盲目的丈夫们

p 　　Two differences between this Austrian version and the generally available American version are immediately obvious: they differ both in their length and in the language of the intertitles The American version is only 一,八八三 metres long - at 一八 frames per second a difference of some 七 minutes to the Austrian version with 二,0四五 metres Whereas we originally presumed only a negligible difference, resulting from the varying length of the intertitles, a direct comparison has nevertheless shown that the Austrian version differs from the American version both in the montage and in the duration of individual scenes Yet how could it happen that the later regional distribution of a canonical US silent film was longer than the quot original version quot br 　　The prevalent American version of Blind Husbands does not correspond to the version shown at the premiere of 一九一九 This little-known fact was already published by Richard Koszarski in 一九八三 The film was re-released by Universal Pictures in 一九二四, in a version that was 一,三六五 feet 四一六 metres shorter At 一八 frames per second, this amounts to a time difference of 二0 minutes quot Titles were altered, snippets of action removed and at least one major scene taken out entirely, where von Steuben and Margaret visit a small local chapel quot Koszarski br 　　From the present state of research we can assume that all the known American copies of the film derive from this shortened re-release version, a copy of which Universal donated to the Museum of Modern Art in 一九四一 According to Koszarski the original negative of the film was destroyed sometime between 一九五六 and 一九六一 and has therefore been irretrievably lost This information casts an interesting light on the Austrian version, which can be dated to the period between the summer of 一九二一 and the winter of 一九二二 Furthermore, the copy is some 二00 metres longer than the US version of 一九二四 If one follows the details given by Richard Koszarski and Arthur Lennig, this means that, as far as both its date and its length are concerned, the Austrian version lies almost exactly in the middle between the lost version shown at the premiere and the re-released one A large part of the additional length of the film can be traced to cuts that were made to the 一九二四 version in almost every shot Koszarski describes how the beginning and the end of scenes were trimmed, in order to quot speed up quot the film However, more exciting was the discovery that the Austrian version contains shots that are missing in the American one - shots countershots, intertitles - and furthermore shows differences in its montage i e the placing of the individual shots within a sequence All this indicates that Die Rache der Berge constitutes the oldest and most completely preserved material of the film p