The Boyfriend (1971) differing versions etc

[Hugo]

I very much enjoyed TCM's new print of Ken Russell's The Boyfriend which was premiered last night.

Glowing colours and fully letter-boxed, so that the complete Panavision image was visible. The pastiche Busby Berkeley numbers were quite stunning.

[julian_craster]

looking forward to the official DVD release soon !

[Matthew Hopkins]

Didn't Ken Russell re-edit the film for at least one of its BBC showings? If so, is that the only time the 'new' version appeared? Anyone know?

[siriami]

I remember seeing this excellent film on BBC TV sometime in the 1980's and it had been really hacked about, song numbers and chunks of scenes missing. I can't believe that Ken Russell had any part of the "editing" (if you can call it that).

I wrote to the BBC at the time, and the reply stated that they had transmitted the "international version". whetever that is (was).

Subsequently it has been shown by the Beeb in its more complete version, with scenes that had been deleted from the theatrical print I saw in the cinema when it first came out.



Longing for a proper DVD release..............

Alistair

[Pricey]

I love Ken Russell's The Boyfriend (1971) and have the MGM Classic version on video from the 1990s. It is, in typical Russell style, a fantasically OTT celebration of british music hall / end of the pier shows and Hollywood musicals intermingled wonderfully.

I have several questions:-

1) Why has it never appeared on DVD?

2) Why does my video version have slashing cuts made to the movie - e.g. the wood nymphs dream sequence is almost entirely absent.

3) Why did the version shown on TCM the other week reinstate the wood nymphs dream sequence fully but cut out scenes like Bryan Pringle taking an age to walk up the steps - a wonderful moment which is on my video version.



We need a fully reassembled cinematic re-release and then DVD special edition asap. Very few under forty will have seen this movie in its full glory and they would surely love it.

[Stephen Pickard]

The NTSC US Laserdisc is supposed to be the full letterboxed version, I will check to see if it has all what you mention.



I remember visiting the set of this film at ABPC Elstree Studios. They were polishing the huge 'turntable' set at the time.

[julian_craster]

A DVD relese is being planned.



Lets hope they include as much material as possible.......even as bonus items if the image quality is below par ......

[asiamiles]

According to the cover the laserdisc contains Ken Russell's original cut transferred from the master interpositive; the audio is matrixed to Dolby Surround from 4-track magnetic sound elements.

[Pricey]

Thanks everybody for the updates and offers - I am delighted to hear a DVD release is planned and will await that with interest.

I happened to channel hop to the TCM version again yesterday and there was a whole sequence with the "you don't want to play with me blues" that I had never seen before and doesn't remotely feature in the video release I mentioned previously. What a strange film - there must be at least three completely different versions. Let's hope the dvd release pulls it all together. Still think it is worth a theatrical re-release also.

[m35541]

According to the BBFC website it was certified at 135m.



However, the March 1972 MFB records a theatrical release time of 125m.



The UK VHS release is 104m (109m at 24pfs).



So the video is 15m short of the theatrical version and potentially the full version could be 10m longer than that. Not sure which version was released on laserdisc or which TCM show.

[didi-5]

The version on TCM is identical to the US video release. It has the full ballet/nymph sequence which is usually cropped out. Charming film which I would love to see released to DVD.

[didi-5]

I meant TCM UK - which thinking about it might have a different version. But the You Don't Want To Play With Me Blues is on the version TCM show here and it was on the American VHS.