The DVD is incomplete

Sony/Columbia released Altman's film on DVD in 2005 but due to music rights problems they had to remove almost three minutes of footage and make several soundtrack alterations. These include:

A 32-second shot of Bill scat singing while Charlie informs him that "I love to play poker with those redneck fish. Y'now, who think they're Nick the Greek. Love to get 'em steamed. Easy to beat. Suckers."

A scene showing Bill and Charlie at the racetrack that ends as Charlie says "Let's go see a man about a horse" and goes on for eight seconds longer as they walk off singing together.

Bill singing "Happy Birthday to You" to Barbara (Prentis).

As Bill enters the strip club where a poker game is taking place, a basketball-themed cartoon is playing on a television with the song, "Basketball Joe" accompanying it.

Two Phyllis Shotwell songs - "Goin' to Kansas City" and "Me and My Shadow" are played on the soundtrack during Bill and Charlie's journey to Reno and have now been replaced with an instrumental piece.

A scene where Charlie walks away from a poker table while Phyllis Shotwell singing "You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You" plays on the soundtrack. This has been replaced with her rendition of "The Lonesome Road."

A scene that showed Phyllis Shotwell behind a piano singing "Georgia On My Mind."


Thank god I still have my old VHS copy with all these scenes intact :)

It's lame that studios are so cheap as not to obtain music rights. If they get to make more money off re-releasing a film in a different format like DVD, then they should be morally bound, if not bound by law, to present the version originally released to the theaters. These alterations should be criminal, in the name of all that is holy.

They're in the movie because it was on TV. The original deal when the movie was sold to TV covered the music rights, and early vhs managed to piggyback onto that broadcast deal in the late 70s. The problem comes with DVD rights, which are a whole different game and need to be negotiated again. Often the problem comes from the original rights holder, who thinks there's big money to be made off this negotiation, demands something ridiculous like a million dollars for the music rights, and winds up screwing themselves. This happened with "The President's Analyst". When the music rights for laserdisc were renegotiated, Barry McGuire demanded such a huge sum for his music that the disc was released with new music. By the time dvd came around, McGuire realized the error of his ways, and sold the music rights for dvd at a reasonable rate.

neziah22 wrote:
"I just saw a version and with no cuts."
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Yeah? How about some more detail?