Back in 1963 I had the rare pleasure to attend a "sneak prevue" of CARPETBAGGERS at the Chicago Theatre long before its regular release. (In THOSE days a sneak REALLY was just that! No name of picture announced in advance!) This was the completed work print with splices at every scene (though fades and dissolves WERE included). Marks were at the beginning of every shot to sync sound & picture, and the sound track was run in sync from 35mm mag. Several differences occured in final release prints. The version I saw: Then George Peppard comes to the house after his dad has died and goes up to Caroll Bakers bedroom, when he walks into her dressing area, the scene cuts to Carrol sitting at a chair in front of a mirror, with nothing on. In the Release Prints, the shots holds on the master scene of the bedroom and we only hear them talk till they come back out, Carroll finishing putting on robe. Irronically, a number of film magazines of the day actually printed a shot of Carroll suggestively in the chair (though more was shown on film) in full color. When Carroll is dancing on the chandellear in Paris, there was a clear shot of her nude on top, angain not in Release Prints. I believe there was one more altered scene, but this was a LONG time ago! However, the ending that is now on DVD (and was seen a number of years ago when AMC aired it widescreen) IS the version shown at the sneak. But... it seemed SO abrupt with that "THE END" title coming up so fast and the quick fade out, that with the Release Prints the scene was frozen and a voice-over (like the one at the beginning) extended it out a bit and helped remove the abrupt ending. So what happened to that ending??? Also, while the DVD looks quite good (consistant with the IB Technicolor release prints), there are NO extras. Not even the well done teaser or regular trailers (of which the regular trailer even appeared on AMC years ago). By the way, I have always enjoyed the movie a great deal. Good Holloywood sleeze stuff wraped up in bright Technicolr packaging.
Review of The Carpetbaggers
