Info: The Godfather Part III - theatrical version preservation

A lot of people don’t know that the theatrical version of The Godfather III has never seen a home video release. This version ran a total of 162 minutes and starting with the VHS release a 170 minute version adding extra footage has been the only one available. The point of this thread is to ask to see if anyone knows where to track a possibly preserved print of the movie with the original 162 minute runtime.

UPDATE: the upcoming 4K set will have the theatrical cut so this thread is cancelled

Interesting. Was the theatrical version never broadcast on TV? Or did Coppola see to it that his preferred version was always used?

JayArgonaut said:

Interesting. Was the theatrical version never broadcast on TV? Or did Coppola see to it that his preferred version was always used?

that I do not know, the best way to find out would get an early broadcast version of the movie and edit out the commercials to examine the runtime

It was shown by the BBC in December 1994, as part of their Xmas film line-up: which was how I saw it. I didn’t record the transmission and cannot remember anything that would help us to ascertain which version it was.

However, The Godfather Museum once again has the answers! 😄

http://godfathermuseum.blogspot.com/2012_05_02_archive.html

When it was released to home video, The Godfather III ran nine minutes longer than the original theatrical release. This “Final Director’s Cut” became the official version of the film, although the theatrical cut was still shown on HBO and other cable channels for several years.

If a recording of one of these airings can be tracked down, it could be used as a basis to at least gauge what would kind of editing would need to be performed to produce a replication of the theatrical cut, using the Blu-ray etc. 😉

1992 HBO Promos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwjXO0XG6aQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7eBEz-8hjI

digitalfreaknyc said:

HBO always shows the theatrical version of everything, unless noted. It definitely was the theatrical version.

if anyone actually could get me this airing that would be perfect for determining if it really was or not the theatrical version

I managed to discover earlier TV airings are based off of the theatrical version, however it still has some edits regarding violence and swearing, but that does make somewhat of a preservation easier

digitalfreaknyc said:

SpacemanDoug said:

I managed to discover earlier TV airings are based off of the theatrical version, however it still has some edits regarding violence and swearing, but that does make somewhat of a preservation easier

It’s a super easy preservation. It’s just the two scenes that were added, IIRC.

actually it was far more than that, a bunch of other shots were added and alternate takes were used, and even some bits are unique to only the theatrical version

Charles Threepio said:

It looks like the original theatrical version, though buried under fine print, is finally going to see a home video release this March.

Yep I heard about that, canceling this thread because of it