Restored full length version
Is anyone in the know about a possible restored full length version of this wonderful film? I would even go so far as to making a financial contribution.
shareIf the cut scenes were all destroyed in the 35mm copies and only extant in 16mm, then restoration will not help much.
shareMaybe, but they could still clean up the 16mm sequences as much as possible and release a disc with both the restored 141-minute version and the 122-miniute general release, which does exist in pristine 35mm prints. As long as the discs contained an advisory so people would expect and not freak out about some below-par elements in the 141-minute film, that should be fair warning. Better to have an imperfect version of the film than not have it at all because a "perfect" print doesn't exist. Besides, they might be able to do more with the restored portions than we think.
shareRight now TCM is airing Big Sky with a 138 minute running time, pretty close to the 141 restored version. The 16mm restorations are quite noticeable, but the more of this great movie the better. The "restored" clip in the beginning looks like an alternate since it duplicates Arthur Hunnicutt's introductory narration. I suppose the prints got chopped up making the rounds of local TV stations back in the day. And then there's that unforgivable habit of studios/distributors, of destroying masters.
shareI think the TCM print is the full 141-minute version, which I just saw too. There's a cut in one scene that appears to have lost only a few seconds at most.
Some of the substandard 16mm footage actually also exists in pristine form on the 122-minute print. They inserted the poor 16mm footage into the restored print in order to allow for a seamless dissolve into the next, restored, scene. So there is less degraded footage than watching the 141-minute print would suggest.
Besides that repeat of Arthur Hunnicutt's opening narration, if you notice there's a snippet of the soundtrack missing in the restored scene near the beginning where Douglas crosses the river. It's been poorly bridged by inserting a clip of the opening music right after the credits, that we had heard just a minute or so before (with that "clip-clop" sound). It's only music, no dialogue or sound effects. I don't know why they did that because the entire original music soundtrack is preserved and in fact available on CD; they should have easily been able to recover that brief portion -- only 4 or 5 seconds -- and insert it onto the restored print.
The film was originally released in its 141-minute version for roadshow screenings in 1952, but was cut back by 19 minutes a couple of months later for regular theatrical showings. That was the version seen for over 40 years until the original surfaced in the 1990s, although the 141-minute film was put out on VHS by Nostalgia Merchant in the 1980s. The problems came not from the 40-plus years the film was shown on TV but from poor storage of the original, including the apparent loss of the 35mm elements.
I still see no reason why Warner couldn't release both versions on disc -- the 122-minute regular release and the extended 141-minute roadshow version, with its imperfections. Frankly the 122-minute film is perfectly acceptable; there's really not much in the excised 19 minutes that makes any real difference to the story, although we do learn a bit more about Zeb Calloway's character. The 122-minute film has been released on DVD in the UK and France. I have the French edition (which can be viewed in English without subtitles) and it's excellent. I've heard the quality of the British DVD isn't that good, but I've never seen it.
Some ramblings . . .
Must disagree a bit about the print condition. I worked in broadcasting and can attest that the prints were butchered mercilessly by local stations for commercial insertions, which they could insert at their discretion. (I confess I had a hand in some of the butchering.). The broadcast film chains used 16mm stock exclusively. I'm convinced that the 16mm restored footage came from patching together those broadcast distribution prints. I do agree about "poor storage of the original." In fact, that there is a 35mm print extant is a minor miracle. That any originals survive isn't due to sensitivity by the studios/distributors. On the contrary, before the digital age all studios considered their archives expendable and promiscuously let their prints rot. The horrible destruction of Universal prints in a fire in 2008 was due largely to negligence. That they are catching on to the profitability of digitizing what they have comes far too late in the game.
Moving along, in The Big Sky there's a gap in the cut and uncut versions that always annoyed me. It's when Boone and Teal Eye, joined by Poordevil, go after Jim. (There's a pretty big 16mm sequence inside the waterfall.) Next, in the middle of the wilderness, they have a horse. Where did that horse come from? I have two guesses. Either there was a sequence explaining it that was cut early on, or Hawks, being Hawks, just decided to put a horse in. I say, "being Hawks," because continuity never concerned him much. (Perfect director for the The Big Sleep!) Whatever the reason, it's pretty blatant. Disappointed that the restored cut didn't explain it.
By the way, my ancient review (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044419/reviews-2) mentions Hawks' theme of male bonding. It occurred to me, watching The Big Sky this time, that the bond between Jim and Boone parallels the one in Red River between Dunson and Garth. In both cases the bonding was between older and younger men, and in both cases there's an element of competition, though of course in The Big Sky not nearly as rancorous as in Red River. Rio Bravo, too, between Chance and Colorado....
Another annoyance has nothing to do with the movie. It's Ben Mankiewicz's dismissive reference to "an actor named Dewey Martin." I agree with Ben's point, about the spectacular scenery, but he could have been more tactful, especially since Dewey is still with us -- at 92! I think he was a protege of Hawks -- another older-younger bonding.
I recently saw this on TCM- the longer version- and in the last scene in the cave, Martin's character says "Poordevil and I have been busy- we stole a horse." Douglas's character replies "Then we can leave now." (Approximate dialogue).
shareAh, thanks! I missed it.
shareMy pleasure, amigo.
I should add that I had missed it too; but when I saw the horse I rewound to catch the explanation and there it was. I'll bet the horse-stealing was in the script at some point and got reduced to that line.
It also struck me that the theft should have brought the whole tribe down on them and their hiding place. Wouldn't the horse have been easy to track? (Not to mention hard to conceal- so they HAD to leave right away, unless by some miracle the horse wasn't missed or they ambushed and killed a lone rider).
Just saw you post from 10/28/15 above, jacksflicks, and a couple of things....
Oh yes, I know all about how local TV stations treated their movie prints. I grew up in NYC in the heyday of its local programming (60s) and very quickly got to know every cut or omission on each print.
In NYC the then WOR-TV was owned by RKO General and had the complete RKO library, and of course they would cut some films to fit in a time slot, with commercials. They would sometimes do this to The Big Sky. (They also used those awful "C&C Movietime" TV prints of RKO films seen for years until the late 70s or early 80s.)
But the "missing" 19 minutes were not cut by TV stations for the simple reason that they were never given the 141-minute version. There was only a brief period where that version was shown in a few theaters in 1952 before the edited 122-minute version was issued for wide release. That's the version that went to TV. And it does exist in an excellent-quality version, as witness the French DVD I mentioned before as well as the fact that TCM originally ran that version and it too was a pristine print. So was the 1980s VHS. Only the restored 19 minutes are in poor shape, because of bad storage and neglect. You may well be right that the current 141-minute version has been patched together from different sources but you can't blame the TV stations for this one.
Back in the 70s some idiots at RKO decided to cut Hawks's previous film, The Thing From Another World, from 87 to 81 minutes, supposedly to allow it to be fit into a 90-minute TV time slot, with ads. This also disrupted the narrative, and while some stations continued to run the full version the original was for a time feared lost. When the cut footage was finally restored for broadcast in the 90s it was very substandard stock, much like The Big Sky. However, when the 87-minute film was finally released, first on VHS, then on DVD, it was pristine. Yet TCM continues to use a full-length print with poor insert footage of that restored 6 minutes. This may have no bearing on The Big Sky, but one can hope that better footage of those 19 minutes might be around somewhere, or at least that the poor footage might be reparable more than we might expect.
I agree with you about Ben Mankiewicz and his kind of offhand dismissal of Dewey Martin. Martin may never have become the star many predicted he would after The Big Sky but he wasn't exactly an unknown either. Hawks had taken a shine to him while filming The Thing From Another World and promised him he'd give him a major role someday. Hawks originally wanted John Wayne and Robert Mitchum for The Big Sky but when they proved unavailable he "settled" for Kirk Douglas and then took the modest risk of hiring a lesser-known second lead. Hawks debated between Martin and Ken Tobey, whom he had met on the set of I Was a Male War Bride and had also promised a break. He gave Tobey the lead in The Thing, so that may have worked against his being cast in TBS. I thought Dewey Martin was a good actor and did well in this film, but somehow his career never panned out. He didn't even do another movie for two years after this one, and then only second leads in lesser pictures. Hawks used him once more in Land of the Pharaohs but by the late 50s Martin was out of films and on TV. In the 60s Martin had roles in two minor movies, plus a cameo as a corpse in The Longest Day (but he got screen credit), and did just one small film in the 70s. Otherwise he had a gradually diminishing career on television before quitting acting in 1978. I've always wondered what he did for a living afterward and how he is today.
Incidentally, today (December 8) is Dewey Martin's 93rd birthday, and tomorrow, December 9, is Kirk Douglas's 100th. Last year I put up a joint birthday post for their 92nd and 99th birthdays and hoped I could do the same this year provided Kirk reached 100, which as I write this he's just under an hour from accomplishing.