R.I.P. John Hurt
You were one of the only things I liked about this movie. You played a great villain.
shareSadly none of the Obits mentioned this film. Supposedly most of Hurt's performance was cut as being too dark for a Disney summer tent pole. It certainly made me more aware of that actor, and that Caligula and Kane ware one and the same.
Curious I was just thinking (why I posted here) Sir John Hurt seems to have more memorable death scenes than any other actor I can think of. In fact I can not think of any film (I am only really a fan of about half a dozen or so) where he does not have a memorable death scene. Caligula killed by the Praetorian guard (could that happen again?) Kane and Spacbaells "not again." TBC melted in a Horrific manor into the cauldron itself, Contact zipped into a body bag and Spaced (deleted scene.) During the Congressional hearing presenting the alternate facts that he faked the message from E.T.
Perhaps some day Disney will release the missing footage. When there is a profit to be made ...
I actually didn't know that they deleted some of John Hurt's scenes. I know they did get rid of some scenes for being too dark or violent. I guess they didn't want the film to get a PG-13 rating.
I've heard he's the actor with the most onscreen deaths, but I'm not really sure about that. He does indeed have a lot of memorable deaths. Alien being the most memorable, with Spaceballs a close second. Surprisingly my favorite movie of his 1984, is one he doesn't die in.
I don't know if Disney will ever release the missing footage. I'm not even sure some of it still exists by now. Plus, the film doesn't have a large enough following (it's not a very good movie).
"the film doesn't have a large enough following (it's not a very good movie)"
While I respect your opinion of the quality of this film, there is no such thing as a bad or good movie. There are a few of us who can suffer through the flaws and be entertained for a few hours. The film has flaws which some of us choose to overlook. I never could figure out why a character from sleeping beauty (Creeper) was added.
I do have a bit of an agenda. When the film was released the pre production hype was huge. The film was in development for over a decade. Many people worked on it. The studio failed and the stock went to Zero (bankrupt.) Most thought that the company would be broken up. The execs at Paramount (Who co produced Dragonslayer) where able to take the company over as a whole and re issue the stock. Licensing the Disney name from the family, who then retired to northern California.
As a film student at the time I was in the position to acquire some of the original artwork. As part of the pre publicity the cel's were sold before the film's release. I see one everyday as it hangs along with a cel from the Rescuers, which also has a few flaws given the disdain at the time for the animation department.
While the film did OK in the theaters, and had a decent run, the mouse was slow on releasing it to home video. Song of the south was (is) a bit more available as there were foreign home video version on Laser Disk and VHS. I have the Japanese NTSC laser disk of SotS.
As far as I know there has only been the one DVD release of Black Cauldron. So the real reason it does not have a large following is the lack of availability. I think the 7 year cycle coincides with Sleeping Beauty, which was considered a horrible film, for decades until the Leonard Maltin book came out. I remember being told how bad Sleeping Beauty was.
It is hard to know what is in those 10 minutes, Given Hurt's ability I and others have speculated that there may be more to his performance.
I had not realized that Hurt was also in Watership down. I seem to recall that they tried to make the rabbit character bleed. When I see the attempts in TBC to show blood on the characters, It reminded me of Watership down. There are some things hand draw animation simply can not do.
Yet it these thing are not tried, then one would never know they were difficult or impractical to do. That is why there is such a thing as is called Art.
I respect your opinion. If you enjoyed the movie, that's perfectly fine. I didn't. I found it rather generic, and I didn't care for most of the characters. Except John Hurt's great performance. If you liked it, that's fine though. I understand it has a cult following, but it's really not that well known. Whenever people talk about Disney movies, is this one that's usually brought up? Probably not. Most people I know haven't even heard of it. Also, from the sources I could find, the film was not a box office success. It didn't even make half its budget back. I don't know where you got the sources that said it did okay in theaters, but from what I could find, it was a box office flop. That's probably why it's so hard to find. I saw it on VHS years ago. And there's like maybe one DVD release of it.