David tells us: "The film was cut in the USA when it was released as 'Only the French Can' in 1956 by about twenty minutes. That was censorship related and although I've never seen the US version (also dubbed into English apparently) I always understood the cuts were all around the affair between Francoise Arnoul and Franco Pastorini ("Paulo") and they also swept up several scenes with the young count - Giani Esposito. The final Cancan ballet is supposed to be cut, indeed you can hear three jumps/edits in the soundtrack music which the Gaumont cleans up better than any previous version, but these may have been short producer cuts pre-first release. These all occur just before and just after that incredible montage of couples facing the camera (effectively taking their bow to the audience.) But IMO anyway that's pretty minor.

Now later: I cant see any cuts in the opening 15 minutes of the Criterion with Maria Felix that Robert refers to, so I can't comment about that. I always thought the Criterion looked overly bright and thin on color but was the best we would ever get. I suspect it's probably color boosted in their telecine. The two Gaumont resto guys describe what they did in the unsubtitled extra: they found two sets of 3 strip negs (and IB positive prints for reference): one complete (they say 1h 40 minutes but it's 1h 46 minutes) held by the BFI of the full version, and the US cut version of 1h20m. They say the US elements were superior to the BFI's and they used all this footage for the core of the new transfer/encode, with the other 20 or so minutes coming from the BFI elements (in other words the material cut for the US version) You can tell these as they look somewhat grayer in base image - the first visit to the old lady with Gabin and Arnoul where they "invent" the new dance craze, then a couple more scenes with Arnoul and her lover in bed, etc. Indeed this is what those scenes (and the rest of the movie) look like on the old BFI VHS release of this from circa 1996.

Getting back to the negs, what they saw was imperfectly registered three strips in the master and telecine for the SD (including the Criterion) which made the image soft, so they digitally scanned the three strips and corrected color, frame jitter, and also general cleanup of color splodge reel markers, and debris, dust etc. Then they were then able to composite a new Technicolor style matrix negative from which they derived the far far sharper image we now see, as well as deeper, richer color through the spectrum. As Peter Henne and Monoloop would say, I honestly think it now looks even better than Technicolor, like the Red Shoes resto." (Thanks David!)

In regards to what Robert said below about the Criterion DVD - author, journalist, and DVDBeaver ListServ member Tag Gallagher remarks: "I don't think I've ever seen the scenes he's speaking of (which I don't recognize as being in the Criterion edition). I don't recall what was or wasn't in the film when I saw it in NYC in the 1970s. But ever since then it was distributed in the US in an edition maybe 10 minutes shorter than today's Criterion. Around 1990 the only prints in distribution (by the Cinémathèque française) were miserably horrible Eastmancolor prints that otherwise match the Criterion edition.

By the way, there were a lot of scenes cut from French Cancan, but prior to its release. It would be interesting to know the running time of Robert's print. Perhaps the explanation is that he has had access to a preview print?"- Thanks Tag!

I looked pretty hard to find a reason to ignore this release, but:

1) It's an important director; Jean Renoir

2) It's a Region FREE Blu-ray

3) With optional English subtitles...

Not to mention that the a/v transfer blew me away - even beyond the screen captures and I found yet another joy-filled reason to adore this new format. Big thanks to David for alerting us! STRONG purchase recommendation!

Gary W. Tooze

***

ON THE Criterion DVD: NOTE:  Robert says: "I like this movie quite a lot and have shown in classes for many years, a number of times in a spectacular 35 mm IB tech print. The Criterion color is not so hot - not faithful to the original color, being kind of one-dimensional and lacking in the original richness very noticeable in the 35 print. Clear and bright it is, but there was and should be more to it that that.

I'd be thrilled if my only problem was quibbling over the color - but the cuts are a disgrace and make the film impossible to watch as they distort the relationship of Gabin's character to that of Felix's and Felix's to her art. Somebody, somewhere must not have liked Maria Felix, as it is her (character establishing) scenes that are gone. The first is right after her cooch dance number near the start of the film where her relationship to Gabin and the industrialist guy is laid out, the second is when she has a conversation of the guy who owns the cafe they all visit after her performance and we see that she is one of the working class artist community. When the second scene disappeared as if it never existed I shut off the machine, and have never looked at anything else in the set, as the mutilation of French Can Can is so extreme. Felix plays one of the three main characters and the cuts not only ruin her role but totally distort it. If within 15 minutes two entire scenes (the two and only times to this point in the film when Felix's character has something significant to say) are cut, how many more of her moments are cut in what remains of the movie? Perhaps every time Maria Felix's character has something to say, the person who edited the print Criterion worked from also removed it?"