BOOTLEG FILES 800: “Nirvana” (re-edited version of the 1951 Laurel and Hardy feature “Atoll K”).
LAST SEEN: Available for private request screenings.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A bit of a copyright issue.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Probably not.
Before I begin this week’s column, I want to pause and point out that this is the 800th entry in The Bootleg Files series that began in September 2003 on Film Threat before becoming part of Cinema Crazed in February 2017. My goodness, I cannot believe that there have been 800 entries in this weekly column! I need to give my deepest and sincerest thanks to Felix Vasquez Jr., publisher and editor at Cinema Crazed, for providing The Bootleg Files with a loving home, and I need to thank the readers of this long, long, long-running series for checking in with me every Friday – I’ve ton too much writing in the course of my career, but this is the achievement that has been the true labor of love. Okay, enough gushing – on with the show!
In April 1950, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy departed with their wives to France to shoot a movie. They returned to the U.S. one year later in an advanced state of exhaustion. The production was marked with illness by the comic duo – especially Laurel, who was hospitalized during his time in France and looked gaunt and ghastly on screen due to his health issues – and a seemingly endless skein of production problems involving a multinational cast.
The result of Laurel and Hardy’s year in France was a film for which there is no definitive version – multiple versions using different footage and editing emerged over the years and around the globe. The film premiered in France in 1951 as “Atoll K,” then in Italy as “Atollo K,” then in the U.K. as “Robinson Crusoeland” and finally in the U.S. in 1954 as “Utopia.”
During the years when VHS video was the predominant home entertainment format in the U.S., “Utopia” was ubiquitous because there was no copyright on the film and almost every cheapo video label was able to scrounge up a battered print and market it to an unsuspecting public. Most film scholars consider “Utopia” to be the weakest version of this film because it cut out so much of the footage that appeared in the European editions.
There is yet another version of this film that is based on the West Germany release of the film. (Everyone here who is old enough to remember West Germany and East Germany, please raise your hands!) This edition was released as “Dick und Doof erben eine Insel” – it seems Laurel and Hardy were called “Dick und Doof” for German audiences. While this version of the film was never seen outside of West Germany (sorry, East Germany), the edits were described in great detail in Norbert Aping’s wonderful 2007 book “The Final Film of Laurel and Hardy.”
Connecticut-based film historian Geno Cuddy studied Aping’s description of the West German version of the film and re-edited the footage using the available English-language plus a French-language song that was not used in the English-language editions. Cuddy also gave the film a new title, “Nirvana,” to differentiate it from the other editions in circulation.
“I created a new opening credits sequence using footage from the film, I retained one of Suzy Delair’s songs in French as in ‘Robinson Crusoeland,’” said Cuddy in an online conversation that we conducted earlier in the week. “While it clocks in at around 82 minutes, like ‘Utopia’ and ‘Robinson Crusoeland,’ is a different edit entirely.”
Now, why would Cuddy want to make his own version of a film that already exists in multiple versions?
“I wanted to attempt to create my own version of Laurel and Hardy’s ultimate film and also pay tribute to the various other editions released all over the world,” he said. “I wanted to see if I could create a competent edit, without losing the essentials of the story. The title of my edition, came from the state of mind that Laurel, Hardy along with Antoine and Giovanni [two character in the film] must have had when they finally reached their island paradise, their own state of
All of Cuddy’s “Nirvana” consists of the English-dubbed version of the film – Laurel and Hardy worked with a French and Italian cast on this production – but as there was no English version of the French song that leading lady Suzy Delair performed, he kept the original French-language footage and put in English subtitles to cue non-French-speakers to the lyrics.
“I also omitted a lot of superfluous footage with Delair, while attempting to retain the crux of her storyline, which was difficult to do,” Cuddy added. “I edited out her seduction of Alecto’s henchmen. as I found it superfluous and think the film works well without it. I also retained some of the more pointed political comments that were eliminated from most versions, as well as trimming scenes that I felt should have been shortened. Additionally, I created a new opening title sequence that emulated the ‘Utopia’ opening credits, utilizing footage from the film to introduce the various players (one of my prouder edits I made). I wanted to emulate that sort of fifties-sixties kiddie matinee/exploitation feel that ‘Utopia’ had.”
Admittedly, Cuddy is working with problematic material. Both Laurel and Hardy were in poor health when they shot this film and it shows – especially Laurel, who looks emaciated after a lengthy hospitalization in France after developing colitis, dysentery and a prostate ulcer while on the French locations – Ida Laurel, the actor’s widow, would later claim the French medical care he received was incompetent, stating that claiming that while Laurel was in the hospital she had to substitute for a missing nurse and change her husband’s bandages.
Also, political satire was not Laurel and Hardy’s forte and they often seem lost when the film veers away from Hal Roach-worthy slapstick into somewhat strident political farce.
Nonetheless, Cuddy’s “Nirvana” is more coherent than the hack-chop edit of “Utopia,” which proceed in a herky-jerky manner. “Nirvana” also restores the on-screen credit for director Leo Joannon that is inexplicably missing from “Utopia” – although Cuddy also excludes citing the input of the blacklisted American filmmaker John Berry who provided uncredited assistance on the film.
Cuddy admitted that his “Nirvana” was not entirely what he wanted.
“I originally wanted to incorporate Giovanni’s flashback from the Italian version,” he said, referring to an Italian stowaway character played by Adriano Romoldi. “But I could not reasonably splice it in give it would have proved jarring to switch from the English dubbing to the Italian, also the condition of the copy of ‘Atollo K’ just did not match the sublime quality of the other footage I sourced from which includes the complete U.K. cut and the French cut for Suzy Delair’s song.”
If you want to see “Nirvana,” you need to contact Cuddy through his Instagram page to obtain a link to his version. As he explained, “I would never get away with releasing it legally unless I pay Gaumont a hefty sum,” referring to the copyright owner of the French “Atoll K.”
I hope that “Nirvana” gets widely seen someday – of the multiple versions of this Laurel and Hardy film circulating today, it is the most engaging and entertaining.
And now, on to the next 800 entries in The Bootleg Files series…
IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.
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