MovieChat Forums > Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) Discussion > Cut Scene in all versions now ?

Cut Scene in all versions now ?


It could just be my mind playing tricks, but I would swear I saw Mr Deeds push the opera singer down, and confront the opera group.
I've watched the VHS tape, and a couple dvd versions and on TV, but the scene is missing.
It doesn't make sense when the opera group are talking about Mrs Pomenar(sp) women taking him to the cleaners and then you don't see her. Deeds also talks about throwing them out of his house, so to me it is a mystery still.

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Interesting. Maybe because the DVD is a copy of a restored version by the Library of Congress. Sony might put out a restoration copy, but if they get requests for it. The opera singer is named Madame Pomponi who does appear in the DVD version, BTW.

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If I recall right, a scene of Deeds throwing the opera people out of his house was filmed, but I was under the impression it was deleted in the final print (as was a scene in the mental hospital in which Deeds attacks his attendant).

Perhaps it was kept in for preview audiences? Is that when you saw it?

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Can't help you out with information, but I'd just like to say that I too was confused when I saw the movie and that rather overweight woman (who I believe was Mrs. Pomenar) showed up to testify at the trial and testified that Deeds had thrown her bodily out of his home. When did that happen?!

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Ralfee was quite right: the last time I saw the movie I realised that a scene was missing which I was sure I had seen before: that of Mrs Pomponi (or whatever her name was) being thrown bodily out of the house. Stupid to cut this scene, as her showing up at the trial becomes unintelligible.
This afternoon I discovered something else: Capra is plagiarizing himself (if such a thing is possible) in 2 instances. In Platinum Blonde (1931) the protagonist is called "Cinderella Man" because he has married a socialite, and in one scene he and the butler are uttering yells in order to hear the echo. Although I have to object to this lack of originality, I have to admit that both worked better in Mr Deeds ....

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Ralfee was quite right: the last time I saw the movie I realised that a scene was missing which I was sure I had seen before: that of Mrs Pomponi (or whatever her name was) being thrown bodily out of the house. Stupid to cut this scene, as her showing up at the trial becomes unintelligible.

I didn't find that unintelligible because Deeds talks about that incident earlier at Mary's place. Maybe you're just imagining you saw that scene because it was described to vividly.

I once thought I'd seen a certain Chaplin sketch, but I discovered later that I had read about that sketch in his book and he never filmed it. Its funny how our brains sometimes work.

--
"An eye for an eye, and the whole world goes blind"

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Deeds tells Mary about kicking the partygoers out of his house, but it is never seen. Why is that so difficult to accept? Do we see him in his underwear yelling "Back to Nature!" Do we see him stopping traffic feeding donuts to a horse? No. But all these incidents are referred to in the trial as having happened, and served as proof of his insanity.


PS
Madame Pomponi is not in the scene where Deeds rebukes the opera board of directors.

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I bow to your superior knowledge. Obviously my imagination works better than I had thought.

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It could possibly be that the scene was filmed, but then had to be deleted from the US release due to the Hayes Commission - but was still included in the European or Australian or other releases, and a some point one of those non-US versions was used to burn DVDs. If you look at some pre-code and post-code films, some pretty amazing (IMHO and for the time) things showed up before the morality crackdown in Hollywood, especially if you're only used to seeing the post-code films of the mid-30s through mid-60s.

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The fact that we don't see Deeds throwing the Opera singer etc. out of his house doesn't bother me. But there's one other scene that doesn't quite make sense. When Corny Cobb shows up at the mansion with a newspaper article and photo of Babe Bennett, he tells Deeds that his girlfriend is a fraud who's been "playing him for a sap." I don't recall Corny and Babe appearing in the same scene until late in the movie at the mental institution. How would he know what she looks like?

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In the first scene Jean Arthur appears, I believe the newspaper editor warns her that Cobb, a journalist himself, is watching over Deeds every step. Since they work in the same milieu they know each other. That's why the editor tells Babe to pretend she is on vacation, away from the newspaper, so she can write her articles on Deeds in a safe place, not fearing of being discovered and exposed.

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You're mostly right but Cobb is not a journalist per se, he's a press agent/publicist. His job is essentially to "spin" any news regarding his clients so that they get favorable treatment from journalists. (Hence his line over the telephone during the scene in which Deeds is giving away his money to set up farms for the indigent; Cobb refuses an offer to buy fertilizer by telling the unseen merchant, "Listen, mac, fertilizer is what I'VE been selling for years!"

Since Babe appears to be a pretty prominent reporter it's almost certain she and Cobb would have crossed paths over the years.

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Does anyone know for sure if it was filmed?

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I think Op was correct and the Opera Party scene is indeed cut. On TCM the scene ran just moments ago. You saw people arriving at the party, then cut to Longfellow coming to the girl's apartment.

I am pretty certain I've seen the party scene run longer then just the arrivals. Before I believe you had seen the society types happily planning to greet Longfellow when he joined the party by doing something or other like throwing slippers at him as they call him the "Cinderella Man". I don't specifically recall him pushing around the lady singer or the other snobs but that may have been. However I believe the scene previously ended just after they deliver this insult to their host.

For what it's worth.

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I just watched it on TCM and they showed quite a bit of the party scene.

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