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Hey all,
I don't know if anybody has heard, but apparently the Samuel Fuller film, The Big Red One, based on his experiences with the 1st Infantry Division in WWII, has finally been restored to Fuller's original glory.
No, this isn't some Lucas "I always intended..." cob job. Apparently, Lorimar pictures, who produced the film, took Fuller's war epic of over 3 hours and chopped it down to around a hour and fifty minutes before ever releasing it theatrically. This devastated Fuller and he continually said to the end of his life that he always wanted to restore the original cut.
After film historian Richard Shickel pressed, Warner Bros. went into the vaults and found 99% of the lost footage. Using Fuller's notes, Shickel and his team reconstructed the original cut of the film, sadly minus one or two forever lost scenes and some lost angles. Like Lawrence of Arabia and The Magnificent Ambersons, The Big Red One is finally as close to originally intended as possible, with almost an hour restored to the film, 15 reborn scenes and 23 existing scenes finally finished with their needed extensions.
It apparently garnered a huge standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival this year and is making the rounds here in the States right now. It is supposed to come to DVD sometime in the near future, and critics have said that in restoring the film to Fuller's original vision, it is now a WWII film that ranks alongside Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers!
Having always been a fan of the theatrical release, I cannot wait to see the original version upon release.
Just FYI.
I don't know if anybody has heard, but apparently the Samuel Fuller film, The Big Red One, based on his experiences with the 1st Infantry Division in WWII, has finally been restored to Fuller's original glory.
No, this isn't some Lucas "I always intended..." cob job. Apparently, Lorimar pictures, who produced the film, took Fuller's war epic of over 3 hours and chopped it down to around a hour and fifty minutes before ever releasing it theatrically. This devastated Fuller and he continually said to the end of his life that he always wanted to restore the original cut.
After film historian Richard Shickel pressed, Warner Bros. went into the vaults and found 99% of the lost footage. Using Fuller's notes, Shickel and his team reconstructed the original cut of the film, sadly minus one or two forever lost scenes and some lost angles. Like Lawrence of Arabia and The Magnificent Ambersons, The Big Red One is finally as close to originally intended as possible, with almost an hour restored to the film, 15 reborn scenes and 23 existing scenes finally finished with their needed extensions.
It apparently garnered a huge standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival this year and is making the rounds here in the States right now. It is supposed to come to DVD sometime in the near future, and critics have said that in restoring the film to Fuller's original vision, it is now a WWII film that ranks alongside Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers!
Having always been a fan of the theatrical release, I cannot wait to see the original version upon release.
Just FYI.
