Flying the Unfriendly Skies

Human Events ^ | 6/2/2008 | Jay D. Homnick

[cassy.kane]

Back when I was just a naïve youngster -- I say “No comment” to the rumor that I turned 50 last week -- I thought that using the world “airline” as an adnoun to create the phrase “airline movie” told you nothing about the movie itself. It appeared to be strictly a geographic designation, a movie that happened to be shown in a particular locale. We knew that erotic scenes were removed, but otherwise assumed it was the same flick. I learned just how wrong I was back in the early Nineties when I saw Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman at the theater, then got to glance at it periodically during a transatlantic flight on now-defunct TWA.

The climactic scene of the film is a great oration by Pacino delivered uninvited to a school disciplinary board that was pondering the fate of his young assistant, who faced the possible loss of his diploma over a juvenile prank he and a rich friend had pulled on the principal. The wealthy family of the other boy was going to bribe their child’s way out of trouble by giving a large donation. When I saw Pacino striding to the podium on the airplane screen, I quickly picked up my headphones to catch his classic delivery.

In that speech he uses bathos effectively, making high-minded points with lofty rhetoric, and then suddenly deriding the discrimination against the poorer boy as “a crock of s***”. When I listened again on the airplane, ready for this powerful moment, I was jolted to hear Pacino’s own voice saying it was “a crock of crap”. Apparently moviemakers were sensitive to the distinction between theatergoers by choice and air travelers, giving the latter modified doses of vulgarity.

[GadareneDemoniac]

One of the most violent and disturbing movies of its time was “Looking for Mr. Goodbar”. I saw a sanitized version which replaced the frequently-used “mother-*******” with the family-friendly term “mother-grabbers”(!) I still laugh about that, and occiasionally use “mother-grabber” in my conversation.

Sort of like when the lip-syching of a 50’s horror film doesn’t match the mouth movements of the actors.

[Don Corleone]

It was “For the Children”!

[Yo-Yo]

When I listened again on the airplane, ready for this powerful moment, I was jolted to hear Pacino’s own voice saying it was “a crock of crap”. Apparently moviemakers were sensitive to the distinction between theatergoers by choice and air travelers, giving the latter modified doses of vulgarity.

News flash to the author. Movies are almost always overdubbd by the original actors to make a "PG" version of the movie suitable for Airline and future Television use. Many blockbuster movies even go as far as to shoot two versions of certain scenes.

Case in point: I had seen the original verison of Animal House on HBO maybe a dozen times. One day I caught it on network television for it's "network premiere."

There was a scene in Animal House where Donald Sutherland, dressed only in a cartigan sweater, is in the kitchen looking for a teacup. With his back to the camera, he says "oh here it is" and reaches way up to the top cupboard shelf. When he does, his sweater rides up for a full moon.

I was curious if that scene would be shown in the cut TV version, so when the scene came I paid special attention. In the TV version, he goes into the kitchen, says all the same lines, but he never reaches up for the teacups. They're magically on the counter instead. It was a separately shot scene!