Now why would anyone want to cut out half of a movie? A popular one at that, and I must also say, all the pivotal parts? Well, for profit of course. Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense, but it is possible that someone should do something so weird as cut out all of the music scenes from the Sound of Music. So what exactly is the story?
It goes a little like this. In South Korea the musical The Sound Of Music was an extremely popular film, as it was practically everywhere. It was so popular that The Sound Of Music was being shown four to five times a day in many theaters. If it was being run back to back it would constantly fill one theater for a whole day, or several theaters for about half a day. And there in lies the problem. A long movie with only limited viewing times. Apart from increasing prices and possibly driving audiences away, how could one increase their wealth? Simple solution. Take to the cutting room floor.
In an effort to drive profits up, one South Korean theater owner tried to increase the number of times the film could be shown in a day. His solution to the problem was devilishly simple. He decided to remove all of the scenes with musical numbers. That’s a rather simple, but effective solution to the problem.
Although this has been cited in more than one place, and was first mentioned in Steven Pile’s The Book Of Heroic Failures, it could be a fallacy. But in saying that, people have done even stupider things when it comes to money, even when it comes to committing crimes, which shouldn’t be that big a surprise. And when you think about it, it isn’t all that impossible either. Someone could really have been that stupid.
