1776

In rewatching 1776, which I do around Independence Day every year, I am reminded of the writer, Peter Stone’s great bit for Lewis Morris, the delegate from New York…who spends the entire play remarking, “New York abstains…courteously.”

Finally, it is the character of John Hancock who finally loses his temper and asks him about it. Portrayed by Howard Caine in the movie, Morris admits that the New York Legislature has never given him specific instructions on anything. “Have you ever been present at a meeting of the New York legislature? They speak very fast and very loud and nobody listens to anybody else with the result that nothing ever gets done.”

Nothing much has changed in New York politics since 1776…or at least when Stone wrote the play in the late 60s. Stone also wrote the screenplay for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three(the original, not the horrible John Travolta remake), which also pokes a lot of fun at New York, as well as the 1997 musical(not to be confused with the movie) Titanic.

I actually repurchased 1776 this year on Blu-Ray. The new version includes an all-new commentary, an extended version, and some deleted scenes. I found this lengthy explanation of the various cuts over the years in the Amazon commentary. To summarize:

• The movie premiered in 1972, approximately forty minutes shorter than the director’s original cut.
• “Cool Cool Considerate Men” was cut after a negative reaction from the White House regarding the scene’s anti-conservative tone, studio executives agreed to remove eight solid minutes. So great was the pressure that the original negative and all known parts of the scene were destroyed. A search began for any version of the missing footage.
• The restored film on the laserdisc was presented in the widescreen format and remixed for true stereo sound using the original multi-track units (in some cases as many as twenty-four tracks). It contained a total of 40 minutes of footage not seen since the two premiere screenings in 1972. Other highlights of the Laser Disc version were the full opening credits, newly incorporated character closeups and additional music for several songs. The running time was once again 180 minutes. The 1992 Pioneer Laser Disc Special Edition of 1776 was one of the most ambitious video restorations ever performed.
• For the 2002 DVD release, the replaced footage was been repaired, giving the DVD a much cleaner look visually than the laserdisc, but the film was been shortened to 166 minutes.
• Finally, in 2015, the director’s cut of 1776 has made its way to Blu Ray and it includes a “branching version of the movie” with both an extended and the director’s cut, which incorporate many of these missing moments mentioned from the Laser Disc,scrubbed up and restored to as pristine a quality as possible.
• The Extended cut has everything that was on the Laser Disc except: Overture and Entr’acte created for the LD; Scene of Jefferson (sitting on a window sill in Congress) watching some children playing (rather patriotically) as a young girl looks back up at him and smiles; An extended scene (just after the conclusion of Yours, Yours, Yours): Instead of the blackout (that now occurs between scenes) there was one continuous scene showing the breaking dawn as Franklin arrives, after taking a piece of fruit in the marketplace, and finds Adams asleep on the stairs below Jefferson’s room while a lamplighter blows out a nearby streetlight; The underscoring to John and Abigail’s final scene [leading into “Compliments”] — though the underscoring to Franklin’s entrance has been restored.

On a related note, anyone want the DVD copy? I can give you a good price? And I just noticed the 42nd anniversary edition of Taking of Pelham 123 is out…with interviews with surviving production individuals, and the single surviving lead actor….think I should click? The one saving grace of Blu-Rays lately vs streaming are the extras they bring to the table, especially for classics. They keep rereleasing things with more material and trying to get me to buy it. They may succeed in this case.