Satirical material deleted from official film

Having just seen this on DVD, I thought it must be the most plot hole ridden film of its kind ever made. Nothing makes sense at all. But I read in Wikipedia that Peckinpah included scenes which satirize the whole film, and these were deleted at the insistence of the producers just before it was released.

The DVD has the "alternative" version of the opening scene in which Fassett's wife is killed. While it is radically distorted (supposedly to indicate that it is based on the way Fassett is remembering it) it also dwells on her fondling herself between the legs for much longer than is shown in the official version.

I watched the DVD a second time with the commentary on, and it made no more sense, even when some things were explained. The commentators also sent up the film at times, referring to Ludlum's novel as "fifth rate". However, they did not deal with several scenes which I thought were manifestly satirical and funny.

Those scenes, (which I presume were the only ones left of the payout ones Peckinpah originally filmed) include the fact that Fassett is showing films of naked wife masturbating shortly before she is killed, and he does this again on nationwide TV. The commentators see nothing odd in this.

There is a scene where Fassett is having a "face to face" with Tanner via a lounge room TV and someone else enters. Fassett tries to switch off but the equipment malfunctions and his face continues to appear on the screen. Fassett then is forced to pretend he is a weather announcer, and must continue with a long spiel of repetitive drivel about "barometric pressure" and so on. It seems strange to me the commentators on the DVD don’t mention that this if obviously a joke. One of them says rather pretentiously that it is a reference to the malfunctioning nature of modern technology, which is ridiculous as no other technology malfunctions in the film, and there is a hell of a lot of it.
The most obvious joke is the one at the end where Tanner finds his wife and son in Tanner’s hideout, and both are tied up and gagged. The dog is next to them and it too, has a cloth gag around its muzzle. At least the commentators do acknowledge this as a “joke”.

Apparently, there is a version of the film which includes the other satirical scenes deleted from the movie. I would like to see these, but not the film again. It is bloody dreadful.


I see things that never were and say WHAT THE..!.