Original ending and deleted scenes
After watching this movie for the first time few weeks ago, i must say i became fan of it and i think it's one of the better crime thrillers from the 90's, quite an underrated and well made gem and Richard Gere's performance as Dennis Peck is definitely my favorite of his.
That being said, after checking around for some production info about the film i found out how apparently there were quite a few scenes which were deleted, including entire original ending. Before anything else, here are parts from trivia which mention this;
Original ending of the movie was different. After entire scene where Peck kills Arrocases and wounds Wallace and Raymond taking her to hospital, Raymond calls his wife Kathy to tell her to lock the door, fearing that Peck will come after her. Peck however manages to sneak into their home and starts terrorizing her. He makes her take his shoe off and start cleaning his wounded foot, while at the same time he starts talking to her in very perverse, sexual way. When Raymond finally gets home Peck is holding Kathy and keeps her mouth covered so that she can't warn him and then he gets shot by Peck. As Peck smiles at him and prepares to kill Kathy, heavily wounded Raymond manages to run at him, crashing both of them out the window and into the swimming pool. Peck tries to drown Raymond but Raymond manages to get his gun and shoots Peck, killing him, but he almost ends up drowning. Kathy then jumps into the pool and manages to get him out, and after desperate attempts to revive him and screaming at him not to die, he wakes up, vomits and as he does so, Peck's dead body bobs out right next to them. Kathy starts laughing after Raymond revives and two of them then hold each other as the ambulance is heard coming. According to what director Mike Figgis said in his book Liebestraum, this ending was removed and changed because it didn't test well with audience during test screening of his original cut of the film. This is why Figgis wrote and filmed new ending for final theatrical version. However, several parts of the original ending are shown in theatrical and TV trailers of the film, and till this day remain only available parts of it.
Theatrical and TV trailers show several alternate and deleted scenes; Alternate edit of the first scene between Raymond and his IAD boss, deleted dialogue scene where Raymond is told that if he goes after Peck and doesn't get him he's dead in the department and if he does get him "it could be even worse", deleted scene showing Peck calling someone and asking them for information about Raymond, deleted conversation scene between Raymond and Peck who are in some bar drinking and talking about how people want to be bad and how cops want to be bad worst of all while at the same time Peck's hooker/snitch is performing striptease. Several parts of original ending are also shown; Raymond calling Kathy and telling her to lock the door, Kathy finds Peck in her home holding a gun and he tells her not to say anything, Peck telling her to take his shoe off and Peck shooting Raymond while holding Kathy and Raymond running at him, crashing both of them out the window. Some promotional stills also show these and some other deleted scenes.
I managed to find theatrical and TV trailers which show deleted footage, so going by trivia and what i noticed deleted scenes are;
Theatrical trailer
https://youtu.be/tWMzNDEZWgU
0:02 - 0:11 "Deleted conversation scene between Raymond and Peck who are in some bar drinking and talking about how people want to be bad and how cops want to be bad worst of all while at the same time Peck's hooker/snitch is performing striptease."
0:22 - 0:27 "Alternate edit of the first scene between Raymond and his IAD boss."
0:40 - 0:46 "Deleted dialogue scene where Raymond is told that if he goes after Peck and doesn't get him he's dead in the department and if he does get him "it could be even worse".
Also, at 0:43 there is a quick shot of Peck going after some girl, looks like this was part of the opening scene.
0:49 - 0:51 "Deleted scene showing Peck calling someone and asking them for information about Raymond."
Original ending
1:26 - 1:29 "Raymond calling his wife Kathy and telling her to lock the door."
1:31 "Kathy finds Peck in her home holding a gun and he tells her not to say anything."
1:32 "Peck telling her to take his shoe off."
1:33 Raymond comes home during all this but gets shot by Peck who holds Kathy hostage.
1:35 - 1:40 Raymond is shot in the chest and from the looks of it, bullet went in and out (look at the blood on the wall behind him). Peck smiles as Raymond runs at him and they both crash through the window while Kathy screams.
Here are couple TV trailers which also show these deleted scenes;
https://youtu.be/jJriaNoK9Oc
I managed to find still of deleted strip club scene, i believe it was used on some VHS covers;
http://cineplex.media.baselineresearch.com/images/299104/299104_full.jpg
and here's still of another deleted scene showing Peck talking with that black pimp;
http://images3.cinema.de/imedia/7419/1887419,LyKsE1o66losar9UZgmnCxR_CCKUqwLRbjc+xMVH3B3A3JOh__fQc34RQgqOqiMB5Vy7O0I_Mf_JO+wT648x9w==.jpg
Personally, i don't mind the theatrical ending, specially the final dialogue from Peck, but it felt anticlimactic. I felt that up to that point there was quite a build up to the big confrontation between Peck and Raymond but in the end it just felt flat. Reading about (and seeing) how it originally ended, with Raymond basically willing to kill himself just to kill Peck feels like it would have better impact. And maybe it's just me, but Andy Garcia's hair in the theatrical ending sure does looks strange, almost like they put some bad wig or something to avoid continuity problems.
My questions are, if anyone have seen this original ending or knows more about it and other deleted scenes, go right ahead and share what you know. share