The Leopard (The Criterion Collection) (1963)

criterion gives a real royal treatment to this movie and it is higly earned by it...in some reviews people say that the movie is cut and italian version is better blah blah...what they dont know is this 3 disc set has all two of them...check that out yourself:

DISC ONE

*The Film Visconti's original Italian version (185:52)

Audio commentary by Peter Cowie (film scholar)

English HoH subtitles (removable)

2.21:1 Anamorphic NTSC (Super Technirama OAR)

Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono

DISC TWO

"A Dying Breed: The Making of The Leopard", a new documentary featuring interviews with Claudia Cardinale, screenwriter Suso Ceccho D'Amico, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, filmmaker Sydney Pollack, and many others (61:31)

Interview with producer Goffredo Lombardo (19:30)

Video interview with professor Millicent Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania on the history of the Risorgimento (13:36)

Promotional Materials:

Stills gallery of rare behind-the-scenes production photos

Italian newsreel footage (3:11)

Italian theatrical trailer (3:40)

American theatrical trailers (2) (3:46)

DISC THREE

*The Film alternate American release (161:23)Subtitles:NonePicture format:2.35:1 Anamorphic NTSC Soundtrack(s):English Dolby Digital 1.0 MonoCase type:Special CaseNotes:Black Triple Alpha case

Disc 1 is region-free (R0); discs 2 and 3 are encoded R1

It is incomprehensible to me why this movie has not yet made it to DVD. I think it is easily Visconti's greatest work, and one of the masterpieces of Italian film from a great era in general; and it is also a flawless adaptation of one of the finest Italian novels of the twentieth century. The film is a close study of a noble Sicilian family, and especially of its Prince (played by Burt Lancaster in what I think is also his best role), as they interact with the new middle-class parvenus of revolutionary Italy. The cinematic values of the film itself are stunning, from the vast panoramas of the desolate Sicilian countryside, to the stifling intimacy of the final ball (which lasts nearly an hour on film without once being boring). What is most amazing is the depth of the film. Even small gestures are carefully observed and capture the nuances of an aristocracy in decline. I loved "Death in Venice" as well, but this film should justly be considered Visconti's most tightly controlled and haunting.

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I waited for years to see the director's cut of this magnificent movie. In the early 80's, after Visconti's heirs regained possession of the rights to it, they ordered it to be edited according to the master's wishes. I had then the privilege of watching "Il Gattopardo" in a movie theater in all its splendor, exactly as Visconti wanted it to be. Forget the ugly and stupid English-dubbed version that was released before. The true meaning of this movie can only be completely grasped when you see the Italian-spoken version, in spite of a central character, the one played by Burt Lancaster, having to be dubbed in Italian. I hope that when this is released on DVD we get the real thing, with its full lenght and the delightful cinematography by the great Giuseppe Rotunno. Please don't be insensitive to those who love true cinema: give us the real "Il Gattopardo" in its original widescreen format, its entire lenght and the melodious sounds of the original Italian dialogue. And, last but not least, the stunning beauty of the young Claudia Cardinale...

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I saw this film twice in Spain, the first time at least fifteen years ago, in its original version and length, not, as I have read here, an American dubbed-abreviated version. I think this is the best movie by Visconti, although to be fair I have not seen all of them. It seems amazing, however, its relative obscurity, compared for example to the somewhat overhyped Death in Venice, which I consider to be much inferior to Il Gatopardo. It is also one of my favourite films of all time. Lancaster's performance is unforgetable, the ambience, the music, the story and the painful ending, all amount to a masterpiece difficult to match. The Sicilian landscape is captured in all its magic and grandiosity and dominates my memories of the film. Comparing it to Gone with the Wind is, I think, a bit frivolous, as, with due respect, the estethics of both films one Italian-European, the other American are light years apart, without at all questioning the merits of the American film. Sadly, the pervasive notoriety of GWTW is also light years apart from the obscurity of Il Gatopardo. Il Gatopardo truly deserves to be taken out from that obscurity and get a much higher recognition as an all time classic. Will that ever happen? I doubt it, but at least I join the fans of this film in begging for its integral and original release in DVD, asap please.

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The legendary 205 minute version of Luchino Visconti's "The Leopard", which won the Palme d'Or at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival, probably doesn't exist any longer. Shortly after it premiered, this epic movie was (like other roadshows of the day) trimmed by about 20 minutes. This was due in large part to the strong opposition the film received from Italy's powerful Roman Catholic Church. (Among other things, the Church perceived "The Leopard" to be anti-clerical and objected to the way it had been portrayed in the film, as well as in the 1958 novel on which the film was based.)

Chief among the cuts made to the original version of "The Leopard" was a scene removed from the "Battle of Palermo" sequence. At the very end of this section, just after Alain Delon is wounded in battle, there had been a scene inside a Catholic convent. It depicted the convent's nuns willingly aiding Garibaldi's soldiers, and tending to the injured, including Delon. (In the recut version, soldiers are seen banging on the convent door, a nun opens the door, and the men rush inside, nothing more. Guess the church didn't mind the soldiers going into the convent, but they sure didn't like whatever may have gone on in there.)

Reportedly, the church was also displeased with the hypocritical nature of Burt Lancaster's character, especially his adulterous activities. At one point, there had been an encounter between Lancaster and a prostitute in the confines of the lady's bedroom. Eventually, that rather racy scene ended up on the cutting room floor. And it wouldn't be a surprise if that was due to the church's disapproval of the lady and what went on in that bedroom. (In the edited version, the Prince arrives at the prostitute's door and she lets him in, but that's it. I guess visiting a prostitute was okay, but actually getting into bed with her was another thing. Sort of like that convent scene. But then again, maybe not.) In the end, it's more than likely that a few other swell scenes (possibly another bedroom encounter for that randy Prince) met an early end thanks to the hyper-critical (lack of) taste of some supremely snippy church censors.

Well, producer Goffredo Lombardo, already worried about making his money back on Signor Visconti's overblown production, certainly didn't need the church ordering Catholic filmgoers to stay away from any theater showing it. So, it's been said, he decided to cooperate with those pesky censors and made those (now regrettable) requested cuts. Lombardo may have gone and made a few cuts of his own, too, simply to bring down the film's rather unwieldy, often complained about, length. ("Variety" whined, "... at nearly 3 and 1/2 hours, the film is way overlong. Several sequences fail to trenchantly move forward the story.") In the end, trimming 20 minutes probably allowed a lot of theater owners to add an extra showing of the picture. And anything that could help out at the box office was okay with Signor Lombardo.

Now, the reason I say that the missing 20 minutes of "The Leopard" will probably never be found is simply because it was so often the practice of the time to make these type of cuts to a film's original negative, and eventually just toss the deleted footage away. (Back in 1963, filmmakers weren't into preserving each and every excised scene the way they are now. Nobody was even thinking about videos, much less DVDs.) Besides if the missing footage had survived, I would think it would have been found by now, wouldn't you? Especially after Criterion's painstaking DVD restoration (not painstaking enough, as they've chopped off a good portion of the lefthand side of the image in an apparent effort to create a faux Super Technirama aspect ratio). Add in the fact that Titanus, the studio that made "The Leopard", went bankrupt soon after releasing the film. And that the rights to the movie were transferred to 20th Century Fox in Hollywood. And you end up wondering just where that excised footage would be now anyway.

But still you never know. Maybe, just maybe, someday someone will find those long lost 20 minutes. Perhaps in an old original print from the film's opening run, a print that has long survived, as the Leopard yearned to, the ravages of time and decay. But until then, we won't have it so bad. We've finally got "The Leopard", at 185 grand and glorious minutes, (plus the 163 minute English-language version), on DVD at long last. Plus we've got a few nice stills of some of those deleted scenes on Criterion's supplemental section DVD. You really can't help but figure that this Leopard, as old as he may be, ain't too shabby. Just the way he is.

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