One of my favorite movies is 1967's The President's Analyst, starring James Coburn as Dr. Sidney Schaefer. For some reason, an important scene was cut out, and since the early '70s, it seems to have vanished. The scene goes like this:
Dr. Schaefer has just learned that he's been selected to be the President's psychoanalyst, and is thrilled at the opportunity. Since he'll be moving to Washington, he takes one last walk around his beloved New York City, to the catchy tune of Lalo Schifrin's "Look Up". Just as the song ends, he finds himself in front of an artsy movie theater playing a title that interests him, so he goes in. There's only one open seat, next to a beautiful girl, so giving that James Coburn grin, he takes it. The movie begins almost immediately, and within just a few minutes, the other moviegoers are disgusted by what they're seeing. But Dr. Schaefer and the girl are enjoying it thoroughly. By the time the movie ends, the theater is empty except for them. They introduce themselves to each other as they walk out. She's named "Nan" and is a "$90,000 a year model." The median wage in 1967 was $5200, so in today's money, she was making about a $million a year, and would be one of the highest paid models in the world, comparable to Twiggy or Jean Shrimpton. They soon are his apartment. They've already found, from their reactions to the movie, that they are both very liberal sexually and she invites him to bed.
The scene is cut from just before he sees the theater marquee, to Sidney and Nan rolling around in bed. I suppose it reflects a level of sexual liberalism that offended some people. But it was shown on prime time TV many times in the '60s and early '70s. The fact that he'd just met Nan is important to the plot later on, but as it's shown she just comes out of nowhere.
I hope there's a copy of the scene somewhere. The movie revels in the most progressive attitudes of the '60s--free love, drugs, hippie communes, abstract art, even a few hints of nudity, as well as the growing skepticism of corporate and bureaucratic power.
I recall. Nan and Dr. Schaefer meet in the theater but they are NOT sitting next to each other. When the other patrons left the theater just Nan and he were left, but she was further back in the theater. The reason for this seems to be it makes the plot more realistic but this film is a farce anyway, so why did they bother? Two of the soundtrack's songs were switched when the film was put on DVD. Tape copy and DVD have different songs but neither have the missing scene and the DVD version has no "special features" inclusion of the missing scene.
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, after the other viewers leave in disgust, Sid and Nan are accosted by the theater manager--a rotund, stereotypical gay man--who berates them for not being appropriately disgusted like the others.
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