The Lost Picture Show: How Peter Bogdanovich's Final Cut Was Lost and Found

The Industry Episode 36: The Lost Picture Show

Dan Delgado: [00:00:00] So first of all, James, can you tell me who you are as a person? Who are, who are you? Who am I talking with? Who's this James Kenny guy? All right.

James Kenney: Well, I'm a guy, I teach English, uh, predominantly for CUNY, the city university of New York, uh, for a long time, for 20 some odd years or whatever, I guess about 20 years.

And, uh, and I am a film enthusiast.

Dan Delgado: This is James Kenny and calling James a film enthusiast is putting it mildly. James is one of the biggest movie fans I've ever had the pleasure to meet. He's constantly tweeting about movies and writes about them on his blog, TrembleSciWonder. He was introduced, or indoctrinated, depending on how you want to look at it, into movie fandom by his father, who, much like James, was also a college professor.

James Kenney: So back in the day...

Um, he would, they would actually rent 16 millimeter films when they were going to show them in the courses and they would have them for a week. So he would take them home. So as a kid, I was watching, you know, the bandwagon and the gold rush and various films on film. You know, they have to change the reels every 12 minutes or whatever, but [00:01:00] it was just obviously a pretty unique experience as a kid growing up, you know, watching the films at home on a, on a projector, on a screen.

Dan Delgado: And like with all movie fans, there's always that one film and filmmaker that really gets your attention. That just stays with you. The kind of cinematic experience you remember for the rest of your life. And that movie for James is 1981's They All Laughed.

James Kenney: So I, I know it's got my dad's attention and he went out and saw it and somehow he thought it would be a Perker film for me, who I guess was in kind of a funk, you know, my mom had passed away.

I'm sort of that, you know, I just wasn't in a particularly happy mood those days. And so when I got the opportunity, he showed it to me and it's a PG film, but it's not a kid's movie at all. It's all subtle, romantic comedy drama. It's an ensemble piece. It doesn't have a clear plot. Or, or a plot is secondary, I should say, because, you know, it's just a film basically watching a bunch of groovy people run around New York City and pairing off with each other, and...

But it's a beautiful film. I mean, it's a remarkable film. It's a quietly remarkable film, [00:02:00] because, you know, it's like nobody, I, I, I have never seen a film like that, where they're shooting in Times Square, and they're shooting on Fifth Avenue by the St. Patrick's Cathedral, and they're shooting on Wall Street, and, and then none of the streets are closed.

They're just running around like a bunch of pirates.

Dan Delgado: And that's it. From that point on, They All Laughed is his movie, and for James, it was the right movie at the right time.

James Kenney: And so for whatever reason, I mean, I was a relatively savvy kid, but I mean, I loved this film, and I must have watched it, you know, ten times on cable in 1982.

I mean, and and then just became a huge

Dan Delgado: fan, a huge fan of They All Laugh director Peter Bogdanovich, the new Hollywood era filmmaker, best known for movies like Paper Moon and The Last Picture Show. James goes through his entire filmography and over the years, never misses when a new one of his films is released.

Then, years later, James reads that Bogdanovich is coming back to New York City to film a new movie. It's another screwball comedy, this one called Squirrels to the Nuts. [00:03:00] Mind you, at this point, it's been over a decade since Bogdanovich's previous film, 2001's The Cat's Meow. And now, there's news about this movie filming around New York City seemingly every day.

And then eventually... There's nothing. So

James Kenney: I don't hear much about it for a while. 'cause it was, it was, I was hearing about it while they were shooting it in New York. And then in one of those serendipitous moments that makes you think there is sort of a path in the universe, the nice Chinese lady who sold bootleg DVDs, , you know, at my, uh, daughter's day, she would, she would come and every day she would just be like, DVDs, DVDs, you know, $5 each.

I think it was five for 20 though. If you bought five, you get 'em for $4 each. And she would, I'm not trying to throw anybody under the bus, but yeah, she would have. All sorts of bootlegs, including, I, I don't know what, where the access point was, but films sometimes long before they came out. Like I remember for example, uh, I, I haven't, I haven't, covid kind of shut all that down.

I've never seen her since, but, and these were quality [00:04:00] copies. I mean, they were basically clearly taken from a factory or something. And so yeah, about somewhere in 2014, She comes in and she has this film called. She's Funny That Way. And I look in the back and it says directed by Peter Bogdanovich. It has the, the cast.

Uh, and I'm like, this is, this is the movie. And, and, um, and so I bought it. Yes, I bought it.

Dan Delgado: James takes the DVD home excited for another go round with his favorite filmmaker. Pops it in the DVD player and.

James Kenney: You might want to insert some dramatic music here. I largely hated it. I mean, it's, it's not the worst movie ever made.

I would argue it's a decidedly two star movie.

Dan Delgado: It's a disappointment to say the least. (To James) Did you think that it was Bogdanovich's worst film? When you saw it? Well,

James Kenney: Well, absolutely. To give contrast, Illegally Yours, that film he made with Rob Lowe, that was when it was released, has the worst reputation.

Illegally Yours was a project that had a [00:05:00] horrible script, but he was like, he was, he was already having some financial problems at that point, and he had sued Universal over mask, and so it was kind of a pariah in Hollywood. But it's clear the script was dreadful. I've read the script. The original script and they were rewriting it on the set and it never really, you know, it kind of falls apart, but it's clearly a Peter Bogdanovich film, you know, you watch it and the setups and the scenes.

And, and, and if you're a fan of a director, you might agree about this. You know, it's like sometimes the, you know, the fallen souffle of a great chef is more interesting than an intimates cake, meaning illegally yours doesn't work, but it's a Peter Bogdanovich film. And I'm recognizing all sorts of things and it's kind of interesting because it's almost like, oh, so this is what my hero does in a desperate situation.

You know, he's trying to figure his way through this project. She's Funny That Way, I instantly knew something was terribly wrong in the idea that there are so many things that pinpointed it was some kind of a muddled disaster and it didn't feel like a Peter Bogdanovich film.

Dan Delgado: Director Quentin Tarantino has said over the years that most directors have horrible last films.[00:06:00]

And She's Funny That Way wound up being Peter Bogdanovich's last film, his last fictional film. He did make a documentary about Buster Keaton afterwards, but as far as the kind of movie you think of when it comes to Peter Bogdanovich, She's Funny That Way is the end of the line. My name is Dan Delgado, and in this episode, we're taking a look at what happened to the final film of a new Hollywood legend and how one of his biggest fans is changing it.

Welcome to the industry.

When Peter Bogdanovich passed away in January of 2022, at the age of 82, he had long cemented his reputation as a major filmmaker from the new Hollywood era. But what kind of a filmmaker was Peter Bogdanovich? If you had to, how would you categorize him?

Bill Teck: I feel [00:07:00] like Peter was, um, the first of the new directors, but he was also kind of the last of the old school directors.

And he was, you know, Jersey's one of the movie brats, just like a couple years before Spielberg and Lucas, but in that class with Altman, with Coppola, with Friedkin, Cassavetes, you know, all those guys getting started around that time. And I feel like Bogdanovich was, in, to my mind, the first kind of truly post modern guy.Because he really sort of embraced working within established genres, but not only within the genres, the way Altman, you know, did one of each, he did a western, he did a sci fi, he did a, you know, but not only within the genres, but within the style.

Dan Delgado:

This is Bill Teck, a filmmaker and friend of Peter's. Bill even made a documentary about They All Laughed.

And working within the style, that's a great way of [00:08:00] putting it, especially for those movies he made in the 1970s. So what does that mean, working within the style? For example, let's take his 1971 breakout hit, The Last Picture Show.

Bill Teck: With something like Picture Show, he... He was like, okay, well, this movie set in the fifties, let's make it in the style of the fifties.

Let's never zoom. Let's just dolly. Let's do cutting like in the fifties. Let's do insert shots like in the fifties, but let's infuse it with a modern day sensibility. So, you know, the treatment of sex and the treatment of, uh, relationships between men and women, all that was very frank and very current. So, he was so radical because it was, it was kind of subtle, but he was doing something very, very modern.

Dan Delgado: And while he was working within those styles, over time, his own style emerges.

Bill Teck: Doing something like Paper Moon, where again, the things that were occurring were sort of in tension with the style. It was really [00:09:00] kind of a unique way to work and he continued to do that through Nickelodeon, through At Long Last Love.

And getting until like, I would say St. Jack and They All Laughed when he really created his own style. And I feel like by that point he had lost favor with critics, he had lost favor. Even though St. Jack was a big critical comeback and so was They All Laughed. But by then they'd run him through the mill with Nickelodeon and At Long Last Love.

Even though I, I like them very much and I think they've been reassessed and people like them now. But that's when I think he really kind of created

his own signature style. And so, to sum this up. In a Nutshell, I'd say Peter was just a guy who, who, at the same time that he was making these very modern movies, he was also always promoting the work of great directors that came before him.

Whether it was Lubitsch or Ford or Wells or Hoffs or whoever.

Dan Delgado: So that's Peter the Filmmaker. But how did we end up with She's Funny That Way? Peter's last movie that wasn't really his last movie. The movie that disappointed one of his [00:10:00] biggest fans. I spoke with Louise Stratton, the co writer and one of the producers of She's Funny That Way.

And yes, she happens to be Peter's ex wife as well, though the two always remained close.

Louise Stratten: First of all, we started it, um... Well, we were still married and we were going through a very, very difficult transition in our life. And, um, we really felt like we needed to find ways to laugh. And we were watching a lot of these classic comedies with, you know, different people.

Uh, this classics, uh, whether it be Philadelphia's story or Awful Truth, or we just saw a lot of like comedies just to, Bring up our spirits. And then we thought, well, why don't we write our own? And we actually had watched a movie by Ernst Lubitsch, which I'd seen before, but at the moment it was just perfect for the [00:11:00] moment.

And it, and it was, um, Clooney Brown. So it started out like that. And it's that whole moment to where there's a clip in Squirrels to the Nuts. That was the beginning of writing Squirrels to the Nuts, was the clip.

Dan Delgado: Oh yes, the clip. The clip that started this whole thing. This one little clip from the 1946 Ernst Lubitsch comedy Cluney Brown that spawned this entire story.

This is the clip.

Cluny Brown Clip: He's always telling me, Clooney Brown, you don't know your place.

Nobody can tell you where your place is. Where's my place? Where's anybody's place? I'll tell you where it is. Wherever you're happy. That's your place and happiness is a matter of purely personal adjustment to your environment in Hyde Park. For instance, some people like to feed nuts to the squirrels But if it makes you happy to feed squirrels to the nuts; Who am I to say nuts to the squirrel?

Dan Delgado: And so with that Peter and Louise began writing their [00:12:00] movie Squirrels to the Nuts, which I should point out was all the way back around 1999 or maybe 2000. In fact, Peter envisioned Louise in the lead role at the time, playing opposite John Ritter.

Louise Stratten: Peter taught me so much about construction. Um, it was an amazing masterclass of construction and putting all the different scenes on cue cards on a bulletin board and to really kind of move things around to create a really incredible type construction of, of, um, the story and the characters and how all the characters would connect, which in comedy I learned is so important.

And, and I, it was an amazing experience for me. Particularly at a time that was so sort of, um, dark.

Dan Delgado: And eventually, years later, the writing turns into actual filming. And with a great cast, too. The role Peter wrote for Louise and mine went to Imogen [00:13:00] Poots. Owen Wilson was in for the late John Ritter. And then you also had Jennifer Aniston, Katherine Hahn, Rhys Ifans, Will Forte, and a number of Peter's regulars in small supporting roles.

Bill Teck: And when I first got in touch with Peter, he, he wasn't, it was a screenplay he'd written with Louise Stratton, his ex wife and good friend, and he was trying to get it done, and he was telling me that Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson were trying to help him find financing, and he did find financing, and so by the end of the film that I was making, which was about They All Laughed, I was able to visit him on set and I, I was like, Peter, thanks for giving my movie a happy ending.

I can't believe, you know, he's, you're making another film in New York where you last shot, they all laughed. You're, you know, and, and so many people, Sybil's in it and Colleen Camp is in it. And, you know, there's so many familiar faces, uh, George Morphogen is in it, in the, in the McDonald's world. It was really like a return to form.

And it was a blast to be there on set and watch him shoot it. And actually the last shot in [00:14:00] my documentary is just a scene he was shooting on the street. He turned and he gave Louise Stratton a big hug and you can see their love.

Dan Delgado: This is the time when James Kenny is reading about it every day. And the Squirrels to the Nuts shoot seems to go pretty well.

Bill Teck: I remember getting this great email from him right when he finished shooting. And he was like, Billy, I just finished my first rough cut. It moves like a house on fire. It's unbelievable. And I said, Oh man, it sounds like, you know. Something like a Lubitsch kind of thing and he's like, you know, ideally, but it's just it works great and he was so excited about it.

Dan Delgado: But then the test screenings happen…

Louise Stratten: I feel that we really made... We shot the script that we wanted to make, and with Peter, with how he would direct, he, he would only shoot what he needed, he didn't shoot coverage, and so it was a very tight story, a tight script, and the way we wrote it, the way we shot it, we had everything.

What had happened and what sort of went [00:15:00] south was, we had one preview, and It was a really good preview by hearing all the labs, and of course when when people get these cards to. Fill out and give their expertise, um feedback it's uh it's an interesting process, but it's you know, what had come back was that there was a lot of Incredible reactions when you heard it and there were certain things that were questionable about certain characters But at the end of the day the guy that was the expertise in this whole process of testing He just said that it needed to be Addressed with certain things.

Bill Teck: And finally I said, Peter, what's going on? I want to show you a cut of the film. And he was like, Billy, you wouldn't believe how disheartening the past few months have been, what I've been going through. And it turned out that [00:16:00] he had, you know, the, some of the financiers had kind of. Put their spoon into the sauce and were sort of insisting that he make changes and change the ending and change the structure.

And, you know, he wasn't specific about it, but I wasn't privy to like all the different cuts that he was making. But anyway, we wound up at Venice together. I wound up there with my film and he wound up there with She's Funny That Way with the new title. And he was so cool about it. He didn't say a word like this is in my.

Actual ideal cut. And he didn't say anything about it.

Louise Stratten: Then we went back into the editing room and it seemed like a very simple fix to then go back and get another preview to bring up whatever it was that they wanted, wanted to address. And what had happened was. Peter didn't get that chance to do another, another edit.

It was like, it was then kind of [00:17:00] recreat I mean, just kind of taken over. The editing room was sort of taken over, if you will. And, um, I can't explain more than that.

Dan Delgado: And it's in these changes, which include shooting entire new scenes, that Squirrels to the Nuts becomes something else. It becomes, She's Funny That Way.

During this whole process of transforming his film, Peter's a good soldier about it. Which is a little surprising, because Peter's known for being a fighter for his films. Take the movie Mask, for example, his 1985 drama with Cher and Erik Stoltz. When Universal Pictures switched out some key music in the film, going from songs by Bruce Springsteen to songs by Bob Seger, Peter responded with a 19 million breach of contract lawsuit.

He would eventually drop the lawsuit, and in 2004, nearly two decades later, Universal released Mask on DVD with Springsteen's songs back in the movie. But the dramatic move of suing a major studio did him [00:18:00] no favors in the industry. But with Squirrels to the Nuts, that wasn't the case. Peter wanted to finish the movie, to get it released, so he did all that he could.

Louise Stratten: I don't really want to go backwards into stuff, but he, we didn't want to have a repeat of Mask, right? We didn't want to, you know, it was a different time. He was older. We were so happy that we were making this together after so many years. It was our project together. It was an experience that we were so happy that we were doing.

It was kind of shocking that. This happened when it like it all of a sudden became different in the editing room and there was no real reason for that. And it didn't, it's, it's, it was, we didn't really see it coming at all. Well, we didn't see it coming. So we had a moment of like, what do we do? And.

Peter's normal sort of [00:19:00] reaction would be, of course, to do what he would want to do to have that integrity to not compromise, you know, and the truth is he had every right to in more than one way. The immediate thought was because I was there during the whole mask thing and I was like, really, do we want to do this?

Can't we find some middle ground? And I think that we. Decided just grin and bear it and, and try to find some way of finding some middle ground.

Dan Delgado: The now reconstructed movie known as She's Funny That Way, premiered at the 71st Venice Film Festival in 2014. It now included a new wraparound framing device with Ileana Douglas and a cameo by Quentin Tarantino.

Who happens to be a huge fan of Peter.

Bill Teck: And the reception was great in Italy. People roared with laughter. I mean, I've never heard a crowd laugh like that, but I, I suspected it wasn't his, his [00:20:00] vision, you know, not only the name change, but he, he really didn't indicate how much it had changed except for that email.

And he told me he'd had some, some troubles, that he'd re shot the ending and so forth. Which was so cool of Tarantino to come to his rescue. That guy was just a lifelong friend and supporter of Peter's. And really, really went to bat for him. Loved him a great deal. And, um, it was so cool of him to come in and do that.

Kind of give Peter a little bit of power back. All of a sudden Peter can say, Well, I've got Tarantino coming in to this new ending that I came up with. You know, uh, as opposed to having them take the film from him. I assume he... Kind of use that to get some power back.

Dan Delgado: And to be fair, the Venice reaction to She’s Funny That Way was very strong.

One year later, in August of 2015, it hit us theaters. If you don't remember it in theaters. That's understandable because it was only released in 26 of them. In fact, most of the six million dollars it took in at the box office came from overseas.

The reviews were mixed, and it was barely noticed. Peter had hoped that he would get an opportunity to re edit his version of the movie, but that seemed, well, pretty unlikely. And that was the end of She's Funny That Way. Just another movie that came and went.

And this brings us back to James Kenney. You remember the disappointed movie obsessive from the opening of this episode? Well, fast forward a few years after the disappointment [00:22:00] of his bootleg She's Funny That Way DVD watch. It's October of 2020, and he's supposed to be grading papers on a Sunday night, but instead he's looking around on eBay, you know, just killing some time.

James Kenney: I remember I had papers on my desk I was ignoring and I, I'm looking on eBay and I see this listing and it says, She's Funny That Way slash Squirrels to the Nuts. Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Sony HD cam tape. Doesn't say Peter Bogdanovich his name at all, but I guess I had searched under she's funny that way or whatever, you know?

And I'm like, well, what is this? You know? And so I look and I see it's some production tape because a Sony HD cam tape, that's not VHS. This is like a larger tape. You know, that, that, that was some sort of production tape and he's all asking 150 for it. And I'm like, well, this is kind of interesting, but I don't have 150 to spend on a paperweight because I can't play a Sony tape.

Um, I, I did see it was called Squirrels to the Nuts, but I'm like, well, I knew that was the title when they were filming, you know, I didn't, I didn't say this is [00:23:00] some sort of revolutionary thing, but all, and the listing doesn't show anything exciting about it.

Dan Delgado: And he takes a closer look and notices a longer runtime on this tape.This says the runtime is 113 minutes. And James knows that She's Funny. That Way is only 91 minutes long. That's a big difference.

James Kenney: And so I go, Whoa, but again, it's one of those things that this could be a typo. You know, I could buy the tape and it doesn't even play. How am I going to play this tape anyway?

I don't have a Sony HD cam player, but that running time makes me go, you know, well, wait a minute.

Dan Delgado: Turns out James can get the tape converted to another format, but that's another hundred bucks, on top of the eBay price. What if this thing's a big nothing, or just mislabeled? James can't exactly afford to throw 250 away.

He needed some consultation on this.

James Kenney: While social media is destroying the world, it does have its good aspects, right? Because I did become friends with Bill Tech, who made a documentary about... [00:24:00] Peter Bogdanovich called one day since yesterday around 2015, I believe.

Dan Delgado: Yes, I know that Bill Teck, crazy, right?

Bill Teck: We just been friendly on Twitter and I guess we exchanged phone numbers or something.

I don't remember exactly, but I know I got a call from him saying, Hey man. I'm looking at this thing on eBay. Could this be Peter's director's cut of, She's Funny That Way, Squirrels to the Nuts? Cause it's listed at two hours and whatever. And he's like, do you want to split it? And I was like, yeah, sure.

I'll do that. But he's like, I was like, so do you need me to like PayPal you some money? You know, do I Venmo you some money or something? And he was like, nah, I already bought it. Don't worry about it. I got it.

Dan Delgado: Let's be honest, there was no way James was not going to buy this tape.

James Kenney: I didn't pay the guy 150.

I offered him 100 because I'm a teacher. I don't have a lot of money. So even though I was already a little suspicious that this might be something really special, I offered him 100. And then he accepted immediately. So I'm like, okay. It takes about a week and a half, I guess, for the tape [00:25:00] to arrive and for me to get it converted.

Dan Delgado: Finally, he has this thing in his hands. And this thing could be anything, mind you. A work print, a foreign release where they forgot to change the name, promotional materials, anything. He pops it into the player and starts it up.

James Kenney: And immediately, Frank Sinatra's New York, New York kicks on the soundtrack.

And I'm like, that's not on the soundtrack because she's funny that way. And the camera fades up and you have these glorious, beautiful, uh, New York City at sunrise images, you know, like, like, uh, shots just roaming around the city in the sky. And it's like, this is not the film. This is not She's Funny That Way.

And then when the credits end, you're, we're in Kennedy Airport or LaGuardia Airport. I'm like, this is not in She's Funny That Way. And we see Owen Wilson arriving on a plane and we see Austin Pendleton arriving on a different plane and they're walking by each other. It's all done in long takes, like Peter Bogdanovich, and I'm like, this is, what in the world?

Dan Delgado: And the more James watches, the more he realizes is that what he [00:26:00] has is definitely not She's Funny That Way, and that's because what he has is Squirrels to the Nuts.

James Kenney: It's a completely different movie and it's a great movie. And it's a Peter Bogdanovich movie. I mean, if you're a Peter Bogdanovich fan, I'm seeing this is where you recognize.

It's all it's his style of editing. I'm sure enough. Uh, the movie begins and it's not, he doesn't play all his cards early. You don't quite know what's going on. You know, something, if, if something 14 minutes in makes you quizzical. Don't worry. It's being regarded. It pays off 96 minutes later. You may not know how it's going to pay off.

But I mean, everything's there for a reason, you know, and this is an HD transfer. That's actually significantly different from She's Funny That Way.

Dan Delgado: But is it Peter's cut? He did submit several different cuts of the movie before it became. She's Funny That Way. There's only one way to find out. James gets in touch with bill tech, who gets in touch with Peter.

James Kenney: And the next thing, you know, I open up my email and there's an email from Peter saying, I can't believe you [00:27:00] found my film. You know, this is incredible. Can you send me a copy as soon as possible? I think it might be my. My fine cut, my personal cut of the film.

Dan Delgado: So of course, James gets a copy of it out to Peter and Louise to see what it is he actually has.And sure enough, it's what Peter called the Lubitsch cut.

It's Peter's director's cut.

Louise Stratten: Who is this guy? eBay, what? You know, it was like this, it all seemed so, um, like prankish, you know? It didn't seem real at the moment. And then when we put it on, I keep going back to that moment because I'll never forget it.

It was like, we kept thinking, is this it? Is this it? Oh my god. Oh my god. It was like, you know, winding us up to like, so it was like pretty cool.

Dan Delgado: Now it wasn't perfect, but it was close. It still needed some work, a little color correction, and a final sound mix. But other than that, it was the real deal. And at the time James came across it in 2020, Peter was still trying to get [00:28:00] his director's cut done.

Louise Stratten: I was like thinking that... You know, it would be great to do a director's cut. I mean, that would be amazing. It's actually the original version. And I remember, you know, sitting in that first preview and, and the audience was, it was just the energy and there was so incredible and I'll never forget it. So getting this back and putting it on and seeing the version, I was like ecstatic and thinking, this is just such an incredible gift and for people.

To be able to see this version, it's very different. And then we had to convince Lionsgate to get on board and, and to say that this was another film, you know, it's different enough to do it. You know what I mean? And it didn't take a whole lot. I mean, Peter. I was on the calls with Lionsgate and Peter just pitched this and they, they were on board and, you know, Tom Petty had, had seen this Gross to [00:29:00] the Nut version, loved it with a Tom Petty music in it, and blessed Peter with the music and gave it to, gave it to him for, for basically nothing.

That was a moment that I remember and had experienced as well. So everything kind of was just perfectly full circle and. A beautiful thing.

Dan Delgado: You may be wondering, how the hell did this tape end up on eBay in the first place? Turns out, it was left in a storage locker that was put up for bid and bought by a full time eBayer named Eric Eisenberg.

It was just one of the many items he came across and put up for sale. How it got in the storage locker is a bit of a mystery. But the movie had its initial edit done in New York at an editing company located about 150 yards from where it was found in the storage locker. So maybe it's not that much of a mystery, but what gets me about this story is the absolute and undeniable serendipity that it was James Kenny of all people who came across it.[00:30:00]

That it would be found by quite possibly Peter Bogdanovich's biggest fan is still to me the most amazing part of the story. If you were scripting it, this is exactly the person you'd want to find it. Right now, there's a group of people out there running around in the Amazon who are actively trying to find the original version of Orson Welles The Magnificent Ambersons.

Finding that lost cut of a movie that's already considered a masterpiece in the version we have would be a revelation, no doubt about it. However, I have to say, finding the lost cut of a celebrated film filmmaker's final movie is right up there. Maybe a notch or two below, but still it's a significant find.

Now currently there's no way to see Squirrels to the Nuts, not yet at least. James is doing all he can to get the movie out there. He's already hosted several screenings across the country, including an initial unveiling at the Museum of [00:31:00] Modern Art in March of 2022. That screening came about two months after Peter's passing.

And in case you're wondering, And what is next for the movie? Is it going to be released now?

Louise Stratten: I'm told that it's going to be released on Netflix. So, uh, that's, that's what I hear.

Dan Delgado: Hopefully it ends up available somewhere soon. But, until then, you can still watch She's Funny That Way, which I kind of like to be honest.

Louise Stratten: A person's never seen it, and they really want to see it, and they say, Oh, I saw She's Funny That Way on Netflix, it was fun, and I'm like, Well, yeah, but wait until you get to see Squirrels to the Nuts, you know what I mean? It's like, I get, I get to show it now, and, um, I get chills just because, you know, it is different, and I think that, you know, just, it's not just because I'm one of the writers.

It's a better movie.[00:32:00]

Dan Delgado: Thank you for listening to this episode of the industry presented by moviemaker visit moviemaker. com for more great podcasts, articles, and information about movies. If you love movies, want to make them, or you're a moviemaker already yourself. There's something for you at MovieMaker. com. This episode was written, edited, and hosted by me, Dan Delgado.

Special thanks to my guests this week, Louise Stratton, filmmaker Bill Teck, and James Kenney. Check out James blog, TrembleSighWonder, at TrembleSighWonder.com. There's a link to it in the show description, and you can read his very detailed account of this story. It's worth your time. Music in this episode is from Epidemic Sound.

Links to all sources used for this episode and anything else I might think is relevant can be found at my website, Industry Podcast. While you're there, you can leave me a voicemail. And if you're so inclined, you can even buy me a coffee. Which [00:33:00] I would likely use to buy some coffee. If you enjoyed this episode, feel free to leave a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser, or wherever else it is that you can leave a review.

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