The Capture of Tarzan

I found an old magazine in a flee market the other day, which reminded me of Ron Hall's quest to find information on a lost Tarzan movie.

In 1934, Johnny Weissmuller had become the one and only Tarzan for generations to come and his last film Tarzan and his Mate even showed Jane swimming nude underwater. Talk about jungle adventures!

The next outcome would have to be even more adventurous. So Tarzan would encounter all sorts of evils in The Capture of Tarzan, directed by James C. McKay, who had done some uncredited directing duties on Tarzan and His Mate. Because of the Hays censorship code, Maureen O'Sullivan would now have to wear a one piece suit.
MGM executives weren't satisfied with the result (allegedly because it was too gruesome).

A succession of directors proceeded to reshoot the picture that eventually became Tarzan Escapes. John Farrow, George B. Seitz, William A. Wellman took the job, and eventually, only Richard Thorpe got on-screen credit for it.

Ron Hall remembers that, as a kid, in the fifties, he saw at least one of the sequences from the original cut, that of the climatic vampire bats which still appear on various promotional material. He explains that this was probably one of the only scenes retained from the original film and that even it got cut before release eventually. However, there must have been a negative of the new version of the film with this sequence intact somewhere in the vaults of MGM which they used for the 1954 re-release.

The French magazine I picked up loosely follows the story of the new version but it does include the sequence although it is summed up as "monsters they had to fight". Ron also found these two trailers:
the first one is specifically about the film and mentions the bats among other elements now lost, and the second one is an MGM tour that offers a snippet of a deleted scene.

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The Black Cauldron

The Black Cauldron was conceived as a renaissance picture for the Disney company. Just like Sleeping Beauty over two decades before, the film was several years in the making, with a colossal budget, a different style, a scope format...
When the film met with little success, it was shelved, and Disney spent much effort to make you forget they ever released such a failure. I remember seeing it in the eighties and later not remembering clearly if the film was a Disney movie at all.

1983 Tim Burton drawing

The film finally resurfaced on home video and has lately been restored for a new DVD release. Some other previously lost material also made its way on the disc and on various books. These include preliminary drawings made by Tim Burton when he worked at the studio. He drew sketches of the Horned King's lair and various creatures. Apparently none of which were used in the finished film.

Tim Burton creature

A "deleted" scene was also part of the bonus features. It is actually an alternate and extended version of the scene where Taran and his friends meet the Fairfolk. Details vary: the group makes its way out of the cave thanks to a growing magic bean, much like Jack's instead of magic dust, the design of the king is rather different, the kid fairies weren't in the film, etc.

Concept by James Coleman

This is just a sample of the various scenes in development which, although fully animated, were completely changed or deleted at great costs!
The real treat that is yet to come, would be a documentary about the making of the film, and to see all the other scenes, especially considering that some of them were removed in a later stage of production.
In fact, twelve minutes were apparently edited out of the finished film by unhappy studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg. It is still unclear what the scenes are but the recent release of the film's soundtrack by Elmer Bernstein throws new light about this.

Character design

Its producer Randy Thornton explains that the eighth cue of the third reel "Incantation" was meant to underscore one of the excised scene. The cue alone lasts 1 minute and 52 seconds and it seems obvious, given the dark tone of the music, that the scene featured the Horned King, which seems to confirm that the cuts were essentially made to lighten the mood of the picture and avoid a restricted rating in spite of the obvious attempt of the studio to get out of its corny image. Incidentally, that scene was right after the Fairfolk sequence mentioned before.
In other cases, the scene remained but was shortened by several shots. This is the case of the famous Cauldron born scene. There again, the complete cue on the CD shows us that several seconds were cut right before Eilonwy says "Oh it's horrible!" And indeed what she saw was too horrible to make the final cut. A devoted fan mixed the soundtrack with rare cels of the original sequence to give you a rough idea of what the scene looked like originally.

Here's hoping that these scenes make their way back to the public on a future Blu-ray release.
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The Story of William Tell

Errol Flynn is mostly remembered for his role in The Adventures of Robin Hood. 15 years later, his "wicked wicked ways" had finally taken their toll: he had become an alcoholic and his looks were fading rapidly. According to Maureen O'Hara who worked with him on Against All Flags, he had to inject booze in oranges because the director forbade drinking on the set.
Flynn also broke his ankle during the shoot and on the next film, he collapsed and doctors announced he would die right there. Miraculously, he survived. But he ended his contract with Warner Brothers after a falling out with Jack Warner. He stayed in Europe, and decided to put all his money into an independent production which he would co-produce with Italian funds.
He asked famous cinematographer Jack Cardiff who had worked on his last film if he would take his first directing job and surrounded himself with friends like actor Bruce Cabot (whom you may remember from King Kong) who happened to be without a job at the time.

Jack Cardiff & Errol Flynn

The film would be The Story of William Tell, in which, once again, Errol would wear his famous tights, Orson Welles and Gina Lollobrigida would co-star. Cinecitta was briefly considered but an entire village was built in Courmayeur, in the Italian Aoste valley.

Soon, Orson Welles left the project, and Gina Lollobridgida was replaced by Antonella Lualdi (A then-unknown Sophia Loren tested for the part but was rejected by Flynn). On June 14, 1953, shooting began on the troubled production. The new Cinemascope format had been licensed from 20th Century Fox and the film would be in color.
Unexpectedly, 2 months into the production, the Italian producers bluntly announced that they had no intention of honoring their part of the contract. Cardiff and the crew went right on filming without salary for another six weeks, trusting Flynn to find another backer. Unfortunately, Flynn was ruined, and he found out that the man who handled his affairs in the USA had made debts in his name before he died.

As if this betrayal wasn't enough, his friend Bruce Cabot left and sent his lawyers to Flynn for failure to pay him for his performance in the film. They seized all of his assets down to his wife and kid's clothes.
About 30 minutes of the script were apparently shot and the footage survives although only brief segments were ever shown with some of Jack Cardiff's behind the scene color footage.
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