Normally when a film bombs, it drops from sight and is rarely seen again. It's rare that a notable box office debacle merits attention outside of museum screenings or cult circles. Consider Heaven's Gate, which is only now regaining some status as a potentially misunderstood classic.

Director Hal Ashby enjoyed as much success as any '70s director, with commercial and critical hits Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Bound for Glory, Coming Home, and Being There. But the gargantuan 1982 flop Lookin' to Get Out stopped Ashby's career in its tracks. A Hollywood backlash was building against the cult of the director, even though the real culprit was ballooning production costs. Lookin' to Get Out reportedly earned less than $1 million on an investment of 17 million dollars, at that time a huge budget.

Back in 1981, Hal Ashby was prevented from finishing his cut of Lookin' despite the fact that he was one of the more celebrated editors of the 1960s, with an Oscar win for In the Heat of the Night. Lorimar's theatrical cut bears little resemblance to Ashby's intentions. In the film, Jon Voight and Burt Young's sleazy pair of New York gamblers embark on a crazy plan to break the bank in Las Vegas. Pursued by gangsters, they trick a Casino into bankrolling their run on the blackjack tables. Ann-Margret is Voight's ex-girlfriend, now attached to the owner of the very Casino they're fleecing. Last seen on early cable TV broadcasts, the film sank without a trace.

Twenty-seven years later Lookin' to Get Out is effectively back from the dead, thanks to the intervention of its star and co-writer Jon Voight. A biographer tipped Voight to the news that a completely different version of Lookin' had been preserved at the UCLA Film Archive. When the actor saw it, he realized that Ashby must have finished his own separate edit of the film. As Voight says in the extras on the new DVD, "Cut for cut it's a different picture. Every scene has been played with."

We're accustomed to Extended Cuts, Director's Cuts, Restored Cuts, and other kinds of editorial revisions to movies both famous and obscure. The new Lookin' to Get Out has a different feel from top to bottom. The original's frantic pace kept only the extremes of star Jon Voight's performance. Critics complained that he spent the entire movie shouting and overacting. The added fifteen minutes in this recovered Extended Version restore pages of character detail, allowing all of the major players breathing room. They once again resemble human beings worthy of our concern. Lookin' to Get Out has been transformed from a flop comedy to an enjoyable screwball farce.

The studio apparently wanted to pare down Ashby and Voight's quirky characters and get on with the story, which of course sabotages the film's intentions -- audiences want funny, interesting characters to respond to. To better understand the importance of "sympathetic editing" to a movie, imagine what might have happened if Warners decided that Casablanca was a talky bore with too much politics, sappy romance, and irrelevant minor characters. The movie could easily be re-edited to eliminate any of those elements. It would move faster and be less "confusing" to audiences -- and be ruined. The new cut of Lookin' to Get Out retains the eccentric character details that make Jon Voight's gambler more of a recognizable human being -- still a crazy guy, but not a silly cartoon.

Also restored to Lookin' to Get Out is a scene guaranteed to attract new audiences. Jon Voight cast his four-year-old daughter, Angelina Jolie, in a sentimental moment near the film's end. Little Angelina is on screen only briefly but makes a strong impression -- we'd recognize that face anywhere. As she's playing the child that Voight's character never knew, the scene has a nostalgic kick as well, in father-daughter terms.

Warners' new Extended Version DVD of Lookin' to Get Out is a labor of love made from a one-of-a-kind print with no backup printing elements. It looks very good but shows more contrast than the original version (which we wish had been included for direct comparison).

Jon Voight, Ann-Margret and co-star Burt Young get together for an enthusiastic featurette on the Lookin' to Get Out experience. Voight leads the trio in describing the late director's particular gifts, without explaining how the movie came to be so expensive. According to co-screenwriter Al Schwartz, the idea for the picture came on a wild weekend in Vegas with actor Joe Turkel. The featurette ends with Voight and Ann-Margret side by side, trading teasing jokes.

Warner Home Video should be commended for rolling the dice on a unique alternate cut of a long forgotten movie; let's hope that it finds a new audience on DVD.

Lookin' to Get Out is available now from Warner Home Video.

Glenn Erickson
reviews online at DVD Savant

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