Just Watched “1776” on Turner Movie Classics

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

Part of my annual July 4th tradition. Random thoughts:

I watched the film in the company of my John Adams bear, purchased at the Bear auction held annually by Broadwaycares.org, and signed by William Daniels.

I’ve been in several different community theater productions. During one, I played Richard Henry Lee, which is the best role in musical theater. You appear in the opening number. You come out in scene 2, sing the best song in the show. You get to skip some of the endless scene 3, and when you do show up, you declare that America is, and of a right ought to be, free and independent. Then you go off to be governor of Virginia and relax until curtain call. During one lengthy run I wrote an entire Trek novel in the dressing room.

In another production, I played Colonel McKean (which is pronounced McCain, and not Mc-KEE-uhn as in the film). I got to tote around a musket. We did a number of daytime performances for local schools, and when we did the after curtain Q&A, the question I always got was, Was the musket real? The first few times I answered honestly and said no, it was just a prop. The kids invariably looked utterly disappointed. So I started telling them it was, and gave entire details as to revolutionary war battles it had been used in. The information as to the battles was utterly accurate, and I had their rapt attention in a way that I wouldn’t have had if I’d been truthful, so it was a worthwhile tradeoff, I thought.

When the film was about to be released, Jack L. Warner screened it for President Richard Nixon. Nixon objected to the song “Cool Considerate Men” because he felt it made conservatives look bad. So Warner cut it, along with a number of other things that Nixon objected to. The TMC version incorporates the previously cut footage. However only the laserdisc version has EVERYTHING, including not only the Nixon-mandated cuts, but Richard Henry Lee’s reprise of “The Lees of Virginia,” the full version of “Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve,” the full debates over American independence and later the Declaration. I really wish they’d put that version out on DVD or Blu-Ray.

PAD

36 comments on “Just Watched “1776” on Turner Movie Classics”

  1. Haven’t seen the film in ages, but still fondly recall the 90s revival with Brent Spiner and Pat Hingle.

    I also still love the line about Albany dysfunction. It was useful the week everyone up there was dragging their feet on, well, everything.

  2. Ah, my favorite musical.
    My older brother played Ben Franklin in a High School production back in 1975, so the whole family learned the score. Then, in ’82, I was cast in a summerstock production as…Ben Franklin. We still quote lines from it to eachother. And I heartily concur. I would LOVE the complete version on DVD. And, because I rarely get to name drop, in that same production in ’82, Robert Sean Leonard, Dr. James Wilson on HOUSE, played the Leather Apron.

  4. I keep thinking Brent Spiner has to play a heart surgeon.

    Both he and William Daniels have played John Adams and artificial intelligences.

    Spiner has to play a heart surgeon to catch up.

  5. I’m playing in the pit later this week for a local theater production of 1776, second time for this show. Yup, nothing like that endless scene 3, especially for the pit because they have nothing to do for an hour – although I do have to pay attention for the “Commander in Chief – drum roll here – George Washington” line.

  6. Just watched the Director’s Cut on DVD myself. It’s an annual ritual.

    “The Lee’s of Old Virginia” is great song. But the best in the show? I don’t know about that. I’m going with “But Mr. Adams”. The combination of the song, choreography on the staircase and the fact that in harmony I’m told we “may see murder, yet” gets me every time.

    Does anyone else watching the movie ever notice that an unusually large number of the members of Congress also actors who appeared on Hogans Heroes?

    Brad

    “He’s obnoxious and disliked, did you know that?”

  7. Am delighted! One of my favorite musicals and didn’t know about cuts. However, I cannot figure out what extra scenes are there and can’t locate anything by googling except the added song. Does anyone know?

    1. Mostly it’s expansions and add-ons to scenes already extant.
      .
      For starters, there’s the overture. In the original release, it wasn’t there. The film starts with Adams in the bell tower, and then the opening credits played over Adams barreling down the stairs.
      .
      Also in the original release, Richard Henry Lee returns from Virginia and comes riding up to the curbside. The men of the Congress are assembled on the sidewalk to see what news he’s bringing. When you think about it, that makes little sense. Upon hearing his war whoop, they’d have basically said, “Oh. Lee’s back,” and stayed inside the hall; they would have had no impetus to run outside. In the extended version, we now see why they were outside: McNair shouted that the fire wagon was barreling down the street and, just as people do now when there’s an emergency, they piled out into the street to see what was up. And as they stood around speculating, Lee chose that moment to come riding up. They weren’t actually outside in response to Lee as the original version depicted; they were already outside when he got there.
      .
      Basically, from my understanding, Nixon had two complaints: He didn’t like “Cool”and he also thought the film was too long. So Warner eliminated the song plus a full half hour of footage.
      .
      PAD

      1. Mr. David,
        I bought a new DVD of the movie about 4 years ago and it has these scenes in it. You may want to take a look at the newer versions of the DVD release.

        My 4th of July tradition is also to watch the movie…actually thinking about it, it may have been your love of the show that inspired me to do so.

        yea yea I know…I am a kiss-ášš. 🙂

  8. That movie got me obsessed with 18th Century American history for like a month. I don’t think it’s a great musical (I honestly don’t remember any of the songs, and, as has been pointed out, it kind of forgets it’s a musical for long stretches), but it is a fascinating docudrama and an extraordinarily entertaining film.

  9. I haven’t seen any version of 1776, sadly. But I would’ve thought that deleting any scenes because a president objected to them would go against everything the story stood for.

    1. Sounds pretty paranoid of Warner, worrying about pìššìņg øff Nixon. It’s not like a president would maintain some sort of Enemies List or…
      .
      Oh. Wait.
      .
      PAD

  10. What’s really nice about the movie version is that unlike most Hollywood transfers of Broadway musicals, a lot of the original cast is in the movie.

    The wonderful howard da Silva was unable to record the OC album but we see and hear what a great Franklin he must have been on the stage.

    Blythe Danner, a wonderful actress but who really cannot sing well, unfortunately replaced the wonderful Betty Buckley.

    But we kept William Daniels, Ron Holgate and Ken Howard.

    It’s a great musical.

    It was also fun to see Brent Spiner in the revival several years ago.

    A good July 4 tradition to have.

  11. I did not know that about Nixon. Was the scene where John Quincy Adams ends slavery also cut?

    1. I got that when it came out years ago and was royally pìššëd øff to discover that, although it did have things restored (such as “Cool”), it was still missing a ton of stuff that was on the laserdisk. Basically that DVD is what Turner showed yesterday. But Lee’s reprise, the extended “Piddle, Twiddle,” and other moments that were part of the laser release are still MIA.
      .
      PAD

      1. Ah. Bummer. It was the most complete version, I’d ever seen.

        oh well.

  13. Always love re-watching this film. In an odd way, because of this film I became a “fan” of John Adams. Would go on to read as much about him (which includes the excellent McCullough book) and I ordered HB a few years ago specifically to watch the Adams mini-series.

    And speaking of things MIA on DVD, when are we ever going to get the complete “St. Elsewhere” set? There are so many excellent episodes from that series I think one of my favorites featured Dr. Craig and his wife visiting Philadelphia (where they had met years earlier in college) and the many in-joke “1776” lines that were spoken by Daniels were priceless!

    1. I remember that. Craig tells his wife that when he studied medicine there, he was “obnoxious and disliked.” And I thought, “Oh, you’re KIDDING. He didn’t just…?” And then he sang, “And it’s hot as hëll in Philadelphia,” and I fell over, I was laughing so hard.
      .
      PAD

    2. MTM Productions has been VERY weird about what they bring to DVD. It took them ages to release the complete Mary Tyler Moore Show.

  14. *Looks at entry and shrugs* Don’t look at me, I’m Dutch. So I’m just going to say that…Americans are weird. Of course, Dutch people are equally as nuts – if not more weird, toilets with shelf in them, what that all about ? – so I have nothing to comment about.

    Well, other then that my parents got married on 4 July, a long time ago.

  17. I wonder if Sarah Palin is hoping the fully restored version includes the scene where Paul Revere warns the British.

  20. Watching 1776 is a tradition around our house as well. We watch the TCM version, but it is from several years ago when we DVR’d it. I wonder is they ever change the commentary???

    It would be interesting to see that laserdisk version, though…

  21. I’ve had the full DVD version for over a year now I don’t see the problem you people are talking about.
    Now my VHS copy on the other hand has a lot of cuts and you know you can see certain ones as some scenes just don’t fit right.
    Who the hëll did Tricky Ðìçk think he was?
    “Nixon objected to the song “Cool Considerate Men” because he felt it made conservatives look bad” Well gee wiz you don’t need CCM for that.
    I saw the Broadway production back in 1970. With
    William, Howard, Virgina (voice of an angel, we lost her too soon, never had a hit after 1776) and much of the first cast were there, sadly missing were Ken Howard, Betty, John Cullum.

    Of all musicals I love this one the best I don’t care what anyone else saids

  22. And I still maintain that if a Turner station can broadcast “A Christmas Story” for 24 hours at Christmas time, one of them can broadcast “1776” on July 4th. IMO, it’s a far better movie and a far better message than “You’ll shoot your eye out…”

  24. The HBO “John Adams” mini-series includes a scene where John and Abigail are nervously awaiting what I’ll just call “some news” to avoid spoilers.

    Abby is seated, John is pacing. Abby finally says, “oh, for God’s sake, John, sit down.” If that’s not a reference to the musical, I’ll eat my tri-cornered hat.

  25. Alright so this is just a bit of a late comment, but I just barely found your blog ( a huge X Factor fan ). I recently saw 1776 for the first time in March, live at our local community theatre. Richard Henry Lee was great!

  26. My one problem with that John Adams mini was the lack of singing in the episode about the declaration. It seemed lacking

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