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EFH
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
27 Posts |
 Posted - 04/20/2009 : 5:31:51 PM
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| I remember The Hunt for Red October was being show on some silly network. They cut at least a half hour of the plot. The two things that stand out were the total removal of the attack by the bomber, and a few minutes taken from the final showdown. |
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niccolom
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Canada
118 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2009 : 6:25:02 PM
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quote:
Yeah, it started out on Showtime. I mean, if it's a good sci-fi show, it's better with nudity. Just obvious Hollywood logic there. I don't know how much after the first couple of episodes the nudity continued.
Showtime has upped the ante by now having a sci-fi show that's a simple excuse for softcore porn.
I never watched the SG-1 on Showtime so I wasn't aware of this.
Regarding your second comment, you're not talking about Forbidden Science by chance?
"When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk."
Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez, aka "Tuco," aka "the Rat," aka "Ugly," aka "il Cattivo" |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2009 : 07:24:53 AM
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Yes, that's it.
I summon Bigger Fish! |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 04/23/2009 : 04:01:48 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhacker
I'm curious as to whether somebody like Neville and New Hinda has any stories to tell about whether American movies have ever been altered when shown in their countries: the more ridiculous the examples, the better. <g>
These days foreign films in Spain are shown unaltered but dubbed. You only get the chance of subtitled versions if you live in bigger cities than mine or wait for the DVD / TV broadcast. Films are classified into "All audiences", "Under 7 not recommended", "Under 13 not recommended" and "Under 18 not recommended". These ratings are not enforced (they were until the 80s), and they only exist as a warning to concerned parents, which aren't too many. The only films banned for those under 18 are porn films.
Censorship was very active during the Franco dictatorship, though. Censors would cut scenes or alter any objectionable scenes through dubbing. Let's say that in the Spanish version of Casablanca Bogey did not fight in the Spanish Civil War. And they added this radio news announcement at the end of The getaway mentioning that the criminals had been, naturaly, aprehended by the police.
And of course the censors did screw up big time now and then. They altered High plains drifter so Eastwood's character was the brother of the deceased sheriff instead of its spirit. Somehow the idea of an avenging angel attacking the stablishment was too subversive for them to stomach. And they infamously changed a married couple in Mogambo to brother and sister, turning adultery into incest.
Dubbings have also their problems. Most people are used to it these days and will refuse to watch anything subtitled. The translation and acting is pretty good, but there amny downsides. Too often the dubbing actors sound nothing like the originals, and any traces of regional accents are suplanted by TV-anchor like dictions. No, Van Damme doesn't have an accent here. Why should he have one, even if the writers took the pains to write him as a French Canadian or something like that?
And now and then they also screw it up big time. Remember the end of Reservoir dogs? Several characters die and one is arrested off screen. Looks like they missed the audio from the cops arresting that guy, so in the Spanish version he gets away with the stones. Not a bad way to compensate that Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw are still between bars. |
Edited by - Neville on 04/23/2009 04:54:52 AM |
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CDiehl
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
361 Posts |
Posted - 04/23/2009 : 11:45:52 AM
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Regarding your second comment, you're not talking about Forbidden Science by chance?
I believe that's actually on Cinemax. I don't have Cinemax, but I see the program listed on the schedule on my TV. I doubt it was ever on Showtime, since they aren't owned by the same people.
You know Grand Funk, don't you? The wild, shirtless lyrics of Mark Farner? The bong-rattling bass of Mel Schacher? The ... adequate drumwork of Don Brewer? |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2009 : 12:55:03 PM
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@Neville: thanks for that.
Back in the 60s in the US, there was a peculiar trend where foreign movies (usually horror films) would be repackaged to fool audiences here into thinking that these were American films. Did any studios ever try that in Spain?
For example, a Russian astronaut movie might be released here with new footage starring American or English actors, just so the distributor could put those actors' names in the credits (while leaving out all the Russian names). Or in the case of many Italian sci-fi films of the 60s, the distributors would simply Anglicize all the Italian names to make them sound "American". Thus, actor Giacomo-Rossi Stuart was sometimes billed as "Jack Stuart" in US ads while director Antonio Marghetti (sp?) became "Anthony Dawson." Clever, right?
(To a lesser extent this gimmick was sometimes done with Chinese kung fu films in the 70s and the 80s, although I don't think anyone really expected audiences to think these were domestic movies just because the lead actors had suddenly be re-christened "Billy" or "Angela" or "John".) |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2009 : 12:49:11 PM
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As far as I know, no foreign film was ever presented as a Spanish one. We did get tons of those Italian films, starting with the spaghetti westerns, featuring anglisiced names, though.
These sometimes included anglisicing the names of Spanish actors. Many SW being made in Almeria, they used crews and casts that were partially Spanish.
Watch this, for instance: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0759757/
He's got quite a bunch of alternate names.
Same with people like Jacinto Molina - Paul Naschy. Anglo names were considered more "marketable" back then. |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2009 : 8:15:06 PM
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Way back when, the TV Guide had an artical where the writer talked about his bizzare experiences with American movies on French TV. He related a scene from "The Big Sleep" like this: (Spelling as close as I recall)
I weel nevar forget zee scene where Bo-gee makes a phone call. The operator says to deposit fifty-five cents and the subtitle says to deposit a fifty cemtiime piece and Bogie deposits three coins.
I couldn't get back to the plot after that, which was something about a murder.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2009 : 04:15:59 AM
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Had he seen it dubbed, he would have got even more mileage of the fact that Bogey didn't sound like Bogey at all. One of the problems I had when I switched to subtitled films on my late teens was that nobody sounded the way I was used to. I mean, big stars are usually dubbed by the same actors, but that doesn't mean they sound remotely similar as the originals.
I couldn't believe Bruce Willis or Clint Eastwood sounded so flat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkjfPjTXZRk
Not to mention Schwarzenegger. The guy who does his voice here is something like the Spanish version of James Earl Jones. It does fit The Terminator better than Arnold's natural German accented voice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6sMHS9dXkk |
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Capt. Nemo
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
630 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2009 : 05:44:41 AM
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Speak of the Devil:
[url]http://agonybooth.com/agonizer/Snakes_on_a_Plane___The_TV_Edit.aspx[/url]
________________________________________________________________________
"Ward, the Beaver blew up the 7-11 again."
"I'll have a talk with him Dear" |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 05/21/2009 : 9:02:48 PM
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Furthermore: The Point.
This was an animated film produced for ABC-TV in the 70s. I'm old enough to remember the original version, which featured the voice of Dustin Hoffman. For subsequent showings, Hoffman's voice was dubbed over, first by Ringo Starr (!) and later by Alan Thicke (!!). I haven't checked recently, but when last I did the original Hoffman version was impossible to find.
Thinking about this movie raised another point not yet covered: altered soundtracks. How many times on these boards have we grumbled over a film whose musical score was replaced at one time or another, like Tangerine Dream subbing for Jerry Goldsmith in Legend or numerous cases where individual songs were replaced because of rights issues?
A perfect example of the latter was the original VHS version of Love At First Bite where the highlight of that silly movie was Dracula dancing on the disco to the tune of "I Love The Night Life". The scene is still there in the old VHS version, but the song was replaced by instrumental Muzak. It undermines the entire scene. |
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dconner
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
104 Posts |
Posted - 06/07/2009 : 7:30:31 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhacker
Years ago, Smokey and the Bandit aired for the first time on NBC. Given the original film's salty language, as is standard practice, the dialogue was sanitized for TV, with all of the original actors redubbing their lines for the edited soundtrack.
All the actors, that is, except for star Jackie Gleason. The Great One, for whatever reason, chose not to participate, so in desperation the network employed no less than Mel Blanc to redub Gleason's lines for him. Not all his lines, mind, you, only the original lines that contained profanity. The remaining dialogue would remain voiced by Gleason as they had in the first cut of the film.
Perhaps because Blanc had previously attempted to impersonate Gleason in such long ago Looney Toons shorts as "The Honey-Mousers," the NBC censors felt confident that no one would even detect Blanc's involvement. They were wrong. Blanc was never able to duplicate Gleason's voice, and the result was surreal. Half the time, Smokey sounds like Gleason, and the other half he sounds like he's been possessed by the ghost of Yosemite Sam, or maybe Bugs Bunny with strep throat.
Since Smokey and the Bandit is no classic, this watered down version (which may or may not still be getting play on TV today, I don't know) is no big deal.
It's funny, because the edited-for-television Smokey and the Bandit was one of the first movies I recorded on our newfangled VHS video recorder way back when, and thus a cut I saw a zillion times as a kid.
It was actually a pretty smooth editing job, in my memory (I had seen the original version in the theater, so I was at least aware that changes had been made.)
Gleason's lines were pretty skillfully done, but I do remember another line that stood out for its clumsiness, from a bit player. He's a state trooper who pulls over the now-way-out-of-his-jurisdiction Gleason because his car was so beat up at that point in the movie that it had become a road hazard.
He says something like "I don't care if you're the governor of Texas, I want that piece of junk off my highway!" Only he didn't say "junk" in the original, and the substitution is really obvious. |
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dconner
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
104 Posts |
Posted - 06/07/2009 : 7:34:04 PM
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| Other movies that were dreadfully edited for television - the James Bond series on ABC. An additional factor with these movies is that when, say, Goldfinger was censored to be suitable for network television standards of 1965... ABC kept using that same cut well into the '80s. By which times the standards had loosened quite a bit, but they never took the time to re-edit. |
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