Luke
stu-kicks
CibbuanoFilms you probably won't be seeing anytime soon.
October 1st 2006 11:04
The following eight films are all real movies that have been made only to become subsequently unavailable. Three of them are films that have never been released, the others are notable films that have been buried after their initial releases. Obviously, I haven’t seen any of these. I’m not sure how many of them I would’ve seen either, had they been made available to me. Just the fact that they’re unavailable makes them more interesting I think. Anyways…
“The Day the Clown Cried” (1972)
Directed by, and starring, Jerry Lewis.
Jerry Lewis made a movie about the Holocaust. It was a comedy. It has never seen release. The details are a little hazy due to the film’s unattainable nature, but it apparently concerns a German clown who is press-ganged by the Nazis and made to march children into gas chambers. Sounds hilarious. The film remains in a rough cut and tied up in so much legal litigation (Lewis apparently didn’t have the rights to the novel that the film is directly based on) that it will probably never see the light of day. Those who have seen it are often quick to point out that it isn’t actually a very good film. Jerry Lewis seems to prefer it to remain unreleased as well.
“The Local Stigmatic” (1989)
Directed by, and starring, Al Pacino.
Al Pacino would gain his dues as a director for his star-studded dissection of Shakespeare in ‘Looking for Richard’ (1996), but his first attempt at directing was this 56 minute film, made seven years earlier. Pacino had just returned from a five year-break from acting (his last film – ‘Revolution’ - had bombed both critically and commercially) and was looking for new ways to interest himself in film. ‘The Local Stigmatic’ started it’s life as a play, in which Pacino had starred in 1969. It has only been screened once, at the American Museum of Modern Art in 1991 as a ‘work in progress’, and remains unreleased because it has never been properly finished (I can only assume Pacino lost interest in it when he started work on ‘Looking for Richard). The play concerns a callous racing track bookie (Pacino) who – for no good reason - organizes for some old actor to be beaten up, or something along those lines. Sounds a bit loose to me but it probably makes more sense if you see the actual play rather than hear about it. Then again, it might not, it is a play after all.
“An Enemy of the People” (1978)
Directed by George Schaefer, starring Steve McQueen and Charles Durning.
This is the third last film made by the incomparable Steve McQueen. He had gone into a kind of retirement from films after ‘The Towering Inferno’ (1974) despite being contractually obliged to make one more film. He spent the four years between these films hooning about (as McQueen did), getting fat and growing an unruly beard and so, as a kind of ‘fuck you’ to the studios when they began to bleat for their remaining unmade ‘Steve McQueen’ blockbuster, he opted to adapt this play by the classic Scandinavian playwright Henrik Ibsen. He appeared unlike he had ever appeared in another film… overweight, long-haired and with a massive beard, playing a middle-aged small-town doctor. Suffice to say, the moneymakers weren’t impressed, and despite the majority of it’s precious few reviews being good, the film wasn’t given a proper release theatrically and has never been released on video or DVD.
“Kaleidoscope” (1968)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
This was an unfinished film by Hitchcock that would’ve seen a rather major change in the director’s style. The entire thing was to have been shot from the point-of-view of the main character, a young and handsome gay man who rapes and murders his way about town. Hitchcock planned to re-create several infamous murders involving acid-baths and necrophilia. What would’ve most separated this film from Hitchcock’s other movies would’ve been the use hand-held cameras and natural lighting and all the other things that ushered in the golden age of 70s American/English cinema. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. The studios who funded the director’s films refused to cough up any money, deeming the film as being possibly too offensive and ugly. As it stands, there is around 50 minutes of silent extant footage that Hitchcock had filmed before abandoning the project. The finished film would have featured lots of sex and violence. Hitchcock went on to make two more fairly average films that are said to be poor imitations of his earlier classics.
“The Other Side of the Wind” (1970-1976)
Directed by Orson Welles, starring John Huston
Orson Welles spent his lifetime working on bits and pieces of films that never saw completion, among them a thirty-year long production of ‘Don Quixote’. ‘The Other Side of the Wind’ was an Iranian-backed film about an ageing director (played by Oscar-winning director John Huston) who was having trouble making a film (Welles gets semi-autobiographical). Allegedly, the film was very experimental, mixing various grades and stocks of film (think Oliver Stone ala ‘Natural Born Killers’ and ‘Nixon’), and although filming had completed before Welles’ death in the mid-80s, it has yet to be completed in post-production and hence, has never been released to the public as a result. Welles’ biographer and one-time roommate Peter Bogdanovich (himself a once-celebrated director who also fell from grace) also appears in the film and has stated recently that he has been working on ‘The Other Side of the Wind’ and plans to have it released eventually. There are apparently rights-issues with the family of the Iranian backers of the film though, so no one has been holding their breath.
“The Fantastic Four” (1994)
Produced by Roger Corman
This original film about the Fantastic Four is now infamous in some circles… some say it is unbelievably bad and cheaply made, others claim it to be a ‘cult’ classic. Either way, it remains (not counting bootlegs circulated by comic book fans) unreleased and will probably never see release. It’s rumoured that the film was made only to prevent the loss of filming rights so that the production company could hold onto them until they were ready to film it properly. One of the producers bought the entire finished film for a million dollars just so b-grade king Roger Corman wouldn’t release it. Allegedly the film itself was only made for $750 thousand. Apparently Mr. Fantastic’s amazing rubber arms are represented in some scenes by painted wooden polls mocked up to look like extended arms. I’d really like to see this.
“Song of the South” (1946)
Produced by Disney, and starring Hattie McDaniel.
Okay, you know how I said I hadn’t seen any of these films? Well, that was a lie, I have seen this one. A couple on times, on TV, when I was a kid. But you won’t see it anytime soon. The arrival of rampant PC-mania in the 90s saw to it that this Disney film about the American south in post-civil war 19th century never got seen again. Apparently you get it from various bootleg sources but Disney themselves are too afraid to give it a proper release. Some of you might remember this film, it’s quite famous and isn’t actually all that un-PC. It concerns an old black man, Uncle Remus, telling slave folktales about B’rer Rabbit to a young white boy to help him get past some tough times in his family. It featured a now-famous song “Zippa-dee Doo-Dah”, was a mix of animation and live-action, and is actually quite anti-racist for the context of the time it was made. This is probably one of the more likely films in this list to get a release sometime soon, hopefully people will calm the fuck down a bit and Disney will grow some balls.
“The Brave” (1997)
Directed by, and starring Johnny Depp, and featuring Marlon Brando.
This is the only film ever directed by Johnny Depp and apparently it got so savaged by the critics upon it’s debut at the Cannes Film Festival that Depp became too upset to release it. It is yet to see any kind of release in America or Australia, but can be gotten from some European distributors. It’s said to be a fairly slow and ultra-serious film, and concerns a poverty-stricken Native American (Depp) whose family finds themselves out of a home after their reservation is bulldozed or something. Anyway, this guy decides to go and sell himself to be used as a victim in a snuff film so that his family can use the money to survive. Brando plays the snuff film director and has one scene where he just rambles on for about 7 minutes and death and whatever other nonsense he probably felt like talking about. Anyway, it sounds interesting but probably isn’t that good.
Pimpaledicwonderland
Click here!
This dude has a website devoted entirely to ‘lost’ films from the 70s… includes unfinished films (there’s some intriguing stuff about a European adaptation of the book ‘Dune’ that was to have starred Orson Welles, David Carradine and Salvador Dali), weird rumoured porn films (eg. “Him”, a film about the homosexual escapades of Jesus Christ) and films that were buried before they could be released (“The Dream of Hamish More” – a surreal western starring O.J. Simpson and black people playing Native Americans). Lots of other bizarre exploitation stuff too. Worth checking out.
Directed by, and starring, Jerry Lewis.
Jerry Lewis made a movie about the Holocaust. It was a comedy. It has never seen release. The details are a little hazy due to the film’s unattainable nature, but it apparently concerns a German clown who is press-ganged by the Nazis and made to march children into gas chambers. Sounds hilarious. The film remains in a rough cut and tied up in so much legal litigation (Lewis apparently didn’t have the rights to the novel that the film is directly based on) that it will probably never see the light of day. Those who have seen it are often quick to point out that it isn’t actually a very good film. Jerry Lewis seems to prefer it to remain unreleased as well.
“The Local Stigmatic” (1989)
Directed by, and starring, Al Pacino.
Al Pacino would gain his dues as a director for his star-studded dissection of Shakespeare in ‘Looking for Richard’ (1996), but his first attempt at directing was this 56 minute film, made seven years earlier. Pacino had just returned from a five year-break from acting (his last film – ‘Revolution’ - had bombed both critically and commercially) and was looking for new ways to interest himself in film. ‘The Local Stigmatic’ started it’s life as a play, in which Pacino had starred in 1969. It has only been screened once, at the American Museum of Modern Art in 1991 as a ‘work in progress’, and remains unreleased because it has never been properly finished (I can only assume Pacino lost interest in it when he started work on ‘Looking for Richard). The play concerns a callous racing track bookie (Pacino) who – for no good reason - organizes for some old actor to be beaten up, or something along those lines. Sounds a bit loose to me but it probably makes more sense if you see the actual play rather than hear about it. Then again, it might not, it is a play after all.
Steve McQueen in the notoriously unseen 'Enemy of the People'.
Directed by George Schaefer, starring Steve McQueen and Charles Durning.
This is the third last film made by the incomparable Steve McQueen. He had gone into a kind of retirement from films after ‘The Towering Inferno’ (1974) despite being contractually obliged to make one more film. He spent the four years between these films hooning about (as McQueen did), getting fat and growing an unruly beard and so, as a kind of ‘fuck you’ to the studios when they began to bleat for their remaining unmade ‘Steve McQueen’ blockbuster, he opted to adapt this play by the classic Scandinavian playwright Henrik Ibsen. He appeared unlike he had ever appeared in another film… overweight, long-haired and with a massive beard, playing a middle-aged small-town doctor. Suffice to say, the moneymakers weren’t impressed, and despite the majority of it’s precious few reviews being good, the film wasn’t given a proper release theatrically and has never been released on video or DVD.
“Kaleidoscope” (1968)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
This was an unfinished film by Hitchcock that would’ve seen a rather major change in the director’s style. The entire thing was to have been shot from the point-of-view of the main character, a young and handsome gay man who rapes and murders his way about town. Hitchcock planned to re-create several infamous murders involving acid-baths and necrophilia. What would’ve most separated this film from Hitchcock’s other movies would’ve been the use hand-held cameras and natural lighting and all the other things that ushered in the golden age of 70s American/English cinema. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. The studios who funded the director’s films refused to cough up any money, deeming the film as being possibly too offensive and ugly. As it stands, there is around 50 minutes of silent extant footage that Hitchcock had filmed before abandoning the project. The finished film would have featured lots of sex and violence. Hitchcock went on to make two more fairly average films that are said to be poor imitations of his earlier classics.
Huston, Welles and Peter Bogdanovich
“The Other Side of the Wind” (1970-1976)
Directed by Orson Welles, starring John Huston
Orson Welles spent his lifetime working on bits and pieces of films that never saw completion, among them a thirty-year long production of ‘Don Quixote’. ‘The Other Side of the Wind’ was an Iranian-backed film about an ageing director (played by Oscar-winning director John Huston) who was having trouble making a film (Welles gets semi-autobiographical). Allegedly, the film was very experimental, mixing various grades and stocks of film (think Oliver Stone ala ‘Natural Born Killers’ and ‘Nixon’), and although filming had completed before Welles’ death in the mid-80s, it has yet to be completed in post-production and hence, has never been released to the public as a result. Welles’ biographer and one-time roommate Peter Bogdanovich (himself a once-celebrated director who also fell from grace) also appears in the film and has stated recently that he has been working on ‘The Other Side of the Wind’ and plans to have it released eventually. There are apparently rights-issues with the family of the Iranian backers of the film though, so no one has been holding their breath.
“The Fantastic Four” (1994)
Produced by Roger Corman
This original film about the Fantastic Four is now infamous in some circles… some say it is unbelievably bad and cheaply made, others claim it to be a ‘cult’ classic. Either way, it remains (not counting bootlegs circulated by comic book fans) unreleased and will probably never see release. It’s rumoured that the film was made only to prevent the loss of filming rights so that the production company could hold onto them until they were ready to film it properly. One of the producers bought the entire finished film for a million dollars just so b-grade king Roger Corman wouldn’t release it. Allegedly the film itself was only made for $750 thousand. Apparently Mr. Fantastic’s amazing rubber arms are represented in some scenes by painted wooden polls mocked up to look like extended arms. I’d really like to see this.
Produced by Disney, and starring Hattie McDaniel.
Okay, you know how I said I hadn’t seen any of these films? Well, that was a lie, I have seen this one. A couple on times, on TV, when I was a kid. But you won’t see it anytime soon. The arrival of rampant PC-mania in the 90s saw to it that this Disney film about the American south in post-civil war 19th century never got seen again. Apparently you get it from various bootleg sources but Disney themselves are too afraid to give it a proper release. Some of you might remember this film, it’s quite famous and isn’t actually all that un-PC. It concerns an old black man, Uncle Remus, telling slave folktales about B’rer Rabbit to a young white boy to help him get past some tough times in his family. It featured a now-famous song “Zippa-dee Doo-Dah”, was a mix of animation and live-action, and is actually quite anti-racist for the context of the time it was made. This is probably one of the more likely films in this list to get a release sometime soon, hopefully people will calm the fuck down a bit and Disney will grow some balls.
Directed by, and starring Johnny Depp, and featuring Marlon Brando.
This is the only film ever directed by Johnny Depp and apparently it got so savaged by the critics upon it’s debut at the Cannes Film Festival that Depp became too upset to release it. It is yet to see any kind of release in America or Australia, but can be gotten from some European distributors. It’s said to be a fairly slow and ultra-serious film, and concerns a poverty-stricken Native American (Depp) whose family finds themselves out of a home after their reservation is bulldozed or something. Anyway, this guy decides to go and sell himself to be used as a victim in a snuff film so that his family can use the money to survive. Brando plays the snuff film director and has one scene where he just rambles on for about 7 minutes and death and whatever other nonsense he probably felt like talking about. Anyway, it sounds interesting but probably isn’t that good.
Pimpaledicwonderland
Click here!
This dude has a website devoted entirely to ‘lost’ films from the 70s… includes unfinished films (there’s some intriguing stuff about a European adaptation of the book ‘Dune’ that was to have starred Orson Welles, David Carradine and Salvador Dali), weird rumoured porn films (eg. “Him”, a film about the homosexual escapades of Jesus Christ) and films that were buried before they could be released (“The Dream of Hamish More” – a surreal western starring O.J. Simpson and black people playing Native Americans). Lots of other bizarre exploitation stuff too. Worth checking out.
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Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
I've seen the Song of the South, too... it didn't seem racist when I was a kid...
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
The Brave is a great film, really touched me. You can get it on VHS from the UK and US
Song Of The South I havent seen for years, since the Sunday Disney show. remember liking it as a kid.
Being a McQueen Nut I have a copy of Enemy Of The People off Foxtel. It is actually a really interesting film form the man and has one of my favourite quotes of all time "The Majority is always wrong"
They actually edited together 15 minutes of the footage for Hitchcocks Kalidescope on a special two hour doco on the man- cant remember the name but it played on cables teh biography channel 2 years ago.
Comment by Luke
Old Movies
Cane Toad Warrior
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
The scary thing is no matter how many films I see their are still so many more that have my curiousity.
Comment by Luke
Old Movies
Cane Toad Warrior
Comment by Some Anonymous Black Chic
Comment by Anonymous