Restoration in Order


This potentially exquisite film was taken out of director Vincente Minnelli's hands and all but destroyed by the distributor. Bad prints, sound, color processing, amateurish tenth-unit exterior additions, overall butchery...you name it. Minnelli disowned the film, his long-dreamed-of collaboration with his daughter, Liza.

If I had a magic wand, I'd wish for Liza to whip up a coalition of concerned parties such as Martin Scorcese and Peter Bogdanovich to buy up the rights to A Matter of Time, magically obtain funding and the film's original elements, and reassemble the film to some semblance of Vincente Minnelli's original vision.

In time, this film will matter very much as one of the small handful of worthy visual records of one of its centurie's great performers.

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I completely agree with you. Has Liza undertaken any efforts to restore her father's outstanding final work? So many restorations are done these days, that I'd like to think no magic would be required.

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Apparently there is the perception that this film was ruined by inept editing after it was taken away from Vincente Minnelli. I heard years ago, however, that the director's version was a mess to begin with. Ingrid Bergman's daughter, Isabella,told me personally that her mother was sure it would be terrible while they were making it as Minnelli was not in complete control of his faculties and making weird choices about everything. One of Liza's biographers detailed the tearful transatlantic phone calls she made to a friend while on location about exactly the same thing. I think this is one of those instances where fans are misguided in thinking that there is some kind of restoration possible to save this disaster. This may account for why Liza has never attempted such an endeavor because she knows the truth, and rather than degrade her father's brilliant legacy, she let's the bad editing story stick.

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Excellent post, cnicknz! Liza was just on TCM "Private Screenings" last night, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat when Robert Osbourne brought the subject of this movie up. She admitted that her father was in the first stages of dementia when they began work on the film. She said it was difficult to communicate with him but that "I tried my best". Robert commented, "It's a forgotten film now." And Liza, without any emotion, agreed. Curiously, "A Matter of Time" is scheduled for a showing on TCM next week.

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Actually, it was aired two hours later the same night you saw Liza's edition of Private Screenings. "Cabaret" aired immediately after Private Screenings, then Osborne introduced and showed "A Matter of Time," with some very astute commentary before and after the film.

Even if the stories about Vincente Minnelli's condition during filming are true, and I am not saying they're not, there was and is still no justification for the way American International butchered whatever Mr. Minnelli gave them in his final version. The dubbing, the dreadful stock footage of Rome, etc., etc. There was simply no reason to go there!

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Agreed. But people are living in denial land if they think the director's cut is some kind of undiscovered masterpiece. If it was, Liza would be leading the fight to have it restored.

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Completely agree. If people think the "directors cut" is some great masterpiece, they are naive. The film is a mess, much of the actors dialogue is poorly dubbed, so not sure who's call was it to not record actual sound while the actors were performing their scenes. The film is almost laughably bad and considering the talents involved, has to be one of the worst movies ever made. I think Liza knows it is awful.

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The point here is that the distributor's processing of the film was technically unprofessional. The sound quality, print and color processing, editing and other mistreatment render a poorly-made film even worse.

There never was anything like a "director's cut". Whether the film is "terrible" or a "great masterpiece", objectively or in subjective opinion, is not the issue here. Any work of a respected film artist like Vincente Minnelli, whatever its perceived quality, warrants the dignity of the best possible presentation.

Doctor Mabuse, Evil Genius, King of Crime

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I just saw this film in a theater, a 35mm print from Switzerland, I think, with German and French subtitles. It even had a scene that was deleted from the original release, which was nice to see. I will agree there was some bad dubbing, but I see so many Italian films where the dubbing is garbage that I barely notice it anymore, and it does not generally detract from how I feel towards a film.

The stock footage of Rome, ok, I can agree it looked terrible and did somewhat bring down the quality of the film, as some of it looked like a tourist was filming it, and I was a bit surprised as most of the film looked pretty good.

All that being said, I was pretty impressed with the film. If the director was suffering from the early stages of dementia, that makes the story line all the more poignant.

If we could resurrect Vincente pre-dementia and have him fix the film, sure, it may have been so much better, but other than the fact that this film tends to swing from very touching to super cheesy within seconds, I found the movie to be a very touching one.

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This film really should have been made in the 1950s after the book was published. In spite of herself and her desire to make a movie with her father, Liza Minnelli is too old for her role in it. This would have been a perfect vehicle for a young Julie Andrews, or for someone like Audrey Hepburn, Jean Simmons or Leslie Caron. Even Natalie Wood. The role of the Contessa would have been sensational had someone like Ethel Barrymore, Luise Rainer, Ruth Gordon or Edith Evans had played it.

The material is out of date with the mid-1970s. I saw it when I was in college, and liked it, but had been disappointed by much of Liza's post-Cabaret work. Thankfully, New York, New York came along later.

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