PART I: THE 1968 CLASSIC - N P3


Before I get into the part you really want to know. I want to share something.

As I've written before - I've seen this movie countless times. It brings me a huge smile to notice something I hadn't. And I had one of those moments watching the remastered film.



After the gang from the cellar become known to Ben (Jones) and Barbara (O'Dea); there's an introduction, Helen (Marilyn) greets a semi-catatonic Barbara.

She wants to sit down, there is room on the couch, but thinks twice about invading the young woman's space, sitting down in on a nearby chair. There was more than enough room for her on that couch as you can see above.

An act of kindness that I missed all these decades.

- - -

The work print, here we go.

After watching with it with the movie to see what differences there are (I took notes). I can't see a reason for it to be here. I'm being honest. What was the point?



Minus one quick shot - it is the same as the movie with less footage since some of the reels are missing.

Eighty-five minutes long; terrible to look at, not remastered. Too dark, too washed out and full of scratches as well as hard splices - from glue or transparent tape (to stitch scenes). Add to that, grease marks for transition shots towards the end.

I guess this can be a minor positive. Even in the remastered film; the farm house Barbara enters is dark and rightfully so, the lights are off. With the brightness all askew, you can see the rooms better as she wanders through the interior.

And I use 'better' not in a good way.

As written earlier, there is no audio in the work print. Sound was added from the finished movie, not all of it are in synch and there are places where there is no sound effects and others where there is silence.



The reconstruction is watchable/hearable.

The first missing part is no introduction to Harry (Karl) and Tom (Wayne), it jumps to Harry playing with the radio dial. The scene before is a hysterical Barbara demanding she and Ben go out to find Johnny (Streiner); "Please. Don't you hear me? We've got to go out and get him".

The second is towards the end with Sheriff McClelland (George Kosana) talking not to the news - as in 'on camera' with WIIC TV 11 news reporter, Bill Cardille (himself). The conversation about coffee and heading towards Willard is missing. It's the sheriff walking up to a sitting Vince (Survinski) to both men with the posse, hunting ghouls.

The shot.

The cast commentary from the laser disc had a comment about a lost scene.

George: And I remember the biggest, my biggest problem I had with it was that BIGGEST widest shot we had of the zombies out in the field got cut out. And instead of being, instead were putting it in somewhere else it just got cut out.
Marilyn: Lost.
George: And that's the shot I wished we had back. I can remember it being a great looking shot - was a big wide shot. We had, stood some mannequins up, out - way in the distance. And we had...
Marilyn: I remember.
George: It was our biggest zombie shot.
Karl: A great horror disservice.

Unless I'm mistaken, this is that - a day for night shot.



The work print is too messed up to tell if there were mannequins in the distance. But it is a wide shot with ghouls in the field, that's not in the finished movie. And it lasts seconds.

In the theatrical film, Ben fights Harry for locking him out of the place after the 'getting gas' plan goes wrong. Both men are tired and trying to keep away from each other. It's almost 3AM, the next news report will come on. Harry is shaken and looking out the boarded windows.

Harry exclaims, "Good Lord!" and we see the ghouls eating the remains of Tom and Judy (Ridley) from the singed pickup truck.

Here... Harry witnesses a horde of undead approaching their location.

That's it.

And that shot could've been taken out and presented separately; even have a short featurette on it. There is no good reason to have the work print here. Call it for what it is - one giant cockte@se.

- - -

The rest.

The dailies are just as named. This include various alternate takes of undead Karen (Kyra Schon) getting up from being tossed on the couch - some mundane, others sinister.

The "TV Newsreel" were cool, wish they were longer. The quality is watchable. Better than the work print by a mile.

The theatrical trailer has has some remastering, but still not great looking - too dark.

By the way, the remastered film has twenty-three chapters; twenty-four is color bars. The work print has sixteen chapters - no subtitles.



Above is a much superior pix of what was shown in the very first entry of this retrospective - that was scanned from a trading card. This has details and correct color. The cast and some of the crew.

There you go folks. Hope you enjoyed this review/listing. Some of the other online reviews left me wanting. Just skip or glaze over details that only 'Night' fans would be interested in.

- - - - - - - - - -

Tangent.

Humor me.

So I got curious about "Tomorrow". I would like to see more; could that episode in complete form be on YouTube? The answer is no. Damn it.

But in my researching on the former talk show, I came across a gem. The train wreck episode...

On October 31st, 1979 Snyder had the band KISS as guests. Ace Frehley came to the studio drunk or high - could've been both. Snyder is lovin' it; stream of conscience kind of thing. The band trying to hold/contain Frehley and failing. The capper being Gene Simmons, he did not want to be there and it shows, he's angry.



Can it be better? Yes it can, the band was in full KISS make-up and costumes (just for the interview). A magical Halloween episode for adults.

Go to YouTube, type in "KISS FULL Tom Snyder Interview Halloween 1979" in search. Or if you know how, "wOx5ybmVWRs". It's still there (as of writing), I checked. Uploaded on September 30th, 2017 by I Am A KISS Fan. Do it - believe me it's a blast; 31:35 minutes long. The quality is watchable.

That's about it folks.

When is the next entry? Good question. I mean it, good question. I still have additional stuff to cover, but I need to buy them first. The best I can give is - soon.