Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection - Oct 14, 2008 (1 Viewer)

[Simon Caleb]

With all due respect, anyone stating Hitchcock was 'free' to do whatever he wanted to his films is entering rather shaky ground. None of us knew the man personally. And not all film makers are Lucas in their tinkering.

There's also been an update to Tim Lucas' blog under the original Psycho piece I sent to him.

I do not understand anyone taking a dogmatic tone. If those precious 18+seconds are irrelevant, then any potential restoration of said footage will make no difference. End of.

Does anyone have contact details for Universal? we need to alert them to the fact. I want this restored!

 

[Jeff Adkins]

If the U.S. version was cut and Hitch sent the uncut version everywhere else, then I don't see how it could be argued that the U.S. version is the definitive version. That would indicate that Hitch wanted the extra footage in the film but just couldn't do it for the U.S. market.

There's numerous examples of films that have been cut for U.S. release and finally restored on DVD. I don't see why Psycho would be any different.

 

[Jon Robertson]

I'm in total agreement, Jeff. This is a clear-cut case of restoration, not tinkering after the fact. These aren't outtakes retrieved from the cutting room floor but U.S. censor cuts to three of the most contentious sequences in the film.

The footage was still in certain prints in the mid-1960s, as this photo from the Hitchcock/Truffaut interview book shows.

 

[Simon Caleb]

Wholly agree there.
By the way, I just checked my Picador, Film Classics Library photonovel by Richard J Anobile, ISBN 033024213 X. Nothing featured there from the uncensored Euro print.

 

[Garysb]

I am surprised no one has mentioned the 2 cuts, US and UK, of "Strangers On The Train" on DVD. US version cut some of the implied homosexuality of Robert Walker's character.

 

[Lord Dalek]

deleted.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Does this mean you don't want THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSON's mocked with since millions of people have seen the cut version?

I'm also rather shocked that this discovery isn't getting more attention. Perhaps others have known about it but I had heard of the cuts but never realized that this longer version was out there.

 

[John Hodson]

This German site has details and stills of the cut footage.

 

[BillyFeldman]

Re Strangers On A Train - we have both cuts on the DVD - and that's what should happen here. Ambersons is, of course, a whole different story, and has nothing to do with eighteen seconds of film.

 

[Lord Dalek]

That's comparing apples and oranges. Amberson had a whole hour of footage cut out of it not by Welles but by RKO, and the resulting film IS a problem. But Psycho is under half a minute of footage, and the reason why the film works so well is because its so subtle. You're ultimately just putting more blood for the sake of more blood, it doesn't help the film at all.

This is like reverse Star Wars fanboyism here. You guys are all obsessed with throwing a film everyone's been happy with for years under the bus, just for a marginally different cut with a tiny bit more gore. I feel ill.

 

[Paladin]

Because they want to make lots of money! If they sell this DVD boxset, lots of people will buy and then when they release the Blu set in a year or so many of the same people will buy them again.

 

[Jon Robertson]

There's dazzling craftsmanship throughout, but the violent moments are anything but subtle. Hitchcock wanted to present the wildest, grisliest ride yet seen in movies and could get away with it in the shower scene because there was essentially nothing there to cut, which he could prove - not so with a shot of Janet Leigh unhooking her bra, close-ups of blood-covered hands, and extra stabs. I've not yet seen the uncensored version, but I can imagine these extra details providing a much nastier visceral kick during the sequences which they were originally removed from. Anyone who thinks these sorts of grisly details are somehow superfluous in Hitchcock, especially at this late stage of his career, needs to watch The Birds, Torn Curtain and Frenzy again.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Sorry but this is the silliest thing I've read in quite a few years. How was anything in this movie subtle? It might be compared to SAW or HOSTEL but when this was released it was all shocking stuff and there weren't any easy routes out with it.

Countless movies have been cut up by the MPAA so if the director's intended version is out there then it should take front and center. This isn't about gorehounds wanting more gore. It's about Hitchcock wanting the stuff in the film and if you've seen his later work then you know he would go all out. TCM shows a two-part interview with him every once in a while and the talk about censorship is brought up. From this interview it's clear that he would have liked to push the envelope in terms of violence, sex, nudity and gore but wasn't able to. PSYCHO was such a film that he had to cut so why not take it back to his original version?

 

[Ruz-El]

I agree with you Michael. "FRENZY" showed that Hitch had no issues getting graphic, it would be nice to see this alternate cut get a proper release. It's not like we're asking for the well known edited cut be destroyed and never seen again.

this reminds me a lot like what happened with "EYES WIDE SHUT", where Kubrick had an American cut, and a world cut. No one had problems when EYES got a proper release in the region 1, not too sure why it's such a bugaboo with Psycho.

 

[Michael Elliott]

That's a good point with EWS. Heck, even THE SHINING has an alternate, shorter cut that was released pretty much everywhere except here.

 

[Patrick McCart]

n/m

 

[Kevin Harper]

Interestingly the version of PSYCHO shown on UK TV last night was the US version with missing shots detailed in this thread.

 

[John Morgan]

I don't have the Hitchcock/Truffaut interview book in front of me, and I might be mis-remembering, but didn't Hitchcock, on discussing NORTH BY NORTHWEST mention a sequence he shot where Cary Grant somehow ends up in a car assembly line where a car is put together? I seem to remember Hitchcock telling Truffaut he would send him this footage. I wonder if this was a true story, and if the footage exists.

 

[Patrick McCart]

It wasn't filmed, apparently.

However, Steven Spielberg put that scene in Minority Report, among all the other Hitchcock references in the film.

 

[haroldS]

Since MGM is finally releasing this long rumored set, any word yet on either the also anticipated David Lean Collection or the rumored Fox Silent Films or early '30s Collection, speculated to be out for Christmas?