So what actually is a ‘restored’ movie? Well, it is simply this; an old movie restored to its original condition, with deleted scenes added, lost scenes and dialogue inserted and basically restored to its former glory. In some cases, movies are restored to more than their former glory as on many occasions, producers, sensitive to preview audiences and running times, have unscrupulously cut movies and left many a director fuming. A lot of older films, unless preserved in the studio vault have been lost and restorers have hunted down copies of those lost films and those excised scenes that have been lost over the years. Here are three classic restored films.
Lost Horizon
Directed by Frank Capra and starring Ronald Colman, Lost Horizon was shot in 1936 and seriously went over budget. Issues that contributed were scenes shot in a cold storage area, used to replicate the cold of Tibet: The cold affected the film equipment and caused delays. There was also a great deal of location shooting and scenes where Capra used multiple cameras shooting lots of film. Wikipedia reports that the first cut of the film ran for six hours! Studio Boss Harry Cohn was apparently unhappy with the film and edited it himself, producing a version that ran for 132 minutes. Further cuts were later made and as a result, Capra filed suit against Columbia pictures. The issue was later resolved in Capra’s favour. The film did not turn a profit until it was re-released in 1942. A frame by frame digital restoration of the film was made in 2013 and various missing elements of the film were returned, including an alternative ending.
Lost Horizon is one of my favourite books ever and this movie adaptation is nothing short of wonderful, in fact it is one of my favourite films of all time. The casting of the urbane Ronald Colman as diploment Robert Conway is perfect. If you see this movie on DVD make sure you take it home and settle down for a wonderful film experience.
Spartacus.
You probably thought film restoration was only about really old films from the early years of cinema but it’s about any classic film that needs work. Spartacus was made in 1960 meaning it is 56 years old this year and was restored in 1991. The movie was produced by and starred Kirk Douglas and was directed by Stanley Kubrick, whom Douglas brought in to direct after becoming disenchanted with the original director, Anthony Mann. The film is the story of a revolution, or at least a near revolution in ancient Rome. Spartacus, played by Kirk Douglas is a slave who starts off a rebellion in a gladiator camp; the rebellion gets bigger and bigger until it threatens the entire fabric of ancient Rome. Laurence Olivier played the part of the Roman general and politician Marcus Licinius Crassus who uses the rebellion to further his own dreams of dictatorship. Peter Ustinov plays the gladiator school owner and Charles Laughton plays Roman senator Gracchus. Ustinov, Olivier, and Laughton are a wonderful trio, their performances superb, so much so that other actors who share the screen with them seem to pale in comparison.
Tony Curtis plays another slave who calls out famously; ‘I am Spartacus’ towards the end of the film, heralding a chorus of similar calls.
In the restoration, 37 mins of cuts were restored to the film including a scene where Anthony Hopkins had to dub the sound for a sequence involving Laurence Olivier who had died two years previously.
Lawrence of Arabia.
Directed by David Lean from a screenplay by Robert Bolt, Lawrence of Arabia is a visually stunning film, shot in 70mm. The movie is based on the book ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ by the enigmatic T.E. Lawrence himself, and won seven academy awards including Best Director and best Picture.
Peter O’Toole stars as Lawrence although he was not the first choice for the part. Lean actually wanted Albert Finney but Finney had reservations about the film and wasn’t keen on being locked into a long term contract so he declined, despite shooting an expensive test at MGM studios in Borhamwood. It was then that Lean cast O’Toole after being impressed by his performance in ‘The Day they robbed the Bank of England’.
Director Lean wasn’t too pleased with the original script so Robert Bolt was brought in to essentially rewrite the film. A further complication was added when Bolt was arrested for his part in an anti-nuclear protest in London and so the production started without Bolt’s completed re write.
The film is famous for a number of classic shots. One is the cut from Lawrence blowing out a match to a shot of the rising sun in the desert and another is the famous long shot of Sherif Ali, played by Omar Sharif, who trots from the horizon astride his camel towards the well where Lawrence has stopped for water.
Steven Speilberg has been quoted as saying that this was the film that made him want to be a director and perhaps that is why so many of his productions have a sort of ‘David Lean’ feel about them.
The film was restored in 1989 with various cuts returned to the film. One sequence involved the late actor Jack Hawkins and Charles Gray had to dub dialogue for Hawkins’ character.
If you enjoyed this post, why not try my book, Floating In Space, a novel set in Manchester, 1977. Click the links at the top of the page for more information, or the icon below to go straight to Amazon.
Favourite movie director part 1, which you can read by 
In this technological age, one item in particular has come to the aid of the dedicated couch potato and that is the hard drive recorder. It’s a wonderful invention which enables the recording and playback of programmes at the touch of a button.
The very first book I picked up about Marilyn Monroe was the biography by Fred Laurence Guiles. ‘Norma Jean, the life of Marilyn Monroe’. It’s a particularly well researched book and for a great many people, fans and writers alike, it has become the definitive biography of Marilyn, the place you go to find out all those facts and figures about her life, especially her early life. Her death is not really discussed in the same fashion as in later books, some of which are wholly devoted to the mystery of her passing. In my edition which I bought in the seventies, Bobby Kennedy is referred to only as ‘the easterner’ and it was only in later years that Bobby Kennedy and his brother, President John Kennedy became publically identified with Marilyn.
A slim volume appeared in 1964 called ‘The Strange Death of ‘Marilyn Monroe’. It was this book that kick started rumours of strange goings on in the hours leading up to 
Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed is a book I picked up quite recently. It is written by a British author, Michelle Morgan, and is similar to Fred Guiles book of Marilyn, very well researched but focusses on various people associated with Marilyn who have not been interviewed before. After reading this and other books, I get the impression that Marilyn compartmented her life, and those that were in one compartment, were not necessarily aware of people who were in the other ones.
Talking about J Edgar Hoover, here’s another book I picked up about Marilyn. This was a remainder book and concerns the information about Marilyn in Hoover’s FBI files. Marilyn: The FBI Files by Tim Coates. It’s an interesting addition to the many books about Marilyn with pages of FBI files concerning Marilyn, many of them redacted with various names and details blanked out.
Donald Wolfe wrote another book; ‘The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe’. I’ve not read this one yet, it’s one I’m saving for my holidays.
Finally, Fragments, edited by Stanley Buchthal and Bernard Comment. When Marilyn died in 1962 she left all her possessions to her acting mentor and head of the Actors Studio in New York, Lee Strasberg. When he passed away Marilyn’s effects went to his daughter and now it seems many will be auctioned off. This book is a look at the letters and notes she made, fragments of poems and thoughts scribbled in notebooks, on hotel stationary and envelopes. Marilyn’s thoughts and written meanderings show her to be a thoughtful woman who cared about what she saw and heard. Marilyn was a great reader and left behind a large book collection, part of which is listed in this book. Click 
Time passes, as 
Classical Music and Three of my Movie Favourites
It’s always a good feeling when you watch a movie you have really enjoyed. If you are like me then you will usually take a scan through the credits and look for familiar names. Sometimes you will see one that rings a bell; Hey, that director is the same guy who directed one of your real favourites or, that screen writer is the same writer who wrote another movie you enjoyed. That’s what I call a movie connection.
Asquith was the son of the British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. He was a great friend of Terence Rattigan and they collaborated on 10 films together but it’s Rattigan I want to write about here. Who who was he? Well, he was a playwright who wrote a number of west end hits, many of which were made into films. You may recognise some from this list; The Way to the Stars, The Winslow Boy, The Browning Version, The Deep Blue Sea, The Price and the Showgirl, Separate Tables, The Sound Barrier and the Yellow Rolls Royce.
Robert Donat relished the role of Sir Robert Morton in the Winslow Boy. Morton is an MP cum barrister who takes the British Admiralty to court over the sacking of Cadet Winslow. In my favourite scene, Sir Robert Morton questions Ronnie Winslow about the incident in question, that of the theft of a postal order. The questioning goes fairly gently until Sir Robert ups the ante when Ronnie, the Winslow Boy himself, mentions talking to another boy;
Friends and Bloggers. I have recently been made the recipient of a Blogger Recognition Award. I feel very humble in accepting this and I have to thank my fellow blogger 
I really do love books, especially second hand books. I think that what is so wonderful about a second hand book is that the book has told its story before to someone else, and now if you have just bought it, its going to tell it’s story to you. I spend a lot of time browsing in book shops, both physically in actual shops or on-line in virtual book stores. The thing about on-line book stores is that you have to have a starting point, it’s no fun browsing through lists of books so I tend to browse on-line only when there is a particular book I want. In an actual book store I scan through the various sections and although I tend to linger on biographies and books about film, anything can catch my eye. A while ago I was reading a book by movie director Michael Powell called ‘A Life in Movies.’ It was a pretty thick book and took a fair old while to read and when I got the end there didn’t seem to be any indication there was another volume.
You might be thinking, looking at the picture here: Couldn’t the author have found a better picture? Looking at the picture again I suppose that particular copy is just a little tatty. That’s because it’s my travel copy. I’ve got another copy, a much nicer version that resides in my bookcase that I browse through now and again. The reason I’ve got two versions is because my travel copy goes all over the place with me. If I’m travelling somewhere on the bus or train, that slightly tatty copy goes easily into my pocket or my bag because I can read it time and time again. Not only is it the best ever book written about the golden age of Hollywood, it’s also by far the most accessible and readable book on the subject ever.
Letters from an Unknown Author! 