MovieChat Forums > MGM: When the Lion Roars (1992) Discussion > Part 2 is cut in half!

Part 2 is cut in half!

posted 15 years ago by angmc43
5 replies | jump to latest

The new MGM: WHEN THE LION ROARS DVD comes in two discs. Disc One has Part 1: "The Lion Roars". Disc Two has Part 3: "The Lion in Winter". And Part 2: "The Lion Reigns Supreme" is shared by the two discs, half in one and half in the other! This is really unheard of! I've never recalled a movie or mini-series treated in that fashion by DVD. Oh, I remember the days of VHS, when two-tape films like Fox Video's MY FAIR LADY or Paramount's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS had their Tape One volume stop the film prematurely before the film's actual Part One ended for the intermission (by either a sudden cut or fade-out). I'm sure there are some multi-DVDs of epic films that might still do this (since an intermission probably doesn't exist). But this documentary comes in three episodes, and Warner Home Video should present these episodes in their uninterrupted entirety rather than make its own interruption. Why not put two of the episodes in one disc, or make three discs?

[–] blondee661 15 years ago

If they did it with another disc it would cost more money to produce and it would cost more for the consumer. I'm not really complaining I mean Warner is thinking of our wallets!

[–] capricorn9 15 years ago

Wallets be damed! I think it's just a cheap way of getting the video out there and a total disregard for the original work that went into the original series.

Just read this here on the site -

"The 3-part documentary originally contained a lot of footage of Fred Astaire when it was broadcast on PBS and Turner Classic Movies. The newly released DVD has re-edited the segments in part 3 and deleted all (almost all) the Astaire footage, including clips of him dancing with Gene Kelly and Lucille Bremer - both from Ziegfeld Follies (1946), and solo in Royal Wedding (1951), as Debbie Reynolds shares a story about meeting him and being invited to watch him rehearse."

[–] BR-3 14 years ago

With regard to the absence of Fred Astaire, I think this may be because MGM musicals were well covered in the superb That's Entertainment and it's two sequels. The producers didn't want to reshow clips and gp over ground many had already seen. In discussing MGM musicals however there was another and even bigger omission: Busby Berkely (sp?) wasn't even mentioned. The producers were given the credit when it was Berkely who was responsible for all the amazing choreography. He should have been mentioned at least once.

As to where the video is split, in the early days of DVDs one of the engineers was asked why a movie had been split at an inappropriate spot when in fact ing a good spot for a break was only a few minutes away. His answer was that the disc was full and that was that. It wasn't their policy to take natural breaks into account when authoring DVDs.

[–] MarcDom7 15 years ago

You must hate the Lord of the Rings discs that split the movie in half over the first two discs.

It's not disrespect. It's just the way things are sometimes.

[–] HarlowMGM 8 years ago

I thought that was weird as well, as you mentioned they simply could have put the first two complete episodes on one disc and left the last one for a single disc with no loss in visual quality - that's generally the way "three part" shows are on dvds. And they should have cleared all rights for the original television production for future release on video but they apparently didn't and as a result they had to cut the Fred Astaire footage from the show because they couldn't later acquire the rights from his estate.