The Black Cauldron (partially found deleted scenes of Disney animated film; 1985)

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A flyer for the film.

Status: Partially Found

When the 1985 Disney film The Black Cauldron was initially released to a test audience, many sequences caused some negative reaction due to its graphic nature, despite the film being targeted at older audiences. When Jeffrey Katzenberg joined in, he ordered that the film to be cut down and re-animated for continuity sake despite the fact that it was very late into production by that point. 12 minutes of footage were reportedly cut out of the movie, and clues to where scenes were possibly deleted can be seen in the final film, as the quality of the animation appears to decrease in some scenes, as well as jarring jump cuts in some cases.

Some of the most notable cuts include the scenes of the Horned King's undead army, the Cauldron Born, pouncing on and killing some of his henchmen, with at least two of them dissolving in a very graphic manner in which their skin bubble and melt off their bodies, leaving a pair of skeletons behind. Another notable scene that was cut was that of a man's throat being slashed with a sword. Both cuts caused jumps in the soundtrack.

Availability

Recently, some cells of the melting men were obtained during an online auction, and a couple of years later these cells were inserted into a reconstruction of one of the film's scenes, along with shots from the trailer that weren't present in the final film.

Producer Joe Hale is said to own a full black-and-white uncut version of the film, though he has never publicly released any scenes from it. It has also been theorized that the deleted scenes or additional full cuts may be stored at either Walt Disney Animation Studios or Disney Studios (both located in Burbank, California), although this has never been proven as anything more than speculation.

Gallery

A recreation of one of the scenes featuring removed shots.