President Nixon: Film Editor?

President Richard Nixon, whose political career was damaged by the editing of 18 1/2 minutes of tape, also may have been responsible for editing a chunk out of the 1972 movie “1776.”

According to Peter H. Hunt, the director of the film and the Tony Award-winning Broadway production it was based on, Nixon’s objections may have led producer Jack L. Warner to yank a musical number from the film.

Columbia TriStar Home Video has unveiled on DVD ($30) the newly restored version of the movie musical about the founding fathers’ struggle to declare independence from England. This version reinstates the 25 minutes that were cut.

Some of those edits Hunt made to shorten the film. But Warner--longtime Warner Bros. studio chief, but at this time an independent producer--did the lion’s share of the cutting. When Hunt and writer Peter Stone met with Warner before production began, they noticed that he “had a script that had a lot of paper clips in it”--each one marking an objection.

“His politics were fairly right-wing and there were things in the script he felt strayed too far to the left,” Hunt said in a recent interview. “He was also concerned about getting a G rating.”

Hunt and Stone fought for their ideas and won most of the battles. “But,” said Hunt, “I noticed he never took the paper clips out of the script. At the end, he congratulated me on a nice job. I was newly married and my wife and I went off to Europe on a honeymoon. Then Jack went in and pulled out some of the things he objected to.”

The song, “Cool, Cool, Considerate Men,” a sharply written tune about the desire of conservative Southern members of the Continental Congress to stay under British rule, fell victim to a collision of politics and art.

As Hunt tells it, a few weeks before the film’s release in November 1972, Warner took a print of the film to the White House for Nixon to see. Nixon allegedly objected to the song because it depicted an acrimonious division in the Continental Congress.

“We were approaching the Bicentennial,” said Hunt. “Nixon was renaming Air Force One the Spirit of ‘76, and he thought that this movie could be a very helpful partner to the celebrations. I am not sure of the whole story, but when Warner returned he told the editor to remove the number. He also recalled all the trailers and spliced out any reference to the number.”

Warner even ordered the negatives of the outtakes destroyed, said Hunt, because he didn’t want history to second-guess him on his decision. But Columbia didn’t destroy them. For this restoration, which began 18 months ago, more than 550 cans of negative and audio outtakes in the Sony vaults were inspected and all the negatives of the cut footage were found.

“1776” was one of the last films that Warner, who was 80 at the time, produced. And it seems he eventually second-guessed himself, said Hunt. “Warner did say to one of his closest friends when he was quite ill that one of his regrets he had was listening to Nixon and cutting that number.”

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Except for the spectacular, 30-minute re-creation of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Michael Bay’s “Pearl Harbor” (2001) is pretty much a bust. So one approaches the four-disc special-edition DVD ($40) with much trepidation. Shock of all shocks, the “Vista Series” edition is a lot of fun.

The first two discs include the director’s cut plus three audio commentary tracks. Bay and Wesleyan University film professor Jeanine Basinger supply the main one. Recorded shortly after Sept. 11, the two discuss those attacks and their comparison to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Basinger, though, ladles praise on the film a bit too heavily. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and stars Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Alec Baldwin supply the second commentary track. Affleck and Hartnett, who recorded their comments together, are very funny. At one point, Affleck looks at his high forehead in one scene and tells Hartnett that it is so pronounced that he has a “six-head.” A third track includes the cinematographer, costume designer and composer.

Rounding out the second disc is a documentary on the making of the film, complete with interviews with Pearl Harbor survivors.

The centerpiece of the third disc is an informative production diary, with optional commentary from Bay dissecting important scenes--several of which show Bay’s temper getting the best of him. The disc also features very amusing footage from the actors’ boot camp (Affleck’s expression while he’s eating C-rations is a hoot); footage of the officers’ boot camp Baldwin attended; two History Channel documentaries on Pearl Harbor; and recollections of a Pearl Harbor nurse.

The fourth disc features an interactive attack sequence that allows the viewer to watch the re-creation of that fateful day four different ways: as it is seen in the film, on the set during production, storyboard and animatics, and a composite of all those. Bay and visual effects supervisor Eric Brevig offer on-screen commentary that deconstructs the special effects of several scenes. The DVD-ROM feature allows viewers access to several Internet sites dealing with Pearl Harbor and World War II. Rounding out the final disc is a historical timeline and still galleries.

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One of the greatest sitcoms of all time, “I Love Lucy,” finally enters the digital age this week with the release of two volumes of episodes from the series’ first season (Paramount and CBS Video, $15 each). The first features the original TV pilot, which did not air until it was discovered in 1990, and the first three episodes of the Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz classic show. The second volume features episodes 5-8 from the 1951-52 premiere year. Thanks to digital remastering, the episodes look gorgeous. Each disc features the original opening of the series, guest star information, flubs, a behind-the-scenes photo gallery, episodes from Ball’s radio series, “My Favorite Husband,” and special prologues filmed for the reruns aired while Ball was on hiatus from the series after the birth of Desi Jr.