MovieChat Forums > Performance (1970) Discussion > multiple versions

multiple versions

posted 15 years ago by rmpollack
3 replies | jump to latest

The first time I saw this movie was at a film class given at UC Berkeley. The teacher mentioned that the people at Warners went absolutely ballistic when the movie was first given to them. They sent it back to Roeg to be recut and he made it even weirder than it was. He said they then tried to sneak preview it at a suburban theater and when it got to the part where they were shaving the chauffer's head, the owner of the theater came running down the aisle screaming, "shut it off, shut it off".
Anyway, I've seen this on cable, vhs and dvd and have never seen exactly the same version, I saw then. I just watched it on Turner and the end shot inside the limo where James Fox mutates into Mick Jagger was missing. The other thing that seems to be different in all versions I've seen since is the trip sequence is always truncated. In the first version, when Jagger is singing in Harry's office, the sequence is quite psychadaelic with Jagger dissolving into Harry and vice versa.
If anybody knows if there is an uncut, definitive version of this, I'd like to hear about it.

[–] TheRealBambi 15 years ago

Ditto. I saw this when it first came out in 1970 ~ but have forgotten the details of the original. Yes, I'm old, lol.

Great film, great music ~ game me a new respect for the talents of Mr. Jagger.

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[–] zarch-3 15 years ago

Alternate versions

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066214/alternateversions

[–] markgoff 15 years ago

The one you get on DVD is "definitive" in terms of the film the general audiences have seen. The versions on cable usually have scenes of violence, drugs, sex, nudity, etc. edited out. An except to this is TCM which runs the film uncut, but in the early hours of the morning.

As the story goes, when the first version was shown to executives at Warner, some of their wives got up and left and took their husbands with them. One is said to have thrown up. Remember, these are people who were raised on 1940's and 1950's movies that showed nothing and implied not much more.