During a recent radio interview, David Lynch revealed that the deleted scenes from his 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet, which for a long time were thought to be lost forever, had recently been found "somewhere up in Seattle." Lynch said that "hopefully" some of those scenes will end up in an upcoming Blu-ray (although he also noted that some of them "aren't worth putting back together"). It will also feature a brand-new 5.1 mix supervised by Lynch and his sound engineer Dean Hurley.
As explained on the Blue Velvet special edition DVD released in 2002, the original cut of the film as assembled by Lynch had a running length of around four movies. However, his contract with producer Dino De Laurentiis obligated Lynch to deliver a two-hour movie so he had to perform extensive cuts, deleting whole scenes and subplots.
During the interview, Lynch said that he had been seeking out all that deleted material, "because some of these scenes on their own would be beautiful to see again." However, he found out that De Laurentiis's company had been sold to other companies and neither the producer (who passed away in November 2010) nor anybody else knew where the unused and deleted footage was. So it is a stroke of luck that such a treasure trove has been unearthed.
At the moment, Blue Velvet is still unannounced on Blu-ray in the US; it is coming out in France on February 16.
Hopefully they will remain as deleted scenes that are viewable as a bonus. Changing the film wouldn't be a good plan even if you can say "unrated director's cut never before seen".
Now that I've started to watch Twin Peaks, I have a new appreciation for David Lynch and his immense talent. I'm really looking forward to this release and hope there is a director's cut released.
Absolutely brilliant news, can't wait for this, Lynchs' greatest film for me followed by 'Wild at Heart' (The UK BD of this is magic) and 'Mullholland Drive' (Another great UK BD)
The great news is about the sound mix. Lynch is definitely a master at creating moods and has been responsible for sound design and sound effects for almost all his films. If he takes care of a new mix, the guy knows what he's doing.
A candy-colored clown they call the sandman
Tiptoes to my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper
"Go to sleep, everything is alright"
I close my eyes
Then I drift away
Into the magic night
I softly sway
Oh smile and pray
Like dreamers do
Then I fall asleep
To dream my dreams of you
There were deleted scenes with no audio on the dvd if I'm remembering correctly. But I am assuming that these are of a completely different magnitude. Can anyone comment or compare?
@TRH: Let's hope when they do release Mulholland Dr. that they include the original pilot episode as well. I'm also hoping they put out Fire Walk With Me with ALL of the deleted scenes that are available. Lynch was going to re-edit the film with those included for the DVD release but the studio (then New Line) refused to pay him for it so he declined to do it. How about them apples?
Awesome. IMO all of Lynch's major works need to be remastered and released here in the States! Glad to hear some of the "lost" stuff has surfaced. Wonder if the quality is better than VHS? Hope so, as that was about as good as far as what was included on MGM's second dvd release, some years ago. This at least gets the ball rolling again, since DUNE was released on Blu Ray (with nothing new added from the HD Dvd release). MGM still has the rights to "Wild at Heart" and many deleted scenes were included on that expensive David Lynch LIME GREEN dvd box set (Amazon exclusive). I was happy to catch a few of those scenes on Youtube! Please tell me
your gonna remaster that next!!!!
The original cut of the flick is one of the Greatest Films of All Time, so to mess with that would be a mistake, but I am totally stoked about seeing the deleted scenes!
This is actually my favorite David Lynch film. So this is absolutely amazing news. I just wish we could start getting more of his stuff here on Blu in the U.S.
Great news for Lynch fans. While I really like Blue Velvet and will buy for sure, I'm more excited that this points to more likelihood that Mulholland Drive (my all-time favorite film) may come out on BR eventually.
Can you imagine a Criterion Blu-ray release of Blue Velvet? I know Lynch refuses to do commentaries, but he might put together something like he did for Eraserhead in the way of supplemental material. The CC needs David Lynch.
While I wouldn't want to see an extended cut (since I thought the final cut was perfect; Lynch's best film, IMO), I would love to see what was excised. I can't wait for this to be announced...
