Sholay!!!

When it comes to my list of favorite film openings, this one definitely takes the cake:

Labeled as India's 'curry western', a take on the 'spaghetti westerns' from Italy, Sholay was and is one of the biggest films ever to be released. Beyond being India's second 70mm released film (Around the World was the first), Sholay struck big at the box office. Thakur Singh, a retired police officer, now lives in a provincial town with his widowed daughter. The town lives under the regime of a forceful criminal, Gabbar Singh, who takes all assets of the town at his disposal and murders everyone who may threaten his ruling. Through, song, dance, comedy, action, and drama-- the perfect blend for a Bollywood film, Sholay delivers as a prime example of classic Indian Cinema. The film didn't 'explode' at the box office overnight though. According to magazines from the time, people walked out during the first 20 minutes because of the long action sequence that introduced the lead men. The audience figured it was going to be another B action film. The people who stuck around got to see that the film gets better as it progresses and word of mouth spread. Not long after, the film grew in audience numbers and soon was selling out for weeks to come.

The 70mm grandeur didn't hurt things either, although the film wasn't shot on 70mm. In 1975, widescreen was still a fairly new concept in India. While most foreign films that came into the country had adopted the process, most Hindi films were still 1.37:1. Theaters were not about to all switch over to a 2.20:1 format to exhibit a film either due to the financial obligation this would require. So, to compensate, Sholay had two aspect ratios. The film was shot on 35mm at 1.37:1 and printed to 35mm in this aspect ratio, and then it was cropped and blown up to 2.20:1 for the 70mm release. This started a new trend in Bollywood. Because of the rich colors of the image used in Bollywod cinema, blowing up the frame didn't create a jarring effect in regards to grain. If you watch the opening sequence above, you can picture where the mattes exist. Watching this film open matte, one can see that a lot of empty space exists, especially above the heads of the characters. The film is definitely framed for the widescreen format, with many medium shots featuring 3 characters at a time in the frame. I have seen the film in both aspect ratios and love it both ways.

In the early 1990s, evident from a trailer on an Eros VHS for Chamatkar (1993), Sholay was rereleased in theaters. While its legacy lived on from this rerelease, the legacy was not given the same treatment when it came to home video. Various copies of various aspect ratios have made their way to home video. The first VHS I remember seeing was from an open matte print with French subtitles. This copy that circulated around the bootleg home video market had some scenes cut and many video dropouts, but was still rich in color and featured the theatrical ending. Eros issued an official VHS and DVD of the film. Eros is notorious for taking 2.20:1 or 2.35:1 films and cropping them to 1.85:1 letterbox for release. With Sholay, one would have thought they could have taken a 1.33:1 source and matted it if they wanted to go that way. Instead, they took a 2.20 source and zoomed farther in to 1.85:1, making the film barely watchable. Later, MoserBaer took a 1975 2.20:1 print (the year of the element comes from the censor certificate at the beginning of the film) and released it in non-anamorphic form on DVD. This print, while pretty worn, does contain the film as it was meant to be seen in its theatrical cut.

Sometime in the 1990s, with the advent of cable tv, the film received a 'director's cut'. The film had its issues with censors back in 1975 for being too violent and featuring an ending that did not please the government (I'm not a spoiler, but if you really want to know what the differences are, I'm sure IMDB can accommodate). This original ending and some of the gore was reinstated to bring the film up to 204 minutes. Of course, this version was released as a 1.37:1 version. Because it has the highest image quality and is distributed by Eros, who rule the international video market, this is the most common seen version of the film. I'm not down with that. For years, I have been searching for the theatrical cut of the film in its widescreen aspect ratio-- the way people remember seeing it in 1975 if they went to a 70mm screening. Which is the proper way to see the film though? The film really only played in 70mm in a few cities. The big 'crowd' that made the film what it was actually saw the film in the 35mm square aspect ratio version. I can say this though, they did NOT see a 204 minute cut of the film. That's a little too much Sholay for my taste.

And now, of course, something else happens. Sholay has been released in....wait for it...3D! 3D?! Yeah, that's right. 3D. I am sure it looks as bad as it sounds, but this also means that a proper 2D release was done. And it looks BEAUTIFUL! I am not for tampering with old films in the form of gimmicks, but in this case it actually paid off. In order to do a 3D conversion, a 2D high quality restoration needed to be done. I am so happy and proud of the work that went into this. Sholay should be seen and shared with future generations. It is a huge part of Indian history. Not to mention, it is just a badass film. I anticipate the new DVD of this release with great anticipation and hope that when it comes out, you will do yourself a favor and pick it up:

Signed,
The Celluloid Avenger

Going down to South Park

Truth be told, you don't even have to hear the theme to know what you're in for when it pops up on Comedy Central. That opening text slate (which is usually a lot shorter on air-- I surmise that it is also used as a means of station identification) evokes emotion out of a lot of people. College students smile and know they're in for a good half hour of relaxation from studying. Parents jump up and change the channel before their son or daughter will be exposed to the filth that lies ahead. Middle school and high school kids know to do a 360 with their heads to make sure no adults around and turn down the TV so that no one will know what they are watching. This has been happening for 17 years, and yet, no matter how much it gets protested, feared, or critiqued, South Park lives on as a legacy of Comedy Central.

I was 13, the perfect age, when South Park hit TV. At that time, the idea of watching a show online was a pipe dream. We hadn't even mastered the MP3 download yet. So, to be able to brag that you got away with catching an episode of South Park meant that you were the COOLEST kid in school. If you could sit at the lunch table and intelligently discuss the events that occurred the night before, be it cattle killing themselves in a mass cult suicide or a hypnotic trip to the planetarium, you were obviously on a higher level than the average 7th grader. These first few seasons were incredibly crude and almost geared to preteens and teens who wanted good toilet humor. As the show progressed, it got more sophisticated and took on an entirely new tone. With this came a more general demographic. As the initial viewers matured, so did the show. Between seasons 4-10, South Park began dealing with important political and social issues, always ending with a moral of the day. The show never branded itself as liberal or conservative. Instead, it branded itself on having the opinion that had the most sense, and aimed to share it in the most cynical and crude way.

After season 10, the show began to jump the shark. Episodes became a little too strong in their political message, the humor became a little too crude, and it was hard for the show to find a demographic. However, a demographic was still apparent because it soars on. All of the episodes are now available to watch on an official website, www.southparkstudios.com, and yet the show still has high ratings on Comedy Central. I guess people still like being 'surprised' with which episode from the gigantic library the station now has as at its disposal will be chosen.

Now, to chime in on the archivist's point of view. While I love the ability to watch this show online, I do have an issue with the way it is presented. It wasn't until recently that the show switched from a 1.37:1 to 1.77:1 aspect ratio, to adjust for the more common HD TV format. The website opted to reformat the entire show to 1.77:1, from season 3 on. The remastered versions of the show do this from the pilot on. Sure, the show is construction cutouts (later changed to flash) that crudely move around the screen and I'm sure there's nothing cinematic about the show that could compare it to something such as Mad Men. However, I am a firm believer that aspect ratio should be left as presented. People watching the show today should see it as it was originally released. By altering this, the show gives off the impression that the show was always a widescreen show and cropped for initial showings when truth be told the opposite is true.

While we're on the subject, there is constant debate about how the vulgarity of the show should be handled. The rules of what can and cannot be said on television have definitely changed over the years. Still, there are certain words such as 'fuck' that are a total taboo and cannot be run on Comedy Central. The show had crude beeps in place of profanities, as did many shows back in the 1990s, and current showings on Comedy Central leave these in place. The website, however, opted to remove the bleeps and allow the profanity to be heard. In a way, this ruins the show for me. When Cartman says a naughty word , the profanity bleep makes the instance funnier, as it accentuates the fact that a word that an eight year old shouldn't know just came out of an eight year old's mouth. The film's release, of course, allowed the characters' use of profanity to remain intact, but following this, all airings of the show on Comedy Central still kept profanity censored. It adds something special to the show, and to allow the viewer to hear the characters cuss almost removes the humor of their lines.

I will close with this. While I nitpick, I am eternally grateful for www.southparkstudios.com for releasing these shows for free to the public. This show should be seen by people of a variety of ages, disgusting as it may be. The humor is timeless, and the creators' (Matt Stone and Trey Parker, respectively) bravery to push the envelope every week have made this show a classic on American TV. I hope, years from now, people will see this show for what it is, and the reruns on old tv stations will do what shows like All in the Family do for audiences today.

Signed,
The Celluloid Avenger

American Graffiti

I had a sudden urge to watch More American Graffiti, as I realized I had never seen it. Before doing this, though, I presumed it would be a good idea to throw on the original film that preceded it, American Graffiti, as it had been a while since I had seen it and wanted to get in touch with the many characters of the film so that the transition to the sequel would be a little less confusing. It took me a while to warm up to American Graffiti. The first time I rented it, the copy I got from the local video store was an early 80s MCA/Universal VHS that had been pretty worn out, and because of its quality, I had a hard time engaging. It wasn't until I saw a 35mm print of the film at the New Beverly Cinema that I really fell in love with this film. American Graffiti follows a group of teenagers on a summer evening after they graduate from high school. The plot is simple, but there is a certain charm to it that still attracts new audiences.

For film nerds like me, this film has a few qualities worth mentioning. For starters, all of the sound, except for the title sequences and the Goodnight Sweetheart song which continues through a few scenes to the end, is diegetic, meaning all of the sound that we hear as the audience is also heard by the characters of the film. For two hours, music of the time period heard on the radio, at a sock hop, etc., plays as the characters' stories develop. The double record soundtrack to the film, which was a favorite of mine growing up, includes the majority of these songs and the coolest part is that the quality of the recordings on the soundtrack matches that of the film. Master recordings aren't used, and there is a canned quality with limited fidelity used to illustrate the quality of sound of the recordings as heard back in the time that the film is set. Five years after the film was released, it was reissued in Dolby Stereo sound (with a few more scenes added back in), which was fairly experimental for its time. Still, because the technological abilities to do a stereophonic remix in 1978 were limited, this remix is discreet enough to not distract from the film's original concept, compared to the 5.1 mixes of mono films that are chugged out by companies on a regular basis today. I am so happy that the Bluray and DCP of this film retains the 1978 stereo remix, and not a new 5.1 surround. That definitely would have killed the viewing experience for me.

Another notable quality of the film is that it was shot using a process called Techniscope. Instead of shooting a 2.35:1 aspect ratio with an anamorphic lens, Techniscope cameras took 4 perf 35mm film and shot it at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio by filming at 2 perfs at a time, reducing the frame in half. This would then be blown up onto 4 perf 35mm film so it could be projected at its widescreen aspect ratio...sort of a cheap man's widescreen. This gave the film a certain gritty aesthetic that adds to the memorable charm of the film a lot of people may remember in initial releases. I only wish I could have seen when the film was blown up to 70mm for the 1978 rerelease. My mind imagines that the grain for this blow up would have been quite distracting, but it's hard to tell without actually seeing it. When I saw the DCP and Bluray of the film recently, I noticed that any resemblance of this Techniscope process had now been removed with grain removal. The grit that showed the budget and time that the film was made was part of the charm that attracted audiences over the years. By removing this, the studios are almost shaming the filmmakers for the artistic choices they made. The movie is much brighter than I remember as well, probably because with the grain removed the colors needed a makeover. It's hard for me to stomach studios doing this. For years we as professionals discriminated against colorization with black and white films, and now we're colorizing color films. The restoration of this film is a perfect example of that.

The nice thing about films like American Graffiti is that they will always be released time and time again. Gone with the Wind has had numerous releases over the years, and each time, the people working on releasing the film try their hardest to have it resemble its original release. While American Graffiti is no Gone with the Wind by any means, it does hold a special place in many people's hearts and I do see it getting more restorations and releases in the future. Hopefully, the next time around, some of that 70s charm that went into the process of making it will come back. Until then, I will constantly be checking the movie listings for 35mm prints that may show up at local theaters in the LA area.

Signed,
The Celluloid Avenger

In flight entertainment

Last night, I was stuck at O'Hare International Airport for 5 hours. It was by far the most awful airport experience I have had. The airport shut down for four hours prior to my arriving there and all flights were delayed, cancelled, overbooked, you name it. Being a person who doesn't drink, it was charming to at first be surrounded by angry people, then by angry drunks. As people were dealing with hangovers and still not boarding planes, they became a little more calm and discussions broke out. Somehow, my field of profession came into the mix and a group of us started talking about in-flight entertainment. A suit who travels for a living mentioned that by 2015, all aircrafts should have the feature of purchasable cable TV stations (via satellite of course) with personal screens on the seat in front of you. All I can think is that it is about time this happened.

Films on airlines have been around since the 1920s, and the technologies have constantly been changing. While previously, 16mm prints were used (my personal print of Sweet Charity is an airline print-- letterbox with the titles flipped so that it could be projected from the rear of the screen), by the 1970s, 1" tapes were being used instead, with the open reel tapes running above the passengers heads. God bless cassette formats such as Umatic and eventually VHS, which made the in-flight entertainment portion of a flight much easier on the flight attendants, who also had to schlop out drinks and peanuts to the greedy customers while rocking back and forth in the air.

I remember being a child and watching many films on planes. Previous to television screens that dropped down in the aisles, there was one huge screen in the middle row of the plane that ran everything. A flight to Europe would start with your instructional video on how to be a good airline passenger, followed by the BBC news, a feature or two, a couple sitcoms, and finally a set of cartoons for the kids on the plane before ending with an instructional video on filling out the customs card. There were very few times the films weren't edited for content, which made watching a film like Scent of a Woman nearly impossible. As years have passed, I understand from friends at the studios that the films have been time crunched as well. I find this a little odd of course, as a film won't be run on any flights unless they are 4 hours or longer. Why bother time compressing a 2 hour film on a 4 hour flight? Lame.

One very unique experience I remember is flying Midwest Express back from Los Angeles to Milwaukee with my mom and sister. My mom was generous enough to pay the ridiculous charge (I think it was $7 or so) to let my sister and I watch a film on a portable player. Midwest Express had smaller planes at the time and could not hold the projection system needed for in-flight entertainment. So, one could order a portable player, which came with an attached Hi-8 tape machine, and watch a film on your meal tray on the seat in front of you. We of course rented Sister Act. It's PG and has nuns singing if you're not familiar:

My sister wanted to watch Straight Talk, but I was the youngest, so I got to decide. The flight attendant was so condescending when she gave us the machine. "To start the film, hit this big triangle. It's the play button. When the movie is finished, hit the square. It's the stop button. Then let me know and I'll take care of the rest for you, okay?" Please woman, I was 8 and my sister was 10. We were pretty familiar with home video systems at that age. At the end of the film, there is this huge number which my sister and I love. So when it finished my sister simply said 'let's watch it again' and rewound the tape. I was getting so nervous and started shouting 'No! You're going to get us in trouble!' She didn't care, and of course we didn't, but just goes to show you how I was the good seed and she was the deviant one.

Jumping back to last night though, the film was The Lego Movie, and I was surprised to see that the only 'modified from its original version' disclaimer that ran before the film was that it had been 'formatted to fit this screen', meaning it was going to be shown at 1.33:1 instead of 2.35:1. I figured I could stomach this. Well, the film was awful. I don't know who writes children films these days, but they're definitely not professional writers, and this was a good example of that. I ended up tuning out after 35 minutes. My interest peaked at a certain moment though, when the captain had to pause the film to let us know we were entering some turbulence. The film paused digitally, as if the source was a DVD. I bring this up because almost exactly one year ago to date, my mom and and I took a trip to Hawaii and saw an equally terrible film-- The Great and Powerful Oz. I had already seen the shoddy film in theaters, and while it was way too long, I didn't see why the film had a disclaimer that it had been edited for time and content, beyond reformatting for fullscreen. When the pilot paused that film, the format was a VHS. I remember distinctly seeing an analog pause and the heads eating away at this poor VHS tape of the film as he made the announcement and then hitting play again. This was the same type of plane, by the way, a Boeing 757. So, either VHS have been done away with in the last year on airplanes, as they should because the tapes we saw were in horrible condition from every time someone hit pause to make an announcement, or there are only some flights that are capable of showing DVD.

Nonetheless, it is so wonderful to hear that pretty soon there will be NO set programming for in-flight entertainment. I think it is wonderful that people can choose what they want to watch and flip through channels to catch a Nick at Nite Cheers marathon or something on Turner Classic Movies while waiting to go visit their grandmother in Utah, or wherever the heck they're headed. There is one downside though, which none of us have considered. Flying back from Milwaukee to Los Angeles on such a flight that offered the cable tv channels, I tuned in to see a Comedy Central roast, as it was a late night flight and TV-MA programs tend to run at these weening hours. I was enjoying myself immensely, watching something that was highly immature and offensive, but when I came back to my seat after going to the little passenger's room, I noticed that there were a few munchkins, ages 12 and under, tuning into this same adult program. Mom and Dad were either not on the flight or seated far away, and could not monitor what their child was watching. So while we once, as a whole audience of passengers had to, and still on some flights do, watch films censored for the minor eyes and ears of the flight, the new 'cable tv' option is opening a new world of inappropriate television for young'ns...all they have to do is get booked on a flight, and a standup comic can explain the birds and bees to them in a way their human growth and development classes missed!

Signed,
The Celluloid Avenger

Bouncin' Back to Bollywood: Hum Aapke Hain Koun

It was a snowy February Sunday night in 1995 in Brookfield, WI. My usual bedtime was 9pm, but on this very special night, my mom let me go with her to a very special screening: a film that had been buzzing all over the Bollywood gossip magazines: Hum Aapke Hain Koun. An hour later than scheduled, the lights dimmed, and the loud sold-out crowd cheered in delight as the following title sequence hit the screen:

This was actually what we saw. There are a few logos that are supposed to come before this title sequence, but the print we saw had traveled all over the US, and had come to us incredibly worn, starting with the logos cut, and this number incredibly scratched. Still, green emulsion lines dancing and all, it was a night to remember. Hum Aapke Hain Koun was considered a landmark film in Bollywood for so many reasons. I particularly can take or leave the film today, but do applaud its reverence because of what it did for the Bollywood industry. To see its deterioration over the last 20 years in different releases and to see that it has been beautifully restored in HD and released on home video makes my heart smile, even if I don't agree with it being a particularly good film.

The synopsis of the film is quite simple. Two wealthy Hindu families arrange a marriage between a boy and a girl, and in the process of the lavish traditional Indian wedding, followed by the wife becoming 'expectant', the bride and grooms siblings fall in love, keeping their coy feelings from the family. When tragedy strikes (the bride, finding the two are in love, joyously runs down a flight of stairs, trips into a concussion and dies in a coma), their love is jeopardized as her sister must now marry the bride's widow to care for her nephew instead of marrying the man she loves. Full of over-the-top humor, 14 songs, and incredibly cheesy dialogue, the film may not hold up as well as it did when it hit screens in 1994. But at the time, it was a saving grace for an industry that was starting to fall apart.

Still chugging out roughly 900 films a year, India's film market had a new focus...it seems that all films I remember of this era were romantic-drama-action-comedy-musicals that involved drug lords, cops, scorned love by family members, and a rape scene thrown in for good measure. I kid you not, while kissing on the lips was not seen for another year in Raja Hindustani, a staged rape scene happened more times than it needed to. Hum Aapke Hain Koun (HAHK) decided to be different. It broke box office records selling out for weeks in advanced on a simple story about love and family. If it weren't for this film, so many other classics that followed (Dilwale Dulhuniya Le Jayenge, Dil To Pagal Hain, and Rangeela, to name a few) wouldn't have been made, even in an industry that did release so many titles at a time.

There are three main versions of this film, to date. The first release, not remembered by most, had only 10 songs in it, and ran about 20 minutes shorter than the most common version. A groundbreaking marketing technique, Rajshri films waited until attendance had started to tamper down, and rereleased the film with 4 new songs: "Chocolate, Lime Juice", a reprise to "Diktana, Diktana", "Mujse Jodha Hokar", and "Lo Chali Main", the latter before the climactic coma inducing stair fall. This was the version I remember seeing in theaters as the film traveled around the US, running roughly 3 hrs and 5 min. Beautifully restored, here is the "Chocolate, Lime Juice" number, courtesy of Youtube:

Alas, there is one more version of this film that ran roughly 3 hrs and 20 minutes. For a long time, a person had two choices when purchasing the film. There was the first release, which cut the four numbers I mentioned above, and this long version that was almost unbearable to watch. Included were a number of extra short scenes that had nothing to do with the plot and were obviously put back into the film to market it for perhaps a third release, or one for home video or television broadcasts. Most annoying in this version was the alternation of "Ye Mausum Ka Jadoo". In the first and second versions of the film, the last shot of the number involved Madhuri Dixit ringing a bell at a temple and Salman Khan attempting to do the same but flubbing the process. They both sit to pray as the last line of the song is overheard, before the intermission card appears before the screen. The print we saw which toured the US did not have the original intermission card, being such a worn shabby print, but an inappropriate replacement title card, where a dramatic lightning bolt struck the frame and the word 'intermission' shot out at the audience. I remember my mom, sister, and I being a little disturbed by this. The third extended cut of the film featured a closeup of Madhuri looking on at Salman Khan while the song is heard in the background at a picnic, followed by a full scene at the temple, done a la An Affair to Remember. This was the first addition of scenes in the third version. The majority of them happen in the second act of the film, which is a shame because most people will admit that the second half of the film is what makes it drag.

The film became a landmark in a bad way, too. Video Sound, Asian Video, and Eros Video handled the official international video releases of Bollywood films in their respective territories. These releases weren't without flaws, of course. There would be commercial breaks in the official video releases and the transfers were low quality telecine transfers, usually matted from 2.35 to 1.85, but still of watchable quality and widescreen to a certain degree, nonetheless. When HAHK hit screens and became such a blockbuster, nobody wanted to pay for the rights to officially release the film on video before the crowd was ready to see it, and pirated videos in the US were born. These were common in India already, but a foreign idea to international audiences. It became clear that people were okay with renting pan and scan videos with numbers and sequences cut, advertisements flying across the bottom third of the screen, or films taped at private screenings in theaters with whatever sound was booming in the theater that would hit the camera microphone. It was a pleasure to see the film without the commercial breaks that official video releases had at the time, but this was the only advantage. Most films would, months later, get an official release, but a new precedence was set. A film would be released in India, a bootleg from a theater would hit the home video market, a home video from Pakistan with advertisements on the bottom of the screen would follow, and lastly, sometimes up to a year later, the official release would come out. Thankfully, this film was released in 1994 and the Bollywood industry started going to DVD around 1998, at which point everything was of a better quality. At that point, even the bootleg DVDs were better looking than the VHS releases that came out from the official distributors.

Every time this film got a video release, it seemed more worn out. The sound would get grainier and more muffled, the colors would be more faded, and there would be more pesky splices. I am so thrilled that the familiar hybrid version of the film is now released in HD, so all can see its splendor and glory. Looking back, I can say that while I don't care for the film as much as I did when I was 10, I do still feel that it should be preserved and treasured in that it holds an important part in Hindi film history. Now, let's work on getting a 20th anniversary rerelease theatrically!

Signed,

The Celluloid Avenger

Deep Throat

It is 4pm on a Wednesday afternoon, and I'm hear to talk about porn. You see, the Cinefamily theater is running a 35mm print of Boogie Nights tomorrow night, hosted by Doug Benson, and the whole screening got me thinking about the porn chic era of films, and how infatuated I am with this genre.

There are so many classic films that came out by these pornographic filmmakers in the 1970s and 1980s. Before the advent of home video, it had become common for people to attend them with their significant others and discuss the films as if they were a form of high art. From Deep Throat, to Debbie Does Dallas, to an entire series devoted to a well endowed detective, Johnny Wadd, these films paved the way for a more liberal sexual revolution in the United States. Filmmakers who devoted their art to making these films did so with great artistic value. Although the majority of films were done in a time span of a few days, they always had a great sense of artistic style to them. The acting and storylines may not have always been the best, but they were definitely watchable, and had some merit to them. From New Wave French edit styles to experimental angles with 35mm and 16mm cameras, there was a dedication to the art of filmmaking in pornography. When videotape came around, however, as discussed in Boogie Nights, the artistic quality seemed to quickly fade away. People were no longer seeing the films in the theater, they were watching them in the privacy of their own homes on VHS. Pacing was no longer an issue as purpose was no longer an issue. For the sake of keeping this blog PG-13, I will simply state that couples were no longer going to the theater, watching the movie beginning to end, and then going home to 'discuss' what they learned. These types of 'discussions' were done while watching the films in the privacy of their own homes while the film was being screened on their own private boudoir television set in their boudoir VCR.

Today, because rights revert back and forth between distributors so quickly with pornography and it is such a disposable format, a lot of the films have been lost, even though it has been less than 40 years since they were made. There is no pornographic film archive. There are video archives that stream the films from time to time on their websites, and institutions like the Library of Congress and UCLA do keep a small number of titles in their collection from time to time. However, in terms of a full preservation, with a new internegative, I doubt very much that this has occurred for a film like Deep Throat.

Deep Throat is definitely a favorite film of mine, but being a homosexual, much less than its concept interests me. Linda Lovelace wants to hear 'bells ringing' during intercourse and cannot. A doctor, through demonstration, tells her the reason is her clitoris is in the back of her throat. That's the premise. The film was a huge smash at the box office and the only reason was because it was also one of the most banned films in the United States. The more people wanted the film to be declared obscene by the government, the more money it pulled in. Soon, celebrities were going. Shirley Maclaine, Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, and when Jackie Onassis was spotted at a screening, everyone wanted to go!

The film does have some points worth discussing in regards to alternate versions. Beyond having a rated R release to appease people who wanted to see the film but without all of the lewd content, the opening of the film has a troubled history. Originally released by Vanguard Films, the original film opened with a text prologue, including a Sigmund Freud quote, and then went to a long track shot of Lovelace walking by a pier and getting into her car before the main titles start. In 1981, the rights of the film were assigned to Arrow Film and Video, another porn distributor. Because Vanguard Films appears both in the prologue and in this opening shot, both were removed from the opening in most releases, and the more common opening is what you see in the clip at the top of this post. The music varies in different releases too. The music used for the opening in the clip above is different than some other copies I've seen. A rock version of Ode To Joy is used instead while Linda drives around Miami, but I've only heard this music in versions that use the longer opening.

The Italian opening of the film is completely different altogether. The text prologue is in Italian with a different font and color, and the theme music used in the clip I posted is laid against stills of Linda Lovelace in different lingerie poses before cutting to the story of the film. No shots of Linda driving are featured in this version. Because the music used in the original Italian version matches the music in the Arrow rerelease, I am unsure what music was used in the original domestic release. If anyone has more info, I'd be happy to hear about it. Beyond purchasing a 16mm print on Ebay for $1300 or buying the soundtrack to the film (yes, the film does have a soundtrack featuring songs written and performed specifically for the film), it would be hard for me to know this.

The other question I have about the film is the aspect ratio. Different sites have insinuated that while the film was shot 1.37, this was an open matte film and would have been projected at 1.85 in theaters. I have a hard time believing this, though, because if one watches the 1.37 DVD, there is no overhead on the image that could get cropped for a 1.85 release. If the film had been cropped, we would lose foreheads, mouths, and even genitalia, God forbid! I have heard of 1.37 open matte films being blown up to 5% on all edges, but the idea of someone doing that with a cheap film like Deep Throat seems a little extraordinary. Another mystery I have always wanted to solve....

Signed,

The Celluloid Avenger