THE MISSING SCENE IN DELIVERANCE-WHEN THINGS AREN'T QUITE SO CLEAR
A few years ago, my now-adult nephew told me about how he missed the point in the movie ‘Deliverance’. As a kid, he had only seen the edited and laundered regular TV version of the movie.
Sure the canoeists had a couple of issues with the hillbillies, but should they have been angered up enough to start a backwoods body count? Not if you saw the movie as he saw ‘Deliverance’ after it got sliced up by the censors.
When he saw the uncut version of the same movie, he started to understand why the boys, particularly Ned Beatty, were a tad upset.
My nephew found the missing ingredient in ‘Deliverance’, although he may have been perfectly content to live with the cut version.
Situations like that can happen from time to time. What would ‘Scarface’ be without the language and bloodletting? Tony Montana would be just an angry Cuban refugee looking for a job in a very short movie.
Those of us that care about important nerd issues wondered how the Klingons got so bone ugly between the first and second generations of ‘Star Trek’. The question was answered in the last Star Trek TV sequel ‘Enterprise’ where the original Star Trek Klingons were reported to be victims of a flu plague with DNA altering consequences that made them more human-like.
Finally Trekkies could sleep nights again.
We need all of the available information to get the picture. Imagine the impact that ‘Animal House’ had on me when I watched the edited- for- TV version. Suddenly Bluto was just an annoying fat Peeping Tom who spied upon almost fully clothed women.
Have you ever watched a George Carlin or Chris Rock comedy concert after a TV edit? Now I’m not saying that these guys needed to add a steady supply of F-bombs to make their point, but that was how they rolled. Launder out the language on many comedians and you’ve got some major gaps in the funny for R- rated comedians on PG TV.
I guess that would be my final point: The Colonel needed every one of those secret herbs and spices to make KFC one of the world’s tastiest ways to kill people with deep- fried artery- clogging kindness.
We need all of the ingredients too.
COMMENTS
DENNIS:"If it was just the "4 letter words", I might be able find a point to justify it but it isn't. Case in point, "Blazing Saddles". The whole movie revolved around the plot that the "Citizens of Rock Ridge" would find a Black Sheriff so objectionable, that the "evil politicians" could buy up the railroad land around the town dirt cheap. A classic cliche (B movie) western that would usually star "Randolph Scott" back in the 50's.
