MovieChat Forums > Ulzana's Raid (1972) Discussion > Australian DVD is cut, too

Australian DVD is cut, too

posted 18 years ago by leforcat
11 replies | jump to latest

I got the Australian DVD few weeks ago, and it's cut. The killing of the horses is there all right, but the death of the soldier who rides away with Jaeckel to hunt down and kill the wounded indian is not there. That scene, lasting several minutes, is important, more important that the actual seconds of horses being shot that were cut away in the UK version. The scene includes some dialogue that makes the ending scenes of the movie much more poignant.

One has to find some uncut VHS, or the ugly "full screen" US version, or wait for a new release....

[–] eddyw78 18 years ago

Do you know anything of the German or French DVD?I know the Dutch release is the same as the UK but are these two?

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] leforcat 18 years ago

One must pay attention to the running time, there's no other way way of knowing which release is uncut. The full uncut running time is 105 minutes (106 acc. to other sources). If you can't confirm full running time, stay away.

The killing of the horses may look cruel to some, but the scene is insignificant to the plot, we know the horses are gone and all the Ulzana's guys are now on foot and at disadvantage anyway. The scene where the indian kills the soldier and dies himself is important, though, because of the dialogue that takes place. With that scene gone, some of the meaning and punch of the ending of the film is gone too.

To my knowledge, the US-DVD is uncut, but it's also slaughtered to "full frame". One might still buy it only to be able to see that missing scene!

Saigon... s**t! I'm still only in Saigon...

[–] eddyw78 18 years ago

I believe the Australian DVD is cut for the horse falls too.I owned the Dutch version which was basicly the UK DVD in different packaging(hence both countries certicates on the DVD label of the DVD itself)and found the Australian DVD had a number of jumps during the horse falls to eliminate some of the impact that were present in the Dutch release.Infact it looked exactly the same.I have never seen a UK version so I have no idea how it plays but I think all European DVDs are the same and it also looks like the Australian is from the same cut print.Please correct me if you think I'm wrong.

[–] leforcat 18 years ago

You may be right. All I know is an opinion of a friend who saw the film on it's first release in a theatre in London.
In any case, although nothing SHOULD ever be cut away from films, the exact fall of the horse has much less impact on the plot that the omitted scene with the death of the indian and the soldier. The dialogue between Lancaster and Jaeckel "Tell me more?" - "There's nothing to tell, unless you want to know how Miller felt about dyin'" would be more significant, as well as the ending of the film.

Saigon... s**t! I'm still only in Saigon...

[–] eddyw78 18 years ago

The BBC had no problems showing the Grand National on Sat afternoon which was full of real and life threatening horse falls.I do believe there are two versions of the film one supervised by Lancaster and the other by Aldrich both containing different cuts.Maybe one day the rights holders will give fans the option of seeing both together and in widescreen unlike the region 1 release.

[–] leforcat 18 years ago

Maybe cruelty in service of sport is more tolerable than cruelty in service of art? Trouble is: does the horse know the difference? Which inevitably leads to: do we really care? (irony)

Two other fine Aldrich movies are about to be released, 'Flight of the Phoenix' in R2, anyday now (although there exist a decent release already) and 'Emperor of the North Pole' in R1, in June, never released before. So there's hope for a decent 'Ulzana's Raid' too, I guess!

Saigon... s**t! I'm still only in Saigon...

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] lewisherschell 18 years ago

The scene in question was in the European cut of the movie prepared by Lancaster; it isn't in the US cut (prepared by Aldrich), and all of the current DVDs represent Aldrich's cut of the film. (There's an error in the information submitted to the IMDB: the old UK VHS contained Lancaster's cut, not Aldrich's cut; and this VHS release depicted the death of the soldier in question.)

Hopefully Lancaster's cut will turn up on DVD someday. Some of the scenes in that variant of the film (such as the one under discussion) are important, and need to be seen.

'I'm a by God constitutional anarchist'
Warren Oates.

[–] geoffrey-jackson 11 years ago

For what it's worth, I just watched the Zone 4 (Australian I presume) version. Seeing it runs for 1:38:59 and not as long as others it seems to be a cut version.