along.

I'd like to see what the movie was like in its original cut, but I think I would probably prefer the current one.

[Noel Shane]

I have mixed feelings about the cutting of. . .Sherlock Holmes. I expect that the long version was too long, not very exciting, and not terribly funny (though it was probably clever).

You can have mixed feelings about your own preference between the versions, one of which only exists in your head, but you cannot have mixed feelings about the cutting. Can't accept that. Not here, anyway.

Also, and I say this cordially, he wasn't making a roadshow, whatever that is (yes, at one time it was to be a musical), nor a Vincent Minnelli film, nor a Wellesian film. He was making a Wilder film and a pastiche of the Holmes stories. Everything else is just insulting.

The reason I'm posting, though, is to inquire about MAJOR DUNDEE, since we're tossing these around. The Peckinpah cut is gone irretrievably, as I know the story. Anyone more versed in the history know differently?