Savant's new reviews today are
It just got announced that Sony is in the process of restoring MAJOR DUNDEE, probably Savant's favorite picture. It's not a director's cut but the original release length that is 12 minutes longer than what's seen today. It got hacked down to 123 minutes soon after it premiered, and hasn't been seen longer than that (except in certain European countries) ever since. They've had color separations of the film but only recently recovered full audio to go with the longer cut.
The restored scenes reportedly cover such essential material as Richard Harris' escape from the Fort Benlin prison (the short cut we've all seen does a poor job of establishing that Fort Benlin is a prison) and the eventual fate of the Indian guide Riago. Everybody talks about Riago in the short cut but he remains mostly a mystery.
I hope to have a lot more to say in print about the film soon. This week, European correspondent and author Ulrich Bruckner is in town, and we're going to go to the Egyptian to see the restored print of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly on a big screen. Should be fun. Glenn Erickson
Posted by DVD Savant at November 08, 2004 02:01 PM