The Man Who Knew Too Much: Second Scribbling Cut

[The Scribbling Man]

Brief Synopsis:
Second Scribbling Cut revisits a previously light edit of mine and indulges in significantly heavier trims for pacing, as well as to songs and humour. The Taxidermist scene has been re-scored to aid the new tone and there is a slight shift to the order of some scenes. The result is the removal of an additional 30 minutes (39 minutes in total), without sacrificing any of the core narrative. Optional audio is included for a crisper recording of the opening and closing themes, as well as the iconic Albert Hall sequence.


Detailed cut-list:
Note that these are all made on top of a lossless copy of my original cut, so there are even more cuts than listed here.

• 0:13 - updated TSM branding
• 2:44 - Cut opening shot of bus interior. Trimmed bus exterior shot
• 3:13 - Trimmed looking at camel and Jo' reaction
• 3:34 - trimmed reaction to drink joke (Jo’s laugh is off-screen to allow for cutting Ben’s "it sure does)
• 3:36 - Trimmed Hank looking out of window
• 3:38 - Trimmed Hank walking down bus
• 3:54 - Trimmed anger over veil incident
• 4:35 - Trimmed Jo’s reaction
• 6:48 - trimmed arriving in morocco
• 7:42 - Trimmed getting in carriage
• 7:48 - Hank's comment crosses over with Jo watching Bernard
• 7:53 - Trimmed Jo watching bernard
• 8:31 - Trimmed Jo listing things Bernard now knows
• 8:55 - Conversation ends on "I have a feeling that Mr Bernard has...." and cut rest of conversation. Conversation ends on a blackout instead of a crossfade
• 8:58 - cut shot of carriage. Fade in later
• 9:21 - After "we're being watched" we have a straight cross-fade instead of another blackout
• 10:19 - Trimmed ce sera sera
• 11:12/11:39 - Trimmed Jo's conversation with Bernard
• 11:46 - Trimmed opening door
• 11:55 - Stranger at door inquires in english only, not french as well
• 12:30 - Trimmed Bernard speaking on telephone
• 13:07 - trimmed entering resteraunt
• 13:23 - Trimmed struggling to sit at morrocan resturaunt
• 13:45 - trimmed waiters arrival
• 13:48/14:06 - trimmed washing hands
• 15:47 - Trimmed conversation and food arriving
• 16:03 - trimmed bread antics
• 16:11 - trimmed meat tutorial and conversation
• 16:24 - slight change to shots during Jo speaking
• 17:04 - Ben interrupts to get up sooner
• 17:43 - Bernard doesn't speak to his companion in french, we just fade out.
• 17:52-18:03 - Further trims to moroccon festivities
• 18:49 - trimmed joking about medical expenses
• 19:51 - trimmed Drayton arriving
• 19:00 - further trims to Ben and Jo joking
• 19:29 - trimmed Hank showing sewing machines
• 19:36 - trimmed reaction to hank and market kafuffle
• 19:39 - trimmed Hank running away
• 19:49-20:14 - various trims to Bernard running from assasins. Various trims to Bernard approaching Ben
• 20:49 - we do not hear what Bernard whispers to Ben. This information is revealed later.
• 20:53- trimmed bernard whispering
• 21:14 - trimmed Ben making his way through the crowd
• 21:22 - trimmed Jo getting Ben a pen
• 21:27 - cut Drayton talking to police in french. he just translates
• 21:32 - trimmed police reaction
• 21:48 - trimmed Drayton convincing parents to let them take Hank
• 22:03 - trimmed Jo and Ben walking
• 22:28 - cut walking to police station / cut opening of conversation
• 22:36 - cut “they’re a cynical lot” and some other back and forth
• 24:02 - trimmed policeman listing connections to Bernard
• 24:11 - trimmed shot
• 24:27 - cut a chunk of buildup dialogue. We escalate to accusations quicker
• 24:31 - cut line and have policeman interupt jimmy
• 26:17/26:21/26:36 - Trimmed talking on phone
• 27:05 - cut some back and forth reassurance
• 34:15 - trimmed external shot. Hard cut instead of fade. Trimmed ben packing clothes.
• 36:30 - trimmed plane arriving
• 37:21 - cut a bunch of crowd clamouring and explanation from the staff. Fade straight to the office
• 40:24 - cut phone introductions
• 42;22 - fade out sooner
• 42:26 - trimmed entering hotel
• 44:06 - cut bickering about definition of psychosomatic
• 44:15 - trimmed Jo sitting down
• 44:20 - trimmed jimmy talking on phone. Trimmed Jo waiting to break the silence
• 44:33 - cut ALOT of chit chatter, some of it underscores jimmy on the phone, and jimmy abruptly says he has to leave
• 44:44 - trimmed jo pleading
• 45:49/46:03 - trims to Ben thinking he’s being stalked
• 46:13 - trimmed Ambrose walking away
• 46:15 - insert of Ambrose Chapel Taxidermist sign
• 46:17 - cut to Ambrose looking back over his shoulder
• 46:20 - trims to shots
• 46:25 - cut Ben walking towards building/insert extended shot of alleyway
• 46:33 - trimmed Ben walking down alleyway
• 46:37 - trimmed camera pan
• 46:45 - extended shot.
• 46:48 - cut shot of ben walking towards door
• 47:08 - cut there being two ambrose chapels. we go straight to the son
• 47:16 - trimmed Ambrose walking toward ben
• 48:53 - fixed double no no glitch
• 48:54 - 49:26 - Re-scored scene using re-arranged fragments lifted from North by Northwest (in order to acheive a different tone, less comedic). Foley. various trims to shots.
• 49:21 - cut shot of tiger
• 49:27 - cut shot of lion. cut opening chit-chatter, cut straight to query about jo’s husband
• 49:49 - trimmed silence between jo’s lines
• 49:57 - trimmed looking in phone directory
• 50:05 - trimmed guests looking puzzled
• 50:29 - cut guests speculating on what’s going on
• 50:51 - cut “she left 20 minutes ago - the phone rings as Ben is leaving. Added “yes? doctor come back it’s Jo!”
• 50:59 - cut looking back through the directory, hard cut to phone call.
• 51:03 - cut talking about chapel
• 51:16 - cut Ben asking for the address again
• 51:20 - trimmed getting out of car
• Re-arranged scenes so that first scene inside church takes place after Ben shows up, not before.
• 52:27 - cut giving details about seating arrangemnets. Cut straight to giving the musical cue
• 52:32 - cut exposition and go straight to “listen carefully”. The audience can deduce the importance of the musical cue
• 52:46 - cut over 2 minutes of dialogue. We hear the cue once, then we cut to the assassin leaving. bada-bing, bada-boom
• 52:42 - Masked Jo out of birds-eye shot of assassin leaving for continuity (she’s no longer waiting for ben)
• 52:59 - We now cut to jo and ben entering the church instead of Jo still waiting for ben. various trims.
• 53:28 - cut a bunch of dialogue between ben and jo. trimmed fake singing
• 53:33 - trimmed Mrs Drayton so she spots them quicker
• 53:41 - trimmed Ben and Jo staring at Mrs Drayton
• 53:57 - trimmed walking down aisle
• 54:10 - Mrs Drayton only nods towards jo and ben once, then walks away
• 54:12 - trimmed Mr Drayton’s puzzled look
• 54:13 - trimmed singing and congregation sitting
• 54:25 - trimmed sermon
• 55:07 - trimmed jo leaving
• 56:30 - trimmed people leaving
• 56:53 - general trims across Ben and Drayton’s conversation for a more heated pace. Less gaps between lines.
• 57:36 - trimmed start of phone convo. General trims to pace of dialogue
• 58:32 - trimmed shots
• 59:29 - trimmed searching around exterior building. Cut to door rattling from inside. Rescore tweak to allow for smoother cuts between in and outside the church
• 1:00:01 - trimmed police orders
• 1:00:04 -trimmed ben escaping from tower and people’s reactions
• 1:01:31-1:03:20 - trims to jo searching around the albert hall
• 1:03:20-1:07:54 - The whole orchestra sequence is revisited from my last cut. Previously, all I did was cut out the portion of the music that HItchcock had clearly looped. Having removed this repeated section, I then made trims that fit with the new length of the piece. This time I have made various trims and tweaks to the piece of music in order to have more control over the pace of the scene. However, there still has to be a balance between the realistic length of the piece, maintaining the general rythm of things, and allowing all the action to flow naturally. Ben does not spend much less time searching here, but there is a faster build up to his arrival and the killer making their move. There is also less faffing about with Ben and Jo. Ben arrives, briefly interacts with Jo, then immediately goes to look for the killer.
• 1:08:03 - trimmed Jo explaining things
• 1:08:12 - trimmed shot
• 1:09:17 - trimmed going to office and start of conversation
• 1:09:49 - cut draytons waiting to be seen and being shown in. Cut A LOT of the start of the conversation, repeating information we already know, or don’t need to know.
• General trims to the pace of the conversation. This scene has some of the worst acting in the film. Generally tried to make it faster paced/more heated, trimming poor delivery where possible
• 1:11:31 - trimmed draytons awkward silence. Trimmed start of convo with Buchanon
• 1:14:50 - adjusted volume, EQ and reverb on Jo’s vocals to match the distance as the shot moves outside the room
• Trimmed shots leading up to the room Hank is in
• 1:15:21 - cut one whole verse and chorus of Jo’s song
• 1:15:31 - scrubbing of score, foley, and rescoring for continuity with what part of the song Jo is on
• 1:16:32 - cut line from song so that Jo reacts quicker to the whistling
• 1:16:51 - Ben slips out the room quicker
• 1:17:00 - Cut an entire verse and chorus from Jo’s song. Ben generally makes his way out of the room quicker
• 1:18:35 - mrs drayton intervenes quicker. Pace of dialogue increases
• 1:19:31 - trimmed shot
• 1:20:09 - trimmed shot

Final timeline snapshot:

Old OP:

Reveal message

This builds on my former Scribbling Cut, which rearranged the narrative and made some relatively light pacing trims. I'm fond of where my old cut is at, but I recognise that there is a lot of room for more extreme trims without negatively impacting the narrative. This will build on that cut and will not shy away from the scissors. I'm just sort of popping back between this and other edits. I'm familiar with the matrerial here and revisiting it feels kind of zen, so it's a nice "break" from when other edits are challenging me.

I've made my way through a quarter of my original cuts so far and have shaved off a further ten minutes already (18 minutes in total from the theatrical runtime). Continuing at this rate, it could end up being a significantly shorter film.

In my old cut I rescored the opening, closing, and opera sequence with polished re-recordings of the soundtrack. That will be retained here (with original audio as a secondary option).

Title TBC. Open to better suggestions.

 

[Dwight Fry]

Title TBC. Open to better suggestions.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

"The Man Who Knew (Nowhere Near) Too Much"?

 

[The Scribbling Man]

Here's an example of a new change.

• The ladies no longer quarrel about what psychosomatic means
• Whereas originally Ben humours the guests after his first phonecall, pretends to make another phonecall, then makes an excuse and leaves; now, he only makes one call and then leaves.
• Instead of silence, the last part of ben's call is underscored with some of the guests chit chat
• A couple of minor trims to shots

 

[Dwight Fry]

Here's an example of a new change.

• The ladies no longer quarrel about what psychosomatic means
• Whereas originally Ben humours the guests after his first phonecall, pretends to make another phonecall, then makes an excuse and leaves; now, he only makes one call and then leaves.
• Instead of silence, the last part of ben's call is underscored with some of the guests chit chat
• A couple of minor trims to shots

Works fine IMO. Never had much of a problem with the pacing of this movie, but let's see how well it plays in short form. Maybe if you shorten it considerably, you could repackage it as an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour?

 

[The Scribbling Man]

Works fine IMO. Never had much of a problem with the pacing of this movie, but let's see how well it plays in short form.

I'm still very fond of my original, lighter edit but following the review I had on IFDB and upon rewatch I thought there was room for more.

Maybe if you shorten it considerably, you could repackage it as an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour?

Atm, my estimate is around an hour 20, but if it does end up closer to an hour that's not a bad idea... although, would it need to be in black and white? I would like to keep it in colour ideally.

 

[Dwight Fry]

You could very well get away with keeping it in color and just adding a tinting filter to the intro, B-movie style.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

In my first cut I did a slight re-ordering of scenes and I've done a bit more this time around to aid pacing. This clip demos a few new things:

• Ben attempts to leave once, not twice. We don't sit through the others telling Ben what we already know.
• When Ben attempts to leave the first time we hear the phone ring and an offscreen voice says "it's jo"
• We hard cut to Ben on the phone with Jo
• Minor trims to conversation/timing of dialogue
• Trims to ben leaving
• Fade to ben meeting Jo (normally we cut to joe waiting outside the church - this has been cut). The scene inside the church normally comes before ben meets jo, but has now been moved after.)
• Slight tweak to scoring to aid scene transitions. Audio rebuilt with car sfx and scrubbed jo's line of original music
• Cut Ben paying the driver
• The shot of outside the church doesn't show anyone turning up for the service (yet)
• Transition to scene inside the church (moved from earlier)

 

[The Scribbling Man]

A small detail I hadn't noticed before is Jo in the background waiting for Ben in this matte shot (upper right, left of the chimney). Because the scenes have been re-ordered slightly, I've removed her for continuity.

Original:

Edited:

 

[The Scribbling Man]

First pass has this at around 83 minutes. Still more work to be done on some scenes before I render out a draft.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

This conversation has been trimmed down with a couple of cheeky edits. Just wanting to check it flows ok:

Also, I've decided to call the edit "Second Scribbling Cut" as it's a sort of second option to my original "Scribbling Cut". I don't think trims will get this down to an hour for a Hitchock presents style edit either. I think it's likely to come in just under or around the 80 minute mark.

 

[Editzilla]

Atm, my estimate is around an hour 20, but if it does end up closer to an hour that's not a bad idea... although, would it need to be in black and white? I would like to keep it in colour ideally.

Could use the colorized openers and closers from the 1985 revival show:

OK, not the best quality here but it's only an example.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

Could use the colorized openers and closers from the 1985 revival show:

OK, not the best quality here but it's only an example.

Thanks for sharing. If I was doing a Hitchcock Hour edit then this would be great. I'm at proofing stage now though and, even if more changes are needed after I watch this draft through, I don't think 20 minutes are going to be cut away. That still might come in useful for future though... this won't be the last Hitchcock edit I do...

 

[The Scribbling Man]

I previewed my first draft at the weekend and was largely pleased with it. Screened it for a friend who's never seen the theatrical cut and they thought it flowed well and was easy to follow. One audio cut jumped out at me and there's a flash frame that needs fixing, but once that and subtitles are sorted, we will be good to go.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

Can't believe it's taken over half a year for me to look back at this when so little needs doing... Bugs fixed. Rendering out the next and hopefully final draft now. Then subtitles.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Title TBC. Open to better suggestions.

Okay, so you score it with tracks like Also Sprach Zarathustra and sprinkle throughout voiceover of Werner Herzog musing on the futility of life and the Kafka-esque nature of our existence. Call it "Man's Struggle to Truly Know Anything". (To be read in Herzog's voice.)

 

[mnkykungfu]

Also, I'm digging a lot of your ideas here. 2 questions:
Have you tightened up the ending at the opera at all? Less repetitions of running up to closed doors?
Have you done anything to the taxidermy "fight" scene? Hitchcock's goofy humor never does much for me, and rather than being funny, the image of trout versus antlers always just rather undercut the drama of the man's child being at risk....

 

[The Scribbling Man]

Also, I'm digging a lot of your ideas here. 2 questions:
Have you tightened up the ending at the opera at all? Less repetitions of running up to closed doors?
Have you done anything to the taxidermy "fight" scene? Hitchcock's goofy humor never does much for me, and rather than being funny, the image of trout versus antlers always just rather undercut the drama of the man's child being at risk....

There is a lot changed from the last cut. 30 minutes difference (40, if you compare with the theatrical cut). And the orchestra scene has been trimmed further (though I don't know if it will be to the extent that you'd like). I think there are changes to the taxidermy scene, but the moment you're talking about possibly not. I actually agree with you about the humour for that scene but I'm not sure there's much more to be done without making it very abrupt.

 

[mnkykungfu]

^Yeah, I don't know what to do either... maybe rescore with more serious music, then zoom and crop some shots? The actors are playing it serious, it's just Hitch's insistence on pulling back and showing all the "weapons" that's supposed to make it funny....

 

[The Scribbling Man]

Regardless, i did have your review in mind when I made this cut. A bunch of faffing around at the dinner scene is gone, for example (something I quite enjoy, but don't mind sacrificing as a quicker-paced alternative).