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Film & TV on DVD - John Doe News & Reviews

Greetings Film Fiends and welcome to John Doe's Film Blog. 30 years of dedicated celluloid obsession has meant that I have seen a few films. Drawing attention to some of the lesser discussed gems that I love. Cult classics, obscure curios and quality genre pictures. This blogs purpose is to translate some of my passion for these films and with luck, inspire you the reader to go check em out.

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Film & TV on DVD - October 2008

Blade Runner (1982 workprint) - Original Trailer & Deleted/Alternate Footage Included

October 15th 2008 00:40

Blade Runner (1982 workprint)

REPLICANT \rep'-li-cant\ n. See also ROBOT (antique): ANDROID (obsolete): NEXUS (generic): Synthetic human, with paraphysical capabilities, having skin/flesh culture. Also: Rep, skin job (slang): Off-world use: Combat, high risk industrial deepspace probe. On-world use prohibited. Specifications and quantities - information classified.

- New American Dictionary Copyright © 2016

I first saw Blade Runner during its initial Australasian theatrical run back in December of 1982. I had just turned 14. Had I lived in Denver, United States I might have been one of the (now lucky) few that got to see the workprint cut of the movie which was shown in 70mm to preview audiences before its official release in June ’82. This was the version that caused great headaches for the producers when disgruntled audiences expecting to see Harrison Ford in more of a swashbuckling hero mode à la Indiana Jones (Raiders of the Lost Ark had come out the previous year) were very disappointed in what they saw as an unpleasantly grim and overwhelming future about a loser cop who fails to come out on top, flailing around in a dark, impenetrable, ambiguous narrative.

Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard

What unfolded has become cinema history: the movie was tweaked, compromised, (voiceover narration added to facilitate easier audience comprehension of the plot and tagged-on upbeat ending) and released. It bombed.

Director Ridley Scott was rushed into delivering a “Director’s Cut” in 1991 which removed the dreary voiceover and optimistic ending, and inserted a brief moment of a unicorn running through a forest (seemingly lifted from Scott’s fantasy movie Legend) to give weight to the sub-text theory that detective Deckard (Harrison Ford) is actually a replicant himself.

Generally the "new" cut (basically the workprint tidied up) was well received by critics and audiences, but to add further fuel to the movie's cosmic fire, over the decade since its release it had garnered a huge and very dedicated cult following. The fans knew there was still more being withheld. Rumours of deleted scenes abound, different music, alternate takes. The rare workprint version became the elusive unicorn, something die-hard fans dreamt about. Anticipation built as the 20th anniversary of the movie approached, but the date came and went (due to legal wrangling).

Then finally, December last year, on the 25th anniversary of arguably the most visually influential and critically-polarised sf movie ever made, a deluxe edition of Blade Runner was released including Ridley Scott’s much anticipated Final Cut.

Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty

I got in there quick-smart and ordered one of the limited edition Deckard briefcase boxsets: five discs containing all five versions, a feature-length making of documentary, numerous featurettes, a 45-minute montage of deleted and alternate scenes, plus production design cards, a plastic "origami" unicorn and miniature toy Spinner. This was my Christmas present to myself!

Blade Runner is my favourite film of all-time. I acknowledge that it’s flawed, but it’s such a magnificent rough diamond. Over the years I’ve seen the movie in all shapes and sizes; the original theatrical cut, then again (and again and again ...) on VHS, later the rarer, more violent International Version on laserdisc, then the Director’s Cut at the cinema (which I later bought on DVD), and rather memorably last December, and to coincide with the DVD deluxe set, a very special HD-digital projection of the Final Cut at the huge Orpheum cinema here in Sydney (which brought all the die-hard fans).

Sean Young as Rachael

Watching the workprint - after so many years of knowing of its existence and wondering if I’d ever have the privilege - was such a thrill, I felt like a young boy in a toy shop. The brief introduction by Ridley Scott warned viewers that the picture quality wouldn’t be the best as he had to go back to the only surviving print of the workprint to do a digital transfer. He also warned of significantly different music during the movie’s last quarter.

The first major difference was the opening credit sequence where the name “Harrison” emerges above a horizontal red line and “Ford” emerges simultaneously below, the word “Blade” slices up, whilst “Runner” slices below. It has B-movie appeal. Then instead of the opening scrawl which accompanies all the other versions there’s a dictionary definition of what a replicant is (see top of post). Now this was very cool, and I much prefer it over the scrawl which I always had trouble with.

Darryl Hannah as Pris

What stands out immediately about the workprint is how dark it is. I’m not talking about the mood and tone; we already know that, but the picture quality. It’s very high-contrast with dense and saturated colour, but a lot of definition is lost. Normally that kind of compromise would be very frustrating, but because I know the film so well, I found the look of the movie utterly magical. Suddenly the movie had become more film noir than I had could have ever imagined. The blackness overwhelmed and created an expressionist appearance that embraced the movie’s dark tone with true deepness. While not intentional, this darker picture looked more dream-like, and ultimately represented Blade Runner as the ne-plus-ultra of future noir.

The workprint uses some of the more graphic violence (which surfaced in the International Version and later in the Final Cut), such as Pris (Darryl Hannah) lifting Deckard up by the nostrils. In the opening scene where detective Holden puts the Voight-Kampff test on Leon there’s a lingering shot of Holden after he’s been shot lying sprawled over a table with a large smoking hole in his back. The scene where Deckard uses the Espa machine to enhance a photo uses different photographic footage; in fact in the way it’s been shot and edited it’s almost an entirely different scene. When rogue replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) confronts his maker Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel) he demands “I want more life, father!” In the theatrical releases and Director’s Cut he says “I want more life, fucker!” Scott re-inserted this important line in the Final Cut.

Blade Runner Harrison Ford and Edward James Olmos

Gaff (Edward James Olmos) flies Deckard to his briefing

Depending on how well you know the movie you’ll be able to recognise some subtle and some more obvious differences. But most significantly was the different music cues. Vangelis’s sublime score is used more sparingly in the workprint, which creates a more sombre mood. Sound effect-driven cues are more frequent than music. During the famous love scene there is an entirely alternate piece of Vangelis music which shifts the tone of the scene and makes it less melodramatic.

When Deckard enters the Bradbury building in the movie’s last quarter to confront Roy Batty the Vangelis music is no longer used (most likely Vangelis was still composing and had yet delivered), instead what is used sounds like stock Hollywood thriller music utilising an string orchestra. It pales against Vangelis’s electronic score something chronic, especially during Batty’s “tears in rain” speech, but it’s curious to watch the action set to a different soundscape and to realise a) just how important musical style is and b) just how amazing the Vangelis score is.

Tyrell Building, Los Angeles 2019

Then while a battered and exhausted Deckard lies in a crumpled heap on the rooftop, after Roy Batty has saved his life, Harrison Ford delivers a short voiceover: “I watched him die all night. It was a long, slow thing and he fought it all the way. He never whimpered and he never quit. He took all the time he had as though he loved life very much. Every second of it...even the pain. Then, he was dead.”

Overall the use of less music and the darker picture quality adds a spare beauty to the film; the inherent loneliness is accentuated, the melancholic tone is heightened, the oneiric quality is intensified. It’s an accidental gem that glitters like c-beams in the dark near the Tannhauser gate …

Blade Runner Harrison Ford and Sean Young

You play beautifully

I have yet to watch the making of documentary or the featurettes (there’s a lot), but the 45-minute deleted/alternate scenes montage is an utter delight for Blade Runner enthusiasts. It’s like watching a condensed alternate Blade Runner movie, or to be precise, an extended trailer to an alternate feature version. Notable scenes include Deckard’s two visits to Holden hospitalised in an “iron lung” (the second one Holden bags out Deckard for sticking his dick in a replicant saying “You fucked a washing machine and now you’ve switched it off”), Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh) and Gaff (Edward James Olmos) watch surveillance of this second visit and make comments including a brilliant line from Gaff, “I spit on metaphysics”, plus more of Rachael (Sean Young) at Deckard’s apartment including the famous shot of her seated, head turned and legs splayed which featured in publicity stills but wasn’t in the final cut. There's a more erotic edge in the scene where Deckard steals a kiss from Rachael; his hands riding her dress up her thighs, then pulling her top down. There’s also two alternate endings using the incongruous footage of Deckard and Rachael driving out of the city along lush mountain roads talking about love and acceptance.

All those moments will be lost, like tears in rain ... time to die

I could go on and on talking about this movie ... Blade Runner ages like a fine whiskey and will continue to age beautifully, its palette and acquired taste becoming richer and more smokey as other sf films try in vain to emulate its transcendent visual and musical mood and tone. As much as I love Star Wars, respect 2001: A Space Odyssey, admire Solaris, marvel at Metropolis, and enjoy The Terminator … with Alien and Blade Runner Ridley Scott made the two greatest science fiction movies of all-time.

Here's a curious very early original theatrical trailer without Vangelis music and including the original title cards, which plays like a 3-minute compression of the entire movie:

Here's a ten-minute selection of the deleted/alternate scenes:

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: Science Fiction

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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) - Trailer and Footage Included

October 1st 2008 00:40

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

My heart is still heavy with the passing of Paul Newman. There aren’t many others of his calibre, clout and compassion still left in Hollywood. By the end of the 60s his greatest performances were already behind him, but there’s something so darn special about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and it’s a movie I saw as a young lad (possibly during its re-release) when I really wanted to be a cowboy and I’d wear my papa’s handmade holsters (which never fit, of course) and occasionally got to play with his replica colt .45s (very heavy). My actor father supplied these to theatre and movie productions.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Robert Redford and Paul Newman

Robert Redford as The Kid and Paul Newman as Butch

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was the end of one era of Hollywood westerns and the beginning of another. While not as mystical or as deeply atmospheric as the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, it heralded an attention to production detail and displayed naturalistic nuances of character, unlike any previous American western had portrayed in the movies. Quite simply there had never been a couple of cowboys quite like Paul Newman’s Butch and Robert Redford’s Kid before or since.

Butch Cassidy: "I have vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals."

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid deep focus

Butch and Sundance on their trusty steeds

Robert Redford was 30-years-old, eleven years younger than Newman. He was at the start of his career and hungry like a horse. After watching the daily rushes producers panicked and warned director George Roy Hill not to give Redford too many close-ups (he was looking that good). But, the reality is, Redford and Newman could never out-class each other, they were two peas in a pod, they were a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, they were the icing on a fantastic Hollywood cake. The bad guys have never looked so good or acted so charming.

Sundance Kid: "Think ya used enough dynamite there, Butch?"

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Robert Redford

The Kid aboard the Grand Pacific Railroad

And it all happened. Well, so the history books tell us. In fact, much more is known about Cassidy and his infamous Hole in the Wall Gang (actually called The Wild Bunch, but Sam Peckinpah had already released his movie a few months earlier) than Sundance who came onto the scene later. The movie is about their last days together, when the Gang were doing their last train robberies and Cassidy’s position as leader was being challenged (mostly because he was enjoying too much time with the Kid doing their own heists).

Butch Cassidy: "If he'd just pay me what he's spending to make me stop robbing him, I'd stop robbing him."

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Katharine Ross and Paul Newman

Raindrops keep fallin' on mah head ...

A posse of bounty hunters was set after Cassidy and Sundance and so a brilliantly sustained half-hour pursuit takes Butch and the Kid across all manner of terrain as they try and work out how the posse is able to keep tracking them. Of course they do manage to elude them and manage to sneak in a little nooky at the local whorehouse, as well as enjoy a day’s reprieve at Etta’s pad, Sundance’s girlfriend played in a beautifully under-stated performance by Katharine Ross (in one of the movie’s three extended montage sequences Butch steals Etta early in the morning, while the Kid still slumbers, and takes her for a ride on the new-fangled bicycle invention as Burt Bacharach’s Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head tinkles overhead, it’s an unashamedly self-conscious moment of pure romantic-comedy, the kind of cinematic indulgence that would never happen in a movie now; that despite its critics, it works a treat).

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Redford, Newman and Ross

Having fun in New York City

Butch Cassidy: "Kid, there's something I ought to tell you. I never shot anybody before."
Sundance Kid: "One hell of a time to tell me."

Director George Roy Hill, according to Newman in an interview he made in 1994, was a rare and true director whom would never bother actors when they were cooking, but was always there when an actor got into trouble and needed, well, direction. Hill’s total command of all aspects of filmmaking that need marrying together meant that the movie could never really fail. William Goldman’s excellent screenplay was originally much darker, but with Newman and Redford’s natural light-hearted chemistry and powerful charisma on board, Bacharach’s lilting score, Conrad Hall’s amazing cinematography, and Hill’s ability to coax the performances just a little, the result is a magnificent blend of breezy comedy and suede-headed drama, never too much of one or the other. It’s a very difficult combination to get just right (Clint Eastwood tried, but never really got it perfect, and George Clooney’s been trying hard). Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is one of the very few that nails it.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Redford and Newman

Butch Cassidy: "Then you jump first."
Sundance Kid: "No, I said."
Butch Cassidy: "What's the matter with you?"
Sundance Kid: "I can't swim."
Butch Cassidy: "Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you."

Of course, it’s the movie’s final ten or so minutes that are probably the most famous and poignant (although it must be said that the entire sequence is historically inaccurate, but hey, it plays out beautifully). It is this under-played, almost melancholic tone which cements the movie in such high regard. The outlaws have been hiding out in Bolivia. Etta has left them, because she can’t bare the idea of watching them die. And suddenly in the middle of a plaza while they sip beer, our anti-heroes are under fire. They take cover in a villa foyer, but not before they’ve each taken a bullet. The final image, a two-shot still that seeps into sepia-tone, then slowly pulls out to reveal the surrounding courtyard while an authoritive voice out of shot repeatedly shouts, “Fuego!” and the sound or hundreds of rifles echo out again and again.

Despite the audience’s understanding that Butch and Sundance were outlaws and had killed men, the ending of the movie is still viewed and accepted as a tragedy. It’s arguably one of the very finest and most moving endings to a Western ever filmed, and certainly ranks as one of the greatest Hollywood Western tableaus ever.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid final shot

Butch Cassidy: "Is that what you call giving cover?"
Sundance Kid: "Is that what you call running? If I knew you were going to stroll ..."

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Paul Newman

Paul Newman, the blue-eyed cowboy with a heart o' gold - R.I.P.

Extra tidbits: Butch Cassidy’s real-life sister visited the set of the movie during the hilarious “fight” between Butch and Harvey Logan (played by Ted Cassidy, famous as Lurch in The Addams Family) and remarked at how accurate the movie was an how spot-on Newman was as Butch.

Steve McQueen was originally cast as Sundance. This was when the movie was originally called The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy, but McQueen pulled out, and because Redford wasn’t the superstar that Newman was, the title was changed accordingly.

Twentieth Century-Fox made a prequel in 1979 called Butch and Cassidy: The Early Years, starring Tom Berenger as Butch and William Katt as Sundance. I saw it as a boy at the movies. From memory it’s certainly not in the same class and can’t really be compared, but I’m sure it was unfairly criticized, and could be enjoyed as a Saturday matinee (with raindrops fallin’ outside) if you found yourself with nothing better to do.

Contentious after-thought: Now, dare I even suggest the idea, but while I was watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with my wife (who’d never seen it), and there’s the funny scene where the Kid and Butch are on the whorehouse balcony watching the sheriff rally the locals together to hunt the outlaws down, I suddenly heard Brad Pitt speaking Redford’s lines. As Newman and Redford provided the rapport, it dawned on me that a Hollywood remake is begging to be made with Pitt as Sundance and George Clooney as Butch. I realize I’m playing Devil’s advocate here because there is no way in Hell any remake could ever hope to re-capture the magic of the original, but hey, I’ll eat my Stetson if Pitt and Clooney haven’t already discussed it as a project.

Here's the original trailer: