Steve Crook

As part of the Canterbury Festival this year there will be a series of events to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the world premiere of A Canterbury Tale (1944) - in Canterbury - and in preparation for Michael Powell's centenary next year.

The films shown will be:

• A Canterbury Tale (1944) [UK version]
• Peeping Tom (1960)
• Black Narcissus (1947)
  To be introduced by Jack Cardiff
• The Red Shoes (1948)
• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
  To be introduced by Billy Childish
• Rynox (1932)
• His Lordship (1932)
• Gone to Earth (1950)
• Red Ensign (1934)
• The Phantom Light (1935)
• I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)
• Smith (1939)
• The Volunteer (1943)
• The Edge of the World (1937)
• A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
• Age of Consent (1969)
• A Canterbury Tale (1949) [US version]

There will also be an A Canterbury Tale location walk around Canterbury itself, an exhibition in Canterbury and a conference titled Locating Powell to discuss some aspects of the exhibition and Powell's work.

For more details see the PaPAS web site.

Steve

Gibbie

Best wishes at the fete, Steve!

Just hope no one decides to turn up with glue.

Just saw Col. Blimp for the first time. Incredible drama/humour story - still ahead of their time and beyond!

I think the best film making weaves the best in humour with character development. And, this is a stellar example.

Gibbie

Steve Crook

I'm all right if the glue man does turn up. I haven't got enough hair left for it to get sticky! :)

I'm almost envious - that first experience of any P&P film is very special. But they do survive many repeated viewings.

Barbara: We must go, darling, we have the Bishop for lunch.
Clive: I hope he's tender.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

David Brent

Hi Steve,

"A Canterbury Tale" has always been one of my favourite films & doesn't lose anything in repeated viewings.
As a matter of interest how did the US version of the film differ to the origional British one?
I cannot imagine why such a great film would have to be changed for US consumption.

Cheers mate

Dave.

Steve Crook

It's (generally) a mystery to us too. They did like imposing seemingly meaningless and random changes. To the titles as well as to the films.

Contraband had a scene taken out where they visit a caberet club and there's a white girl dancing with black male dancers (the "White Negro" caberet show). That's sort of understandable given the sensibilities of the southern states.

49th Parallel had the scene cut at the Hudson Bay Company where Hirth (Portman) tells Finlay Currie & Larry Olivier about the nice German pastor who was really a Nazi spy making maps of the area. We think that was at the request of one of the American religious organisations like the Catholic League for Decency, it was certainly with them in mind. This scene was referenced in the later scene where Johnnie (Olivier) tells one of the Nazis that they'll send some missionaries to Germany. That was left in but wouldn't have made as much sense. They also cut the scene where the 3 remaining Nazis attacked the car driver after helping him change the wheel.

Blimp had a huge amount of damage done to it for its first American release. They "straightened out" the story, doing away with the idea of it as a flashback, starting it with Clive and Hoppy at the Royal Bathers Club before Clive went to Berlin. They also cut huge chunks from it cutting it from 163 mins to 120 mins. The only reason I can think of for such barbarous cuts is that such a long film just wouldn't fit in to the programmes shown (first feature, second feature etc.)

AMOLAD had the scene with the naked goat-herd cut. I can't imagine why - he was very careful not to show his naughty bits. It is a strange scene, the idea is that Peter thinks he's died and this is something like the Elysian Fields - then the Mosquito flies over and he knows he's still in England.

Gone to Earth was quite seriously damaged when Selznick won the right (after a big court case) to re-edit it & shoot some more scenes for the American version. Contrary to the oft quoted figures, most of the original film is still there in the American version. Selznick mainly added a few explanatory notes. Often literally notes with labels on everything explaining what they were. He cut the scene where Hazel does the spell at the Devil's Chair to see if she should go off with Reddin. In the original she does the spell and then hears the "fairy music", really her father's harp distorted by the wind. In the American version this is all cut leaving Hazel with no reason for going off with Reddin apart from pure lust. Selznick added a few extra scenes, often more close-ups of Jennifer. The most memorable is at the end when she'd running from the fox-hounds carrying Foxy. Selznick wanted more close-ups of Jennifer just before her final plummet - but she had to be carrying Foxy and they apparently couldn't find any tame foxes in Hollywood so she's carrying what is obviously a stuffed toy fox!

A Canterbury Tale had a whole section added at the start with an animation showing all the Americans involved in WWII. This is then cut down to show those who served overseas, those in Europe, those in England etc. until we get down to a "typical American soldier". Yes, it's Bob Johnson :)

He's seen with his girl (un-named but played by Kim Hunter) on top of the Rockefeller Centre in NYC, they are talking about their experiences in the war. Bob's girl had served in Australia with the WACs. They both wanted the other to go to see where they'd been but Bob must have been the better talker because we next see them in the tea shop in Canterbury. Then at various points throughout the film we get a bit of extra narration from Bob to explain what is going on.

American producers always seem to feel the need to explain everything in great detail. One of the (many) joys of The Archers is that they always assumed that their audiences were fairly intelligent.

The also cut out the scene with the boys' river battle. It's certainly not essential to the plot but it does add quite a lot to the pastoral idyll.

The extra scenes with Kim must have been filmed after she came over here to do AMOLAD. I'm not 100% sure but I think that the scenes at the Rockefeller Centre & in the teashop are probably all in the studio.

One extra point. When Bob & Alison are talking and he's complaining about his girl not writing he mentions that she's blonde (as is Alison). But Kim was dark haired.

As for the title changes, the most notorious is re-naming A Matter of Life and Death as Stairway to Heaven. No, that wasn't where Led Zep got the name of their famous anthem from - or I don't think it was. The American distributors decided that Americans wouldn't go to see a movie with "Death" in the title so soon after WWII. It's a shame as the film is quite deliberate about not naming the "other place" as "Heaven". (Dickie Attenborough says "It's heaven" but that's using the word as an adjective, not a noun).

The other one that makes me laugh is when they re-named The Battle of the River Plate as Pursuit of the Graf Spee - apparently because most Americans would think it was about the River Platte and therefore was a Western :)

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

David Brent

Many thanks Steve for your detailed answer.
So very interesting but at the same time so very puzzling
Some American changes listed seem to have no rhyme or reason to them & as you say they seem to imply that the American audiences cannot think for themselves & have to be hand fed information.
I cannot remember reading about any American films being changed in the same way for British consumption.
Thanks again Steve for your most interesting insight.

Dave.

Steve Crook

I don't know of any American films that were "dumbed down" for a British audience, is it possible? :)

They did send us things like "Die Hard".

I describe films like that as ones where you have the hero, the hero's girlfriend and the villain as the only partially drawn characters. Everyone else is just there to be shot or blown up.

They put in lots of explosions and special effects in the hope that we won't notice that there's no real characters and no story - but I notice.

It's not Bruce Willis I dislike, he has done some great films (Twelve Monkeys to name but one). But when I see him wearing that vest (singlet) I know it's time to leave the cinema or switch off the TV.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

Gibbie

I'm all right if the glue man does turn up. I haven't got enough hair left for it to get sticky! :)

I'm almost envious - that first experience of any P&P film is very special. But they do survive many repeated viewings.

Barbara: We must go, darling, we have the Bishop for lunch.
Clive: I hope he's tender.

Steve[/quote]A lot of cheek isn't there. Very intelligent humor.

This was the original version with flashbacks and all.

Per the American changes, much has changed since their day, in many ways. Per the Graf Spee movie, yes, that would still be thought of as a Western right off - River Plate (Platte); on 49th, the Catholic League had a lot of influence then and is still aggresively protective of its church's reputation; the re-editing was frequent in Hollywood circles, whereas today they tend to propagandize from the get go, albeit in a different fashion; the mixed dancing would have been a conflict, as there were laws against mixed marriages back then (much of this was due to issues that developed from 18th/19th century ethnic conflicts and frontier events - it was more than the South - although, there was pretty much a colour bar all over the Western world then unfortunately, All the same, it has changed completely now). Oh, and Rockefeller Center was probably used because, back then, it was ground zero for a romantic locale (remember An Affair to Remember).

Gibbie

Steve Crook

Just (last night) back from Canterbury - a great week. Sheila Sim (Lady Attenborough) came along to introduce A Canterbury Tale (1944) and she brought the old man with her. He had a small role in A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and of course he knew a lot about Powell & Pressburger and their films. Jack Cardiff was there on the Saturday & on Sunday he introduced Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948). The films were shown at the Gulbenkian Theatre up on the University campus. A nice theatre that seats over 300 people - and it was filled a few times. Pretty good for screenings of films that are 60 years old.

If you're anywhere near Canterbury between now & December, do drop in to the Sydney Cooper Gallery at the bottom of the High Street (St Peter's Street). The exhibition "A Canterbury Tale: Michael Powell and the Neo-Romantic Landscape" does a great job of putting Powell and his films in context in the landscape, physical, political and artistic, of the time.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

Steve Crook

Having just seen the US version of A Canterbury Tale again...
Yes, they did film the real Rockefeller Center. But that was just for some long shots and views from the terrace, they must have sent a 2nd unit over there. All the shots involving the stars were shot in a re-creation of the terrace in the studio.

John Sweet had by then (1947/8) finished his work for Roosevelt's office (he was on the staff there) and just before he went back to the States he came back into Denham studio to film the extra scenes required. Kim Hunter was still in the UK after making A Matter of Life and Death.

At least these changes were made by Powell and Pressburger themselves so they fit in quite neatly (unlike the American versions of their other films). They cut out the boys' river battle, much of the hunt glue man and quite a few other small scenes cutting it from 124 to just 95 mins. As well as the new introduction, John Sweet does some other scenes and narration to cover these gaps.

It's interesting - but it doesn't have the charm and magic of the original.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS