Uncut scenes in Hungarian copy of "A Night at the Opera"!

Racz Tamas in Hungary has done it again! He has visited the Hungarian National Film Archive and unearthed an uncut print of A Night At the Opera! This is his own story:

"I watched the first reel of the print of the Hungarian National Film Archive, to find two additional shots, two additional sentences, and different angles of already known shots. The first thing that absolutely shocked me was that when Harpo and Chico are backstage, the music of the opera was loud, and instead of the shot of Lasparri singing in his white clothes, they showed a man singing who wasn't him, and he wore different clothes. Then Chico said to Allan Jones "Someday you're gonna be where Lasparri is", but the man who was singing wasn't Lasparri at all.

The other shock was when Kitty Carlisle was singing. It was her, but she sang a different part of the opera, and she was only shown above the waist, rather than what is in the DVD version, where she is standing, and we can see a man behind her. In the scene, when Groucho and Chico first meet, when they are standing on Lasparri, I found two additional sentences.

Chico: I'm a stranger here myself.
This line is in the DVD edition, but right after it you can see a jump cut.
Groucho: Aren't you an italian?
Chico: No, only my mama and papa is italian.
Groucho: What's his name? (referring to the tenor he wants to sign)
Chico : It's an italian name. (This was cut) I can't pronunce it.

As you can see references to Italy were indeed cut, but it still does not contain the 4 minute street singing intro that people were talking about. Unfortunately I could only watch the first reel, which ends in the middle of the contract scene. It was extremely expensive to do. It cost me two times more than to buy the DVD. I asked them about transferring this version to DVD just to preserve the film, and they told me that it would cost a lot of money, and that I have to speak to the owner of the rights of this film."

So far Racz Tamas. The existence of an uncut version of A Night at the Opera is of course big news in the Marxonian world and my opinion is that this is not just an Hungarian issue. Instead we should see an international effort to preserve this version. Also, I think the copyright-holder should be very interested in the possibility to restore this Marx Brothers classic.

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