It was fun trying to spot them. Here are a few. Excuse the poor images.
The pictures below show short scenes that have been added for Ligny and when the Prussians advance at Waterloo. I have heard that the original film had more scenes covering Plancenoit. Shame they were cut.
This last one looks like a mock up board of a scene and includes this dialogue.
Blucher "We drew blood, Wellington, but you cut the throat. You had the bucket of it"
Interesting - must take a look!
ReplyDeleteHi Mark,
ReplyDeleteI remember reading that the original version of the film was around 4 hours long but was cut for Western distribution. There was more on Ligny as well as Plancenoit. I also read somewhere that this version was shown in Italy but there are a number of longstanding copyright ownership issues which means that getting a directors cut version is unlikely.
Many thanks for sharing.
All the best,
DC
Rob G has tried to post the following response. He had a problem proving he was not a Bot.
ReplyDeleteHe posts:-
Somewhere (in the loft?) I've got an original publicity brochure with lots of stills from the film from when I saw it as a schoolboy. You can clearly see the bolt action on many of the rifles carried and the much more basic uniforms worn by troops several ranks back. Best of all you can see a giant fire engine behind some trees by a burning building - can't remember whether it's Hougoumont or La Haye Saint.
Also have you noticed that many of the scenes of Prussian hussars charging are reversed images - like your second posted image, hence all the lefties in the Prussian cavalry.
I don't deny this film is well made and Plummer and Steiger do the best with what they got (though Steiger probably gets too dramatic at times), but I honestly feel that is it. The film is not afraid to show the deaths of many men, but none of the deaths have much emotional resonance because they tend to befall characters we are not attached to – from a storytelling POV, it shows the weight of the situation, which is good (and a bold move as trying to make it anti-war), but while i praise the film for making bold choices in its violent moments and number of deaths … to me it comes across as simultaneously not so bold as no one you’re emotionally attached to gets killed – there’s no gut punch of a death, because I never got to know Thomas Picton, William Howe De Lancey, or James Hay, Lord Hay, which would have been fitting for a film of this tone and level of violence. Strangely, although they acknowledge Henry Paget, 2nd Earl of Uxbridge losing his leg, we never see him again. I also felt, considering we see the set up to the battle with Napoleon's return, an proper epilogue could even have sufficed, or just having Wellington and Uxbridge having a heart to heart, despite Uxbridge losing his leg, with Napoleon being exiled on St. Helena to live with the torment from seeing all of what his life has been leading up to being tossed away must've been devastating. It would be a torment to know that once again and this time, forever knew that his power was gone, and his life was bound to an island just as unimportant as him.. But alas no …It’s a shame, because the amount of work and research was well done, it is just that to me that you don't get to know the characters much to build attachments to them. Even more of a shame considering "Tora! Tora! Tora", a similar film which was made to be accurate as possible and tell it as was from both sides and presented the Americans and Japanese as real people, as the attack on Pearl Harbor happens, and trusted the audience to appreciate them as such.
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