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Will we ever see a proper version of The Jerk? (1 Viewer)

george kaplan

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There is a scene when Rigby is going up to see Kitty. He stops at the gas station where Swede Andersen works. He is wiping the windshield while Rigby talks to him. He then drives on to the club where Kitty is singing. All of this is from the film The Killers with Burt Lancaster who plays the Swede. In the original vhs release, this gas station scene was intact. In a later vhs release, this scene (about 1 min long) was cut for some reason. There never was a ld, and the dvd is the cut version of the later vhs.

What is particularly confusing and irritating, is that there are other scenes still in the movie from The Killers, including a death scene with Burt Lancaster as the Swede. So what possible rights issues could have caused this cut baffles the hell out of me.
 

MattHR

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There most certainly was a laserdisc. I owned it. I never knew there was a scene missing though, since the LD was the only way I ever saw the movie.
 

DaveyM

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Is the current version of The Jerk an open matte transfer or pan and scan? I realize either way it isn't the correct ratio but i was just curious.
I was one of those who hoped to see the Vacation series with Chevy Chase in widescreen. After they finally came out and i saw them i realized i was actually missing some of the image at the top and bottom of the screen that i had been watching all those years on the open matte Dvds.
If The Jerk ever is released as a WS Special Edition, will it just be a case of taking the 1:33 image and matting it to a 1:85 ratio?
 

Patrick McCart

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Well, for most 1.85:1 films, that's exactly what is supposed to happen. On the actual film elements, the image is usually 1.33:1 or 1.37:1 (the former for films shot "full-aperture" like Aliens and Goodfellas). Matting the frame presents the correct image.

It's exactly like a painting in a frame. The frame is there to present the right composition, without revealing those unfinished or rough edges.

The sections of the frame matted for video (and theater projection) are simply junk.
 

george kaplan

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Well I based my statement on the fact that all through the ld years I waited and waited for Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid to come on ld, and if it did, it managed to slip under my radar. Was it region 1? I used to check multiple ld sites and stores weekly and never saw it.

Do you still have it? Does it have the missing scene? If so, would you be willing to sell it?
 

MattHR

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George,
I no longer have the LD. It was returned to Pioneer years ago after it "rotted", but wasn't available for replacement. It's listed in Pioneer's (U.S.) 1985 catalog as Universal catalog #16-028, $34.98.

Here's a link to a website that shows the cover:

http://www.shillpages.com/collect/sc-ldd.htm
 
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Regarding the gas station scene in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, I've seen it...in a version shown on regular television. I figured it was just a cut scene inserted to pad out the running time, since I'd never seen it before, either when the movie first ran in theaters or on all those zillions of times I watched it on cable back in the day.

I can't comment on an earlier VHS release, but the sequence definitely wasn't part of the original theatrical version, so maybe it technically shouldn't be considered a "missing" scene.
 

george kaplan

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I'm going to disagree with you here. I saw this in the theater and it most certainly had the gas station scene in it. And it was in the early vhs copies as well. What was not in either the theatrical release, or any video release as far as I know, is the extended scenes described by IMDB which were added for tv. I've never seen this on tv, so I've never seen those scenes. But I know that the gas station scene was NOT added for tv fodder, but was part of the original theatrical release.
 

JustinCleveland

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Color me in the camp that would buy an SE of this in a heartbeat. Watching the "Freaks and Geeks" episode where John takes his date to "The Jerk" is wonderful.
 

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