007uncut

James Bond UNCUT

James Bond Dr. No ... UNCUT

"The hunt for the Phantom"

"The hunt for the Phantom" is how I could describe my search for the lost DR. NO scenes as described here. This could also be a title for a future Bond film. dr No had its German television premiere on December 28, 1984 at 8:15 p.m. on the first of ARD and I was there LIVE at the time. Since the release of the film James Bond Chases Dr. No” (no matter in which language and in which country), I have always wondered that all commercial versions are cut to VHS, DVD and BluRay, as are all TV versions, except for a TV broadcast from my personal childhood memory. Nobody in the world has probably been able to locate these scenes so far. At least I didn't find any information about it, not in the whole internet. And that's saying something in today's world, where almost everything can be found on the Internet. My son Lukas, who had been looking for old DR. NO cassettes a year earlier, but unfortunately could only find the cut version, motivated me to go looking for the UNCUT version of DR. NO. So the assumption was obvious, also in various forums, that my assumption might just be false childhood memories. No one has been able to prove that the UNCUT version of DR. NO ever existed.

Born in 1975, I was on TV when James Bond Dr. No on December 28th, 1984 during the Christmas holidays exactly 9 years old. My father bought his first video recorder that same year. At that time it was a Grundig Video 2000 VCC with reversible cassettes and 8 hours of recording time with better quality than VHS. Unfortunately, the system still didn't catch on, because the Japanese VHS system had begun its triumphal march in the USA and everything else was gradually being pushed aside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esR8DYPyJfA

For a long time we had all the James Bond TV premieres from ARD on the old VCC tapes. Until then the system finally died out and we transferred all films from VCC to VHS. When James Bond was released on DVD for the first time in 2000 with the Special Edition in what was then the best quality, we then parted with the old VHS tapes and disposed of them, unfortunately, as I have to say "wistfully" today . Because unfortunately I noticed too late that James Bond was chasing Dr. UNCUT was never released on DVD, as 5 scenes have since been cut and are apparently lost forever. For our search we bought an old Video 2000 recorder from Grundig and a Betamax recorder from Sony, so that we are prepared for all the video formats of the time.

THE LOST DR. NO SCENES

Cut 1 (The Glove Box)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7sjChsOcm8

FCut 1 - Minute 19.56 - Bond fights with the chauffeur where the chauffeur's hand got caught in the glove box and was probably broken because Bond slammed the glove box too hard. The broken wrist was not caused by Bond's slight "hit" but by the edge of the glove box.

Cut 2 (The complete Fight)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2URX6_xcS8M

Cut 2 - Minute 20.20 – The fight with the chauffeur was much more brutal back then, with a knee in the stomach. On a newspaper picture of the fight scene (see below), Bond is not wearing his hat (he probably lost it briefly during the fight). In the film, however, Bond always wears a hat. How can that be? And please note: Bond swings his right hand back at the CUT and hits with his left hand after the cut.

Cut 3 (The 6 Dent Gunshots)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v349zlSLV8

Cut 3 - Minute 56.25 - During Bond's duel with Professor Dent, Dent was shot dead with 6 pistol shots, 5 of them in the back lying on the ground. For all other releases since then there have only been 2 shots, one of them on the ground. In this scene you can clearly see that Bond had a cigarette in his mouth when he fired the first shot. With the second shot the cigarette is stuck in the ashtray. But how and when did she get there? I guess at the time of the missing 4 shots.

Cut 4 (The Throat Cut)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDIw8idjou8

Cut 4 - Minute 1.08.38 - I was unsure about this scene for a long time. But there is much to suggest that there was also a cut here when James Bond was on the island of Dr. No kills a soldier in the water. And I think I can remember that scene too. Mainly because "Honey" is also very shocked about what Bond probably did to the soldier. If you look at the scene like this, at first glance you think that Bond is holding a knife in his left hand and is stabbing the soldier in the back. But this is wrong. Bond holds the knife in his right hand and cuts the soldier's throat in the CUT scene. How else could the soldier be dead so quickly? Choking by shutting your mouth? Fainting from fist in back? Probably not. A scene is missing here and this CUT scene is the cause of the soldier's death. The reaction of "Honey" also indicates that Bond killed the soldier much more brutally than what we see on DVD, BluRay or on TV today.

Cut 5 (The Dragon Tank)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlWRr2wcwfg

Cut 5 - Minute 1.13.39 - As far as I know, there is also a fifth CUT scene in which the fisherman "Quarrel" is "grilled" by the fire from the dragon tank. This scene is much longer in the uncut version and you can also see the cut on the DVD here if you listen and look closely.

JAMES BOND AND THE MISSING HAT

üIn this context, note the following photos from the TV magazines of the time. James Bond always wore his hat in the fight scenes. But in the TV magazines there were pictures where James Bond fought without a hat.

My son is a Bond fan like me and we've been looking for the missing scenes from Dr. No. Even in Bond forums there is only wild speculation about it, but nobody has ever seen these scenes. My son even bought old original VHS tapes from 1982 and 1984, but even then the scenes aren't on it, which is hard to imagine.

THE RUNTIME MISTAKE

Dr. No was first released on VHS in English by MGM Home Entertainment in the early 1980s. In Germany, Warner Home Video took over this from 1982, first as a rental version and then from 1984 as a purchase version. Both versions feature Dr. No, unfortunately only available in an abbreviated form. Note also a running time from a TV magazine with 110 minutes. Because actually all TV versions were always specified with 105 or 106 minutes.

Here is a picture of my son's two old original VHS tapes (left) and mine (right). The left version is PAL from 1982 with 107 minutes. The middle version is NTSC from 1985 with 111 minutes. The right version is PAL from 1985 with 107 minutes. All these versions are CUT and do not contain the missing scenes.

Here I found an old VHS list from me from 2003, just before we threw our old Video 2000 and VHS tapes in the trash, because all the films were already available in good DVD quality. After the entry of Dr. No is 1.44, which means 1 hour and 44 minutes, i.e. 104 minutes, and this version was UNCUT. If you assume that a few seconds are cut off at the beginning and end of a TV recording, then this was probably a running time of 105 minutes.

So the missing scenes can't have been very long, totaling 30-40 seconds at most, I guess. Cut 1 (glove box) about 4 seconds. Cut 2 (fight scene) approx. 20 seconds. Cut 3 (6 shots) about 4 seconds. Cut 4 (throat cut) about 4 seconds. Cut 5 (dragon tank) about 4 seconds.

DR. NO UNCUT - THE LOST SCENES

Cut 1 (The Glove Box)

Coming Soon

Cut 2 (The complete Fight)

Coming Soon

Cut 3 (The 6 Dent Gunshots)

Coming Soon

Cut 4 (The Throat Cut)

Coming Soon

Cut 5 (The Dragon Tank)

Coming Soon

Dr. No ARD Extreme CUT Version VHS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U5DT7XJHPs

Dr. No Intro (ARD 28.12.1984)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1boE3txe014

THE SEARCH AROUND THE WORLD

Even on various websites around the world there was and is wild speculation as to whether there is a James Bond DR. NO UNCUT version. Hardly anyone knows that these missing scenes ever existed. At least two English-language sites have been thinking about this for a long time. Unfortunately, no one has been able to provide proof of this so far. And the more years pass, the less likely it will be to find such lost scenes. In the end it remains a myth.

Actually, it's almost unbelievable that nobody has found these lost scenes until now. Perhaps this has all other backgrounds. Because if these CUT scenes ever existed, then the Bond makers responsible don't seem to like it at all if these scenes are still being made public today, 60 years after DR. NO's cinema debut. Maybe nobody should know about it and all references to it should be deliberately kept secret and therefore there shouldn't be any prints or copies anymore. Because the responsible film companies should be able to find the original missing scenes somewhere in the archives, if these scenes existed. Provided you don't want to keep them secret forever.

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Info-Dr-No-Rare-Uncut-Version-1st-BetaVHS-release

https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/brutal_bond_dn_shooting_dent

https://filmstories.co.uk/features/james-bond-vs-the-bbfc-censorship-certification-and-007/

https://www.the007dossier.com/2019/02/21/dr-no-rare-uncut-version-1st-beta-vhs-release-1982/

https://www.mi6community.com/discussion/3589/possible-deleted-scenes-in-dr-no

https://censorship.fandom.com/wiki/Dr._No

https://melonfarmers.co.uk/hitscr.htm

https://screenrant.com/james-bond-best-deleted-scenes-better-left-out/

ANOTHER BOND CUT SCENES

During my search for the missing Bond scenes from "Dr. No", I found further indications that other Bond films from the 1960s were also cut. I can say with certainty that there were also cuts in "Goldfinger", because I still have good memories of them. At least one of them in any case.

GOLDFINGER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNzuS1gFPM8

When it was first broadcast on ARD on March 10, 1985, in the fight scene at the beginning, the villain in the bathtub was really "grilled" by the electric shock, meaning he rolled around in the "stream water" for a long time, that's also CUT and has been lost to this day. If you pay close attention, you can see the CUT there, as well as the CUTS in Dr. No. This is not a rumor either, I can assure you of that.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

https://www.amazon.de/review/

Various cuts were also made in the Bond film "From Russia with Love", which the interested fan, if he pays attention, can also notice. For example, dialogues that were quite revealing for the time were cut out. Then scenes in the gypsy camp were cut, some sequences from the women's fight are missing, which you only notice from the interrupted music and after the attack, a torture scene was cut in which the gypsies want to get a Bulgarian to talk with a red-hot horseshoe. Important dialogues from the first encounter between Bond and the Romanova are also missing. The fact that Romanova wears fishnet stockings can no longer be seen in the scenes, which were very daring at the time.

ON HER MAJESTYS SECRET SERVICE

https://www.jamesbond.de/forum/

In the Bond film "On Her Majestys Secret Service" there is probably a cut at Moneypenny and Bond in the office. Supposedly you could briefly see Bond running his hand down Moneypenny's leg. Looking at today's versions, Monypenny's little outcry always seems too fast, as if a small cut had been made there as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn-u3q6Z09Q

SEARCH IN FORUMS AND ANNOUNCES

In order to broaden my search for the missing scenes a bit, I have also stopped my search for the UNCUT scenes in various forums in the hope that someone can remember the cuts mentioned above or other ones. Of course, the best thing would be if I could find someone through my searches who still has exactly these old versions on tape so that they can be digitized for posterity. Maybe with a bit of luck you can get hold of the old, lost Bond versions.

For my search I have now bought an old Grundig Video 2000 recorder and also a Sony Betamax so that I can also check all the media that I find. Unfortunately, I have not yet found anything in my search, although I have two Dr. No versions from the 80s got. Once on Video 2000 and once on Betamax. Unfortunately, both are the second broadcast on ARD on June 27th, 1986.

Unfortunately, I've apparently messed it up with some Video 2000 and Betamax collectors on Ebay classifieds, because I probably got on their nerves with my search. I accidentally wrote to some of them twice and they ended up crossing each other. I guess I won't get anything from them in the future, even if they did find something, I suspect. But there is hardly anyone else like me who is crazy enough to even get on people's nerves with his search. This makes the search more and more difficult. In the end, only an accidental "stroke of luck" can save me. Even on my search ad on Ebay classifieds nothing came up with rum.

I would also like to post my request on other forums, but unfortunately there are hardly any film forums anymore. The Cinefacts forum has probably been dead since 2018, I was active back then since 2007 and was able to find some rare things. And there used to be one or two more Bond forums. This would allow me to increase the reach of my request a bit. So in the end I only have to regularly search on Ebay and classifieds.

Unfortunately, many video cassettes, whether Video 2000, VHS or Betamax, from the early 1980s are only "legacy" where the heirs don't even know what's on the tapes. Cassettes were usually not labeled at all and the associated lists are often lost.

According to the wiki, 128 million rentals were recorded in video stores in Germany in 1983. If, say, every video recorder owner rented one film per week, then such a calculation would already result in almost 2.5 million recorders. According to other sources, more than 1 million devices were sold for the first time in 1982, and only 80,000 in 1978. I would guess at least 4 million for December 1984. In the early 1980s, video stores sprang up like mushrooms. So, theoretically at least, there should still be some old TV recordings somewhere, since there were already so many video recorders back then.

https://www.jamesbond.de/forum/

http://1686.homepagemodules.de/f2290190-James-Bond-Forum.html

https://bondforum.de/index.php?thread/1061-warum-gibt-es-james-bond-jagt-dr-no

https://bluray-disc.de/forum/topic/209230-warum-gibt-es-james-bond-jagt-dr-no

https://www.jamesbond.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6660

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