Are there any more than GBU, Companeros and Long Live Your Death?
What’s with all these questions? In this case it … depends, of course. On the country mostly. And GBU doesn’t just exist in one long and one short version, almost all spaghetti westerns have experienced censorship, version differences, re-releases, and all that from medium to medium. Listing these is pretty much impossible!
I mean shorter versions not because of censorship.
Once Upon a Time in the West was also released in a shorter international version.
But you’re over-simplifying this phenomenon. It’s just that Paramount furnished their own cut of the film for international distribution (and later some more mistakes were made for home video, that means there’s more than just two versions in fact), it wasn’t some agreed upon plan or release strategy. These were arbitrary distributor’s decisions. For the same reason in a lot of cases the versions released in Spain differed from the ones released in Italy which differend from the ones rleeased in Germany, etc, and then some countries saw re-releases, which were sometimes shorter, sometimes longer. So to get back to your initial question: what precisely is it you’re asking? A list of all spaghetti westerns and all their possible versions?
We all know the international version of GBU. It’s the same with Companeros and Long Live Your Death, at least in markets where these films were released with the english dub, they were shown in theaters in the shorter version, (and later released on VHS).
I wondered if there are more films like this, but maybe there aren’t.
GBU had indeed a shorter international version, the 161 min version, but OuTW was only released in one version. All shorter versions were, like Seb says, arbitrary distributor’s decisions. Originally also in the USA the uncut version was released, but only for a few weeks, then the cutting started.
A Minute to Pray a Second to Die exists in a longer Italian version and a shorter one created by MGM. But the shorter one was probably only released in the USA.
Really ? I always thought there is a special version of OuTW for the Italian audience about 10 minutes longer than the official version..maybe I’m wrong….please correct me
There is indeed a longer version with 177 min, but that wasn’t released.
It was found, at least it seems so, that it was found in the archives of Leone. It maybe was screened at some special purposes (like festivals) before it was refurbished in the mid 90s and then later released on Italian DVDs. It also was shown on German TV.
But most people don’t view it as a DC, but merely an earlier version of the yet unfinished film, before the fine cutting was finished. Mostly it is just that many scenes run longer, mostly too long actually.
I have the Italian DVD of the longer version of OUATITW. The extra footage is all small scene extensions apart from a new scene that shows Morton playing with some toy soldiers. I think there is only about one extra dialogue sentence.
To echo Stanton, I thought it looked like a slightly unfinished edit. To give one example, in the ‘normal’ version, in the scene at the Way Station when Cheyenne raises the bottle with his hands and is shown to be wearing handcuffs, the harmonica cuts in on the soundtrack. In the longer version, Cheyenne raises his hands twice and it is only on the second occurrence do we hear the Harmonica. The shorter edit is much more effective. The scene in which Harmonica hands the back scrubber to Jill in the bath is also tighter in the ‘normal’ version. The longer version does have an extra flashback scene of Frank out of focus though. It also includes the scene of Harmonica recovering after being shot in the opening gunfight.
I assume rights issues prevent it being added to the 4K Blu Ray release as an extra.
There are lots of alternate versions. Some others:
Treasure of Silver Lake (abridged English version missing 10m)
Winnetou the Warrior aka Winnetou 1 (same)
Drummer of Vengeance (shorter alternative edit)
The Big Gundown
Run Man Run (shorter 85m edit not released but on Blu ray)
A Reason to Live a Reason to Die (2 English dubs/edits, one running 30m short)
A Bullet for the General (2 English dubs, one slightly shorter)
Days of Anger (abridged print missing 30m)
Alive or Preferably Dead (alternative version Sundance Cassidy and the Kid running 20m short)
It Can be Done Amigo (abridged version running 15m short)
Face to Face (shorter version missing 15m)
Fury of Johnny Kidd (Spanish version is abridged missing most of the ending)
Man Who Killed Billy the Kid (Sp version runs 15m longer)
The Price of Power (Abridged version missing 20m released in US/UK originally)
I highly doubt that. Probably more ignorance and lack of care on the side of paramount , and to some degree the Leone Film Group. When was the last time any of these properly put work into any of their catalog titles. Pretty sure if Paramount had asked nicely and covered costs, they would have been given access to everything