391 If....

[foggy eyes]

Don't bother waiting.

[tryavna]

Don't bother waiting.

Nobody who's a member of this forum should not own a copy of that excellent release!

[colinr0380]

DVD Verdict review

[Person]

I received the UK edition of If.... today. Great transfer and the same extras as the Criterion, although it lacks the trailers, but it cost me £10.99, instead of having to wait until August to pay £17.99 to CD-WOW for the Criterion. It's actually a pity that Criterion didn't locate the full 1985 interview with Lindsay Anderson that is shown in the Cast & Crew programme. Also, Mike Kaplan, who produced Anderson's, The Whales of August, made a documentary on Anderson this year, called, Never Apologize, which looks excellent, judging from those clips.

It feels very, very good to finally have this one on my shelf again after many, many years.

Death to the oppressor.

[foggy eyes]

I was hoping that someone would pick this up and report back on the transfer as soon as possible, so thanks Gordon!
For UK residents, this is a superb option (£10.99 at Amazon, Play and HMV). I'm in.

[Person]

Shag off, you creep!

[zedz]

It's actually a pity that Criterion didn't locate the full 1985 interview with Lindsay Anderson that is shown in the Cast & Crew programme.

I looked at the extras on this disc last night. Nice enough, but there was a lot more that could have been done. It would have been great to see The White Bus on here (if not here, where else?), and Anderson's auto-bio-pic Is That All There Is? would have been an ideal inclusion. Maybe they're saving that for This Sporting Life.

[Murasaki53]

If you order the R2 edition from Amazon UK they apparently include a copy of the screenplay too.

[zedz]

Although I was underwhelmed by the second disc of extras, the commentary on this is just superb, one of the best I've ever heard. McDowell is full of great stories and intelligent insights to specific scenes, and Robinson provides essential connective tissue. I only hope that whoever finally gets around to releasing O Lucky Man! gets McDowell on board for the commentary, even if they have to strap him to the chair, Alex-like.

[Steven H]

zedz, it looks like Warner Bros is putting out O Lucky Man! in October, and according to wikipedia, it will have commentary.

[zedz]

Oh, fantastic! (I turn my back for a moment and. . .) McDowell's got so much of interest to say about If. . . . that he should be even better on a project to which he was exponentially more intrinsic.

[Timec]

DVD Beaver's comparison of the R1 and R2.

Does anyone have any additional information about this:

NOTE (From Michael in email): 'Nice review for this film, but you should mention this is NOT the original version of the film. This is in fact the censored version. I was very disappointed that Criterion did not label it as such. I have seen the DVD and was disappointed that so many years after its original release Criterion has chosen to release a censored version and claims it is the original. Some of the reviews on Amazon.com provide more detail. I think the people who read your website deserve to know.'

I skimmed the Amazon reviews but I didn't see any specifics on what exactly has supposedly been censored.

[tryavna]

Considering the vagueness of that "NOTE" and the Amazon "reviews" (one of which appears to be by the same "Michael"), I'm not sure what stock to put in it. It reminds me of how those rumors of Criterion's release of Black Narcissus also being the censored version got started.

Perhaps what they're referring to is the fact that Anderson was persuaded to cut a brief shot of male nudity in order to get the X certificate in the UK. Some of this info appears under the Trivia section of IMDb's entry for if...:

In order for the full-frontal nude scene of Mrs Kemp to be passed in the UK chief censor John Trevelyan asked Lindsay Anderson to remove shots of male genitals in the shower scene. Anderson agreed to this and the film was released uncut with an X certificate.

More info here:

The X-Rating
From the official script book: According to Lindsay Anderson there are many versions of the movie floating around the world, most cut according to the dictates of that particular country's film censor boards. In the entire US, only NY had the uncut version at the time of its release while the rest of the country had the cut version. Lindsay mentioned that some scenes were done with different camera angles. Most film censor boards were offended by the showing of some of the boys' genitals in the shower scene and Mrs. Kemp's pubic hair as she wandered through the halls naked later on in the movie. Some versions have different camera angles and some have those scenes cut, either completely or severely pared down. The version of "if...." that is available in the US is 111 minutes. This is exactly the length quoted in the book. So it would be safe to say that the US version contains the "different angle" shots which were probably shown outside the NY area.

During the shower scene there was full frontal nudity of some of the boys.

During Mick's sex scene with the Girl there was full frontal nudity as well.

At any rate, whatever may indeed be missing can't be more than a few seconds of additional flesh shots (or perhaps just footage shot from a different angle). I can't imagine that it matters that much. It apparently didn't to Anderson, if he didn't mind all those "many versions" floating around.

[souvenir]

If I'm reading the Amazon reviews correctly, these people are complaining over Criterion not releasing Anderson's original cut (which is claimed to have been seen in Canada 38 years ago), but what's on DVD seems to still be the original theatrical release version in both the UK and the US.

[zedz]

Perhaps what they're referring to is the fact that Anderson was persuaded to cut a brief shot of male nudity in order to get the X certificate in the UK.

According to the commentary, or some other supplement on the disc (or else I've imagined it all), full frontal shots were cut by Anderson himself during the normal editing process, in consultation with McDowell, who felt uncomfortable about their inclusion. So there were shots, and there were cuts, but they had nothing to do with censorship (other than self-censorship). Were there other non-Malc shots that were cut for different reasons, or has an urban legend grown up around this material?

[Billy Liar]

The Finale is surrealism (as is much of the movie.) It has far more in common with Zero de Conduite than anything remotely like Elephant.

Agreed David. It is perhaps the greatest British surrealist film to grace good old celluloid. Anderson is the 2nd poet of British cinema. Malcolm is from my fair city of Leeds, so no misunderstanding of the regional accent for me.

[Pete Hoskin]

I've hovered around this forum for years now, and have gleaned a great deal from its knowledgeable and enthusiastic members (so, thank you for that), but this is my very first post. I look forward to involving myself in a more active – and less parasitic – manner from now on!

Just in response to timec above, he quotes me as mentioning an e-mail from a Michael in the DVD Beaver review of If..... As an occasional reviewer for DVD Beaver, I wrote both the film review for If.... and the comments on the Region 2 Paramount disc, but I neither received nor decided to feature the e-mail from Michael (I suspect that Gary may have done that).

I mention this as, personally, I don't place much credence in Michael's suggestion that the version of If.... included on both the Criterion and Paramount DVDs is the “censored versionâ€

[Awesome Welles]

On the issues of full frontal nudity I have read the following on IMDB. Unfortunately with no citations one never knows whether anything on IMDB is true....

In order for the full-frontal nude scene of Mrs Kemp to be passed in the UK chief censor John Trevelyan asked Lindsay Anderson to remove shots of male genitals in the shower scene. Anderson agreed to this and the film was released uncut with an X certificate.

[tryavna]

On the issues of full frontal nudity I have read the following on IMDB. Unfortunately with no citations one never knows whether anything on IMDB is true....

In order for the full-frontal nude scene of Mrs Kemp to be passed in the UK chief censor John Trevelyan asked Lindsay Anderson to remove shots of male genitals in the shower scene. Anderson agreed to this and the film was released uncut with an X certificate.

Hmmm.... I could have sworn that was already mentioned by someone....

[Blackmail Is My Life]

I am surprised Criterion let such a glaring error slip through in Ehrenstein's essay in the booklet. He refers to the "Columbine massacre of 1991."

That was a rough one, but the entire essay really labored to explain why this film was so crucial. Just finished watching it and I think that This Sporting Life accomplishes much of the same work w/o belaboring the point.

[Paul Sutton]

If memory serves, didn't Malcolm McDowell record a commentary track for if.... several years ago?

Malcolm did record a commentary for a British company called 'lipsynch' who had been licensed to release the DVD in the UK, but lipsynch misspent their production money and claimed they needed additional funds because the negative was 'too damaged' — unaware until I told them that the BBFC had recently restored it (albeit in a censored form)

According to the commentary, or some other supplement on the disc (or else I've imagined it all), full frontal shots were cut by Anderson himself during the normal editing process, in consultation with McDowell, who felt uncomfortable about their inclusion. So there were shots, and there were cuts, but they had nothing to do with censorship (other than self-censorship). Were there other non-Malc shots that were cut for different reasons, or has an urban legend grown up around this material?

No, the full-frontal male nudity was restored by Lindsay for the film's release in the UK in 1971, when it was re-classified with an 'AA' certificate. Most of the 'AA' prints in the UK are uncensored, such as the ones I saw at the Leicester Phoenix Arts in 2000 and at Queen's College, Cambridge 2002 (and they weren't the same print). The most complete version of the film - which included more nudity in the cafe scene - was the print screened by the BBC on more than one occasion in the late 70s.

[Antoine Doinel]

The year of rebellion: If... not when

[swo17]

Obligatory post to denote that this film is being upgraded to Blu-ray because I am bored

[SamLowry]

...but will the blu-ray restore edited scenes? I imagine extras will be the same.

[aox]

I want to see the film the way Criterion intended me to see it though.