Tuesday, June 26, 2012

SATURN 3 (1980) Deleted "Blue Dreamers" Farrah Fantasy

A year or so back when Seventies icon Farrah Fawcett was our Space Babe for July, 2011, I had a number of folks questioning a publicity still that pictured her in the black leather ensemble pictured in the Saturn 3 poster above (which, by the way, appears here courtesy of Jerome Wybon's Forgotten Silver blog). As I stated at the time, the actress wore the "futuristic" sexy outfit in a fantasy sequence deleted from most (and, until now, I assumed all) versions of Stanley Donen's quirky sci-fi thriller.

Well, Space: 1970 reader Jon Goss has unearthed a video of the "blue dreamers" scene, dubbed into German. (Thanks, Jon!) So, for all you curious Star Kids, here's that "lost scene" - Farrah shows up in the space dominatrix gear at around 2:36 - accompanied by some late 70s disco music:


Now, if only someone would release a proper, anamorphic widescreen DVD of this movie. The US disc from Artisan is a crappy, 4x3 presentation, and the UK one is widescreen, but not 16x9 enhanced. Saturn 3 is not a great film, but John Barry's production design is remarkable (I still like that robot), and the effects are pretty good, and it certainly has a "name" cast. I'm betting that if Carlton (current rights holders for the ITC library, I believe) re-issued it, it would probably sell pretty well.

11 comments:

  1. It'd also be nice if they restored Elmer Bernstein's original score for the movie. Bernstein wrote one of the most beautiful melodies I've ever heard as a "love theme" for Farrah's character Alex; but most (if not all) of Bernstein's score was cut out of the finished film. Thankfully, Bernstein used the discarded theme as "Taarna's Theme" for the movie Heavy Metal

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. right on, right on! I am so pleased that I picked up the excellent CD release for this on the Itrada special collection label, despite already having a pretty good bootleg for several years. Despite this being OOP, it still can be had on the cheap for fans who may have missed it (btw-Limited CD Man is who I picked mine up from) http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B001CEZKA8/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new

      Delete
  2. CM: Thanks for this link!

    Something must be in the air, because I recently posted a "look back" at Saturn 3, a flick that time has been very kind to:
    http://lernerinternational.blogspot.com/2012/06/lie-17-space-oddity-look-at-dvd-mia.html

    Thanks again,
    Ivan

    ReplyDelete
  3. Totally agree with you about Hector... still one of the scariest robots of all time!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I would love to have a proper DVD of Saturn 3. It was a flawed film, yes, but one that had a very "science fiction" feel to it as opposed to the space opera of Star Wars.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I would buy a Saturn 3 blu-ray if made available.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hector was an interesting design, that's for sure. I think the flaw was in his movements...or lack thereof. But my favorite scene was when the brains were put in and the juices started to flow through all of the tubes. That took some work to make.

    ReplyDelete
  7. one thing I've always thought about Hector:

    I like the design, but it seems like they got to
    the shoulders and ran out of ideas for the head.

    They way he turned out is ok, but just seems a bit odd.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think that "oddness" is part of the appeal of Hector. If it had had a human-shaped head, it would have just been another "man in a suit" robot.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I thought Hector was one of the better robots in movies–if only because he was radically different from what came before.

    I would definitely purchase a re-issue of Saturn 3 because, despite its weaknesses, it indeed has brilliant production design and innovates (in a visual sense) in ways not too many films have since.

    I don't get the whole insect motif that the ships and spacesuits had, but it struck more as interesting mainly because no one else was doing it than anything else.

    It also had interesting things to say about the development of mankind in space, which is a layer to the film that the makers probably didn't exactly intend.

    I am still trying to find the soundtrack, because Elmer Bernstein (who typically worked with John Landis) is remarkable here.

    ReplyDelete
  10. One of the furnishings in their living quarters looks remarkably like the "Companion Cube" from Portal.

    ReplyDelete