Movies that Were Longer on Network Television

This ever happen to you? A movie comes out on DVD. It was one of your favorites from when you were growing up. You decide to buy it. You pop it into your DVD player and watch it. And suddenly you realize that scenes are missing. What a ripoff. Why on Earth would they release an edited version of the movie on DVD when the whole point of home video is so you can view an uncut version. The idea that home video companies are editing films for home release is not so far-fetched. Back in the 1980s, when everything was released on VHS or Betamax, videos were regularly edited. Videotapes got more expensive the longer they ran. A T30, which would only fit 30 minutes of video, was much cheaper than a T60, which fit an entire hour. And it was far cheaper than the T120, which fit two hours. Movies regularly were shortened through editing so they could be put on shorter and cheaper tapes. Sometimes this editing involved clipping a few seconds here and a few seconds there. This was very evident on the original VHS release for Thunderball, where you can hear the jumps in the music cues. Other times entire scenes or ending credits were removed. But with DVD, which is able to hold at least four hours per disc, there was no longer any reason to shorten a film. And because the movies now put on DVDs are almost always letter-boxed, there is little chance of them using the edited VHS masters.

So why are scenes missing from movies if they were not edited? The most likely reason is that you are remembering the television edit. Believe it or not movies shown on television are usually longer than the version shown in theaters. This goes against the common assumption that once a movie is show on television it is edited down form it's original running time to make room for all those commercials. It is true that local television stations occasionally do this, although usually for movies shown in a 90 minute block. More often movies shown in theaters are around 100 minutes allowing 20 minutes of commercials for a 2 hour television broadcast. 20 minutes is about the limit that the FCC would allow local stations in a two hour block ( or 10 minutes per hour ). Networks were permitted less time for commercials per hour. This meant that usually there was no reason for any edits. Occasionally though a movie will not be long enough to fill the 2 hour block. Other times a longer movie will be shown during a three hour block or air over two nights. In these cases the film is usually not long enough. In those cases television networks would often ask the movie studio to send over any deleted scenes. Often directors will edit scenes out of movies prior to their release if they feel they are slowing down the film's pace or if they are contracted to keep the movie under a set running time. More recently these deleted scenes have ended up as extras in deluxe edition DVDs, but during the 60's, 70's and 80's television networks would regularly edit these outtakes back into the movie. The television edit of Jaws, for example, reinstated an early scene introducing Quint and a scene showing the amateur shark hunters just before they catch the tiger shark. Superman reinstates a scene where Lex Luthor tests the man of steel and a later scene where Superman arrests Lex. ABC also reinstated deleted scenes to Superman II, but you cold hear where the music cues drop out at the edit points. Reinstated was Lex Luthor being arrested by what appears to be a polar police force while in the theatrical edit Superman abandons Lex at his Fortress of Solitude.

Occasionally networks would actually ask for additional footage to be shot by the film's studio to round out the running time. Universal Pictures had its own television division and was capable of shooting new scenes for movies at the request of the networks. One example was the movie Earthquake, which NBC wanted to air as a two-parter. At the network's request, Universal shot additional scenes, bringing back some of the minor actors. One example is the three actors who played the men who Marjoe Gortner shoots as looters. A scene was shot showing how they got their loot. Debralee Scott, who at the time played the recurring role of Rosalie Hotsy Totsy on the hit show Welcome Back Kotter, was hired to shoot scenes as a new character. She and actor Sam Chew Jr. play a married couple on an airliner approaching L.A. just prior to the earthquake. Several new scenes between the two characters were shot as they discuss what was to be their new life in California. The jet touches down just as the earthquake hits and just barely manages to take off again as the runway begins to crack. These scenes were not present on the DVD because they were shot at the 4:3 aspect ratio for television screens and therefore did not match with the film's original letterbox ratio of the theater print.

Perhaps the most notable of longer television versions was The Godfather Saga, a compilation of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. It its original edit The Godfather Part II shows its scenes out of sequence so that it cuts back and fourth between the early 1900s and Vito Corleone (played by Robert De Niro ) founding the Corleone crime family, and the 1950s, when his son Michael Corleone takes over the family's business. All the scenes were put in chronological order so that Vito as a boy immigrating to New York and De Niro as young Vito Corleone were shown first, followed by Marlon Brando as the older Vito Corleone, and finally the scenes with Michael taking over as the new Godfather. Director Francis Ford Coppola had overshot both movies with several scenes that were edited out for the theatrical run. These scenes were reinstated for the television version and both movies were re-imagined as a three part miniseries, this so that Coppola could help finance his movie Apocalypse Now. When The Godfather Saga was released on video it was shortened by 48 minutes so that the box set would be affordable, and since then while the original versions of the theatrical prints have been released the television saga in it's complete form has never been released to home video.