MovieChat Forums > The Fury (1978) Discussion > This movie could have been 90 mins and M...

This movie could have been 90 mins and MUCH better.

posted 13 years ago by s_jester
11 replies | jump to latest

This movie got away from DePalma in the editing room. They left so much filler in the movie that should have been cut out. At times the movie felt like a comedy and all of that should have been removed.

My edit would have removed the following:

- The entire Peter Sandza chase scene after he jumps out of the hotel window, including the "I need your body" phone call. The part with Mother Knuckles and the bumbling cops and the chase adds nothing to the plot. Peter will still call Hester, "I need your body" line removed, Hester picks up Peter in van, language about her being too trustworthy kept as it describes her character.

- Most of the introductory scenes to Paragon. The mother's visit, the scene where Gillian gets her room, ice cream sundaes, etc. Keep the montage of Gillian being tested.

I think that would remove a good 20-30 mins of the movie that added nothing to the overall story and made this movie feel a lot more bloated than it should have been.

Any thoughts? Has anyone made a fan edit of this film?

[–] brefane 13 years ago

Agreed. Also, the scene on the bus with Amy Irving and Douglas is unnecesary and embarrissingly bad besides. Another problem for me is that the character of Robin is off screen for too long.

[–] s_jester 13 years ago

Yes, I forgot about that scene as well.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] franzkabuki 13 years ago

Yeah, sure, just remove everything that makes a De Palma movie so much fun as well as stand out from the general anonymous, strictly and boringly plot oriented gibberish oozing out from Hollywood. Great idea.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] allatape 13 years ago

Yeah, couldn't have said it better... People should just read the synopsis with all the plot points and skip the movie altogether

[–] asgard-5 12 years ago

I would've cut all of the Amy Irving scenes to the bare minimum and amped up Cassavetes, Douglas and Durning(RIP) screen time.

[–] franzkabuki 12 years ago

I´m no particularly big fan of Amy Irving, either, but she ´was´ the character around whom the whole thing revolved - her and Douglas´s son.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] Whiffle 11 years ago

If you could somehow speed up Irving's escape scene, that would help too. It's 4 minutes of boring slow-mo.

[–] monamask 10 years ago

Agreed. This movie's a meandering mess.

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] TheBeardedWonder 8 years ago

I also felt like there was more filler as the movie went on too. The beginning act didn't seem to have a lot, but as it went on there were less and less interesting things happening. Definitely 90 mins of good footage in there somewhere.