WELLESNET MESSAGE BOARD

Noel Shane: Actually, I can have mixed feelings about anything.

Wilder himself admits that the long version did not work.

To add another heart-warming tale of long-lost footage recovered, Ken Russell's delirious mass-hysteria classic The Devils recently had all the censored footage restored (including the near-legendary "Rape of Christ" sequence), after several long-deleted sequences were found in the dingiest, darkest vault imaginable somewhere in the bowels of Britain during an exhaustive research for a documentary on the film.

The soundtracks were re-constituted (the negative elements found were silent), the footage was carefully restored and the documentary makers offered to pay out of their own pockets to have it reinserted into the original negative, but Warner Bros refused to put it back in the film, considering it too obscene for release.

It was screened on UK television once last year as part of a documentary on the film, but Warner are refusing to allow it be shown again. Ken Russell and the team responsible are now trying to find a third party to buy the rights to the alternate uncut version from Warner (much like with the director's cut of Natural Born Killers) to release it in the form that was always intended.

Still, the footage was found, which is what counts.

Another interesting reconstruction story accompanies the new DVD release of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA:

http://turnerclassicmovies.com/MovieNews/Index/0,,58981,00.html


Re: Sherlock Holmes...
Wilder himself admits that the long version did not work.

Artists are not always their own best critics. Particularly someone like Wilder, who always played down his own accomplishments and was quick to rebut most compliments about his films with talk of his own dissatisfaction, which was mammoth even by artistic standards.

No news or hope, but a very informative discussion regarding the fate of Ambersons on the a_film_by discussion group:

http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/

The username hotlove666 refers to Bill Krohn...the same Bill Krohn who "co-directed" It's All True.

After reading that newsgroup message, I realize with total bedrock conviction that all hope of ever finding the uncut AMBERSONS is now well and truly lost.
I was just reading about how film historians recently scoured old Havana cinemas looking for the missing third reel of the Spanish DRACULA (1931). They found it, deteriorated almost beyond repair.