I saw this on tv back when it aired. I just saw it again for the first time in over thirty years. I always liked this movie and the way dead actors are being computer animated with CGI into commercials and the like, as well as songs are played endlessly after the performer dies (such as Baltimora and Tarzan Boy, which had legal difficulties with the ERB estate, and Thurl Ravenscroft's Grinch song from the cartoon, which wasn't played on the radio until after he passed away), made me think back to this movie. But I just watched it again and this was the scene that was cut and I was sure I recalled it. I knew they sat in the car and she calmly spoke like that and they were zapped. I wondered if I might have mistaken it with the scene where she screams in the building, but nope, this was it, as well as the explanation. Thanks for posting this.
This is like 🎃 Halloween 2 - For TV they inserted 30 seconds at the end and we find someone, who was a good guy that we though Bit The Dust, Actually Survived. For those still alive, there are DVDs coming out with "Lost" scenes etc. from decades old movies, so we have a chance to see them now (or here on UA-cam).
😎 A ha! The Actual Plot Divulged. 👓 Cool Beans! This is like 🎃 "Halloween 2" . For TV they inserted 30 seconds at the end and we find someone, who was a good guy that we though Bit It, Actually Survived!!! I'm glad I came upon your submission. Never saw this clip anywhere before. Was just playing Sue Sadd's "Highwire" and saw the link. Like other viewers, eons after the movie came out with half the main cast now deceased. 😭 👍
Thanks for posting this; the deleted scenes are hard to find. I always felt that Looker was a really cool story that was edited together badly. For example, this scene that explained why the girls were killed isn't even on the DVD. Still, it's one of my favorites from that period. I think I watched it every time I found it on cable.
Thanks for posting...I could have sworn that I saw the movie in 1975, but it appears that the movie with James Coburn playing "the villain" is the only and bona fide movie....
Interesting deleted scene, but what happens next? In the DVD they run to the Porsche and in the next scene moustache man is telling Coburn they got away. So how did they get out of Coburn's house? If you like Looker, you should watch Dreamscape with Dennis Quaid. I saw them both at about the same time as a boy in the 80s and both really made a positive impression. I enjoy them both now. Runaway is another enjoyably silly 80s robotics/tech sci-fi thriller.
Imagine removing the last cry of 'Rosebud', and the cutaway to the sled in Citizen Kane. Looker without this scene creates the same confusion in the audience.
Without this scene, the movie is just over 90 minutes long, yet lacks the most important component, which is the motivation for killing the models. It is insane as to why it was cut. But they also never answer the question of why they were framing the doctor for the murders.
Many movies suffer from leaving important plot points on the cutting room floor. Often they are cut for a better flow or to allow for more action scenes, which many studios seem to prefer over dialogue.
I did and have wondered for years what happened to it. It actually helps the story along. There's actually more than what is shown here as I recall. There was an escape scene from this house and a scene where Cindy visits her parents and they are completely wrapped up in the hypnotic commercials.
Wow. There must be other footage as well, like showing how they broke out of that room. I was excited to hear an explanation of why they killed those models, but after hearing it, it still doesn't make sense to me. Oh well. I still really like the film. Visually one of sharpest looking movies I've ever seen. And some of the coolest music.
Wow - the missing link in the Looker film, all spelled out for the audience. I can see why this scene was edited out of the final cut. Films are much more intriguing, in my opinion, when they leave a little mystery to them. That said, it was still interesting to see this scene all these years later. Looker fan forever.
Thank you for posting! I remember watching this on TV - CBS, wasn't it? Frankly, I thought it was a pretty dumb movie. I didn't realize at the time that this was an "extra" scene - had I known, I would have paid more attention, because it provides the only attempted explanation for why the models were murdered. (What it doesn't explain is why, if Albert Finney and Susan Dey posed such a threat to James Coburn, he let them live - it's kind of like Gene Siskel's Fallacy of the Talking Killer.)
You see, I keep coming to this forum because Looker somehow mystified me at the time of its opening in Argentina's cinemas. Its title here was Arma Mortal, which (pathetic irony) was also the Spanish title for Lethal Weapon, and in THAT movie, a woman happen to fall from a penthouse too !! Looker, with the confessionary footage IN, can be seen almost like a James Bond flick of the 80's. Yes, the villain must explain, socially, what is he after to. Remember something more: Roberts and Reston dine together in one scene, and they wear tuxedos; they chat long before their final confrontation. But I should add, regarding the so called "plot holes", that Michael Crichton probably wanted to play the storytelling with a big amount of Hitchcockian Mc.Guffins; and having that in mind, viewers who used to allow such bizarre details worked into The Avengers TV series, may "forgive" the exccentricities in this crazy and good looking (no pun intended) picture. John Reston, kind of drunk when he entered in the bedroom, perhaps hoped to find out the whereabouts of the "Looker Gun", a key piece of evidence against him, in a civilized way, trying to spare the threatening. In the end, of course, that became impossible. Cindy and Larry have to get out in order to avoid an imminent execution.
I'm glad this scene was cut. It doesn't work for several reasons: 01) If the heroes are captured, it would be impossible for them to still have the Looker Gun as it would have been taken from them. Their car would have been taken too. All of the scenes after this one that feature them still having the Looker Gun and their car wouldn't work. It is hard to believe that the henchman drove the stunned heroes to the main bad guy's party in their own car, yet somehow didn't see the Looker Gun in the car, even though he knew it was there. The heroes were not shown hiding it anywhere, so the Looker Gun would have been right on the hero's lap in plain sight. The henchman would have literally had to move it in order to get into the driver's seat. Why would the heroes hide it anyway? The rest of the film they are shown keeping it on them at all times, using it to defend themselves. They didn't know they were about to be caught, as the henchman took them by complete surprise. If the Looker Gun had somehow fell under the driver's seat, why still wouldn't the henchman search for it, when he knew it was there? It is hard to believe that the henchman would leave the keys in the heroes' car or put them back into the hero's pocket, since his goal would be to prevent them from escaping the main bad guy's mansion, not helping them to escape. If the heroes' car was left behind, and the heroes were driven to the main bad guy's party in another vehicle, how would the heroes have gotten their car back? Surely it would be under guard. 02) Since it is impossible for them to still have the Looker Gun during this scene, the hero's bluff doesn't make sense. The hero would know that the main bad guy would know that the Looker Gun was retrieved from them, as his henchmen would have told him. Likewise, since the heroes were captured during their theft of the Looker Gun, it would be impossible for the main bad guy to believe they had time to give it to the police. 03) The main bad guy was introduced during a party. Later he is shown preparing for an even bigger party. Showing the main bad guy at yet another, and completely unrelated, party in this deleted scene is not only redundant, but makes it confusing as to whether this party is supposed to be the one he was preparing for and the party at the end of the film is somehow supposed to be a different one. 04) The stun effect of the Looker Gun was shown to last 30 minutes to an hour. It wouldn't be possible for the henchman to be able to catch up to the heroes before they escaped. So many convenient events would need to have occurred for him to catch them. The henchman would need to be shaken out of the stun by the security guard at the desk immediately after the heroes left the Looker Lab. The henchman would need to guess correctly exactly where the heroes parked their car. The henchman would need to know what the heroes car looked like. The henchman would need to correctly guess that the heroes were in their car at that exact moment, since they would still be invisible to him. 05) The film works fine with the sole reason for the model's murders being greed over not wanting to pay their lifetime royalties and not wanting them to be hired for a competitor's commercials. Remember, the main bad guy had made the models so perfect that they would cause people to buy anything, and he wouldn't want them promoting a competitor's product. Even if the Looker computer models are superior, the perfect human models still work better than regular models. This greed is the main bad guy's megalomaniac character flaw that ends up derailing his whole plan. If he didn't have this character flaw, he would have won. This motive is easily understood without the film needing to spell it out for the viewer. Though in addition to those motives, the model named Tina also knew too much, due to an adventure she experienced that the audience doesn't get to see. She knew about the henchman, knew to wear mirrored shades, knew about the senator, knew she was going to be murdered because she had been made perfect. She was murdered for that AND because she knew too much.
+SeaOfTides : I love this kind of talk. Please, let me offer some notes that'll probably add up to the suspension of disbelief required to enjoy the movie with the deleted footage IN. Regarding your first point, We DO see the hero putting the Looker Gun under his seat. Yes, the Moustache Man was dizzy enough (after the stun, with the device clumsily set in mode 2 or 3, in which the hypnotic effect wouldn't last 30 minutes nor an entire hour) in order to not register that car. The henchman doesn't know if Dr. Roberts dropped the gun among the bushes or if He and Cindy managed to deliver it to a missing accomplice. The Boss will know better (what to do next). As You said, there was already a big leak, Tina knew the perils behind Digital Matrix and She spoke to the hero. By the way, John Reston IS giving a second party in this movie, pressumably rising funds for the mischievous Senator Harrison and an evil cause (blue lights in the eyes of the candidate while a certain speech hits massive broadcasting through television networks), and the hero's escape WAS filmed. Those scenes appear in Gettobomber. Prior to that, Albert Finney's character tried to buy time with the bluff You mentioned, thinking that, immediately, the drunken villain will uncover valuable information on his schemes; above all, the villain can't kill the model and the doctor during that party at his mansion. There's more about this in the outakes, particularly regarding Harrison's own purposes. Every motivation between the good guys (even the police) and the bad guys is based in trial and error, trial and error. Glad to help! Enjoy!
Where does this part fit into the movie? People were confused about the motive of the murders, which this clip explains, but it was kinda obvious to me a huge mega corporation that wants to run everything will do what it wants with anyone.
True: especially in the car chase. First they are shooting at Larry Roberts, and then they let him alive and well in the refreshing fountain. Made no sense to me.
I thought that it was a question of money. The models were getting money for life from the usage of their young images. If they kill them, the models would not earn any more money, but the company could keep on using their images. That's what i though anyway.
@@Mister_Listener It's scary how some films which are considered science fiction they become real. Nobody would have thought at this point, when the movie was made, that this would become real and the main reason behind a strike.
@@LisaSimpsonRules hahah!! Viva la youtube!! I feel like we need to hug each other. And i also need to watch LOOKER again. I am actually recording a cover of the theme song. It is so haunting to me for some unexplainable reason!!
I thought of that but it doesn't make sense either. A company like that could afford to just pay them, and I'm sure the models wouldn't demand that much money. And Coburn's explanation I don't get either. I don't think if Michael Crichton himself had explained it to me that I'd buy it. Still, I've seen this movie several times. Lots of neat stuff in it..
My goodness i LOVE the theme song to this movie more than i like the movie, although the movie is pretty good too!!
You have to know your movies to know this one.. J. Corbin, A. Finney, S . Dey.. classic.😊❤😊
This is gold! Thank you so much for posting. Huge fan of this film forever.
Me Too! Oh, and the movie Brainstorm, from around the same time.
I saw this on tv back when it aired. I just saw it again for the first time in over thirty years. I always liked this movie and the way dead actors are being computer animated with CGI into commercials and the like, as well as songs are played endlessly after the performer dies (such as Baltimora and Tarzan Boy, which had legal difficulties with the ERB estate, and Thurl Ravenscroft's Grinch song from the cartoon, which wasn't played on the radio until after he passed away), made me think back to this movie.
But I just watched it again and this was the scene that was cut and I was sure I recalled it. I knew they sat in the car and she calmly spoke like that and they were zapped. I wondered if I might have mistaken it with the scene where she screams in the building, but nope, this was it, as well as the explanation. Thanks for posting this.
This is like 🎃 Halloween 2 - For TV they inserted 30 seconds at the end and we find someone, who was a good guy that we though Bit The Dust, Actually Survived. For those still alive, there are DVDs coming out with "Lost" scenes etc. from decades old movies, so we have a chance to see them now (or here on UA-cam).
😎 A ha! The Actual Plot Divulged. 👓
Cool Beans!
This is like 🎃 "Halloween 2" . For TV they inserted 30 seconds at the end and we find someone, who was a good guy that we though Bit It, Actually Survived!!!
I'm glad I came upon your submission. Never saw this clip anywhere before. Was just playing Sue Sadd's "Highwire" and saw the link. Like other viewers, eons after the movie came out with half the main cast now deceased. 😭
👍
The movie Looker which got to be shown on Network Television with added footage should've also been shown on premium Cable-TV.
Thanks for posting this; the deleted scenes are hard to find. I always felt that Looker was a really cool story that was edited together badly. For example, this scene that explained why the girls were killed isn't even on the DVD. Still, it's one of my favorites from that period. I think I watched it every time I found it on cable.
Thanks for posting...I could have sworn that I saw the movie in 1975, but it appears that the movie with James Coburn playing "the villain" is the only and bona fide movie....
susan dey is beautiful in this movie!
If this footage was in the regular version, it would've made more money in the theaters
I found this movie on DVD. This footage is edited out.
Why, oh why did they leave this key scene out?
Interesting deleted scene, but what happens next? In the DVD they run to the Porsche and in the next scene moustache man is telling Coburn they got away. So how did they get out of Coburn's house?
If you like Looker, you should watch Dreamscape with Dennis Quaid. I saw them both at about the same time as a boy in the 80s and both really made a positive impression. I enjoy them both now. Runaway is another enjoyably silly 80s robotics/tech sci-fi thriller.
Imagine removing the last cry of 'Rosebud', and the cutaway to the sled in Citizen Kane. Looker without this scene creates the same confusion in the audience.
I see why they cut this out. Very revealing
Without this scene, the movie is just over 90 minutes long, yet lacks the most important component, which is the motivation for killing the models. It is insane as to why it was cut. But they also never answer the question of why they were framing the doctor for the murders.
Many movies suffer from leaving important plot points on the cutting room floor. Often they are cut for a better flow or to allow for more action scenes, which many studios seem to prefer over dialogue.
I did and have wondered for years what happened to it. It actually helps the story along. There's actually more than what is shown here as I recall. There was an escape scene from this house and a scene where Cindy visits her parents and they are completely wrapped up in the hypnotic commercials.
Cindy's visit to her parents is in the regular version on dvd.
thank you! Kind of a baffling piece of plot (the reason for everything that happens) to leave out of the final cut, lol.
Wow. There must be other footage as well, like showing how they broke out of that room.
I was excited to hear an explanation of why they killed those models, but after hearing it, it still doesn't make sense to me.
Oh well. I still really like the film. Visually one of sharpest looking movies I've ever seen. And some of the coolest music.
Wow - the missing link in the Looker film, all spelled out for the audience. I can see why this scene was edited out of the final cut. Films are much more intriguing, in my opinion, when they leave a little mystery to them. That said, it was still interesting to see this scene all these years later. Looker fan forever.
Probably cut so they could keep in the entire and way too long, Looker Lab fight scene. Action always get priority over dialogue.
@@curmudgeonextraordinaire1884
Surely not for a very talkative, slow moving and boring piece of shit movie as THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS!
Awesome to see this. Wish there was more.
Thank you for posting! I remember watching this on TV - CBS, wasn't it? Frankly, I thought it was a pretty dumb movie. I didn't realize at the time that this was an "extra" scene - had I known, I would have paid more attention, because it provides the only attempted explanation for why the models were murdered. (What it doesn't explain is why, if Albert Finney and Susan Dey posed such a threat to James Coburn, he let them live - it's kind of like Gene Siskel's Fallacy of the Talking Killer.)
Pretty much every single James Bond movie suffers from the same defect. If Bond can get away with it, so can Looker.
Ummm, he let Finney live, for sure, to set up his suicide in a more believable environment than his own (Coburn's) domicile.
still love watching Looker
You see, I keep coming to this forum because Looker somehow mystified me at the time of its opening in Argentina's cinemas. Its title here was Arma Mortal, which (pathetic irony) was also the Spanish title for Lethal Weapon, and in THAT movie, a woman happen to fall from a penthouse too !! Looker, with the confessionary footage IN, can be seen almost like a James Bond flick of the 80's. Yes, the villain must explain, socially, what is he after to. Remember something more: Roberts and Reston dine together in one scene, and they wear tuxedos; they chat long before their final confrontation. But I should add, regarding the so called "plot holes", that Michael Crichton probably wanted to play the storytelling with a big amount of Hitchcockian Mc.Guffins; and having that in mind, viewers who used to allow such bizarre details worked into The Avengers TV series, may "forgive" the exccentricities in this crazy and good looking (no pun intended) picture. John Reston, kind of drunk when he entered in the bedroom, perhaps hoped to find out the whereabouts of the "Looker Gun", a key piece of evidence against him, in a civilized way, trying to spare the threatening. In the end, of course, that became impossible. Cindy and Larry have to get out in order to avoid an imminent execution.
Why was this deleted from the movie. I kind of like it.
I'm glad this scene was cut. It doesn't work for several reasons:
01) If the heroes are captured, it would be impossible for them to still have the Looker Gun as it would have been taken from them. Their car would have been taken too. All of the scenes after this one that feature them still having the Looker Gun and their car wouldn't work.
It is hard to believe that the henchman drove the stunned heroes to the main bad guy's party in their own car, yet somehow didn't see the Looker Gun in the car, even though he knew it was there. The heroes were not shown hiding it anywhere, so the Looker Gun would have been right on the hero's lap in plain sight. The henchman would have literally had to move it in order to get into the driver's seat. Why would the heroes hide it anyway? The rest of the film they are shown keeping it on them at all times, using it to defend themselves. They didn't know they were about to be caught, as the henchman took them by complete surprise. If the Looker Gun had somehow fell under the driver's seat, why still wouldn't the henchman search for it, when he knew it was there?
It is hard to believe that the henchman would leave the keys in the heroes' car or put them back into the hero's pocket, since his goal would be to prevent them from escaping the main bad guy's mansion, not helping them to escape.
If the heroes' car was left behind, and the heroes were driven to the main bad guy's party in another vehicle, how would the heroes have gotten their car back? Surely it would be under guard.
02) Since it is impossible for them to still have the Looker Gun during this scene, the hero's bluff doesn't make sense. The hero would know that the main bad guy would know that the Looker Gun was retrieved from them, as his henchmen would have told him. Likewise, since the heroes were captured during their theft of the Looker Gun, it would be impossible for the main bad guy to believe they had time to give it to the police.
03) The main bad guy was introduced during a party. Later he is shown preparing for an even bigger party. Showing the main bad guy at yet another, and completely unrelated, party in this deleted scene is not only redundant, but makes it confusing as to whether this party is supposed to be the one he was preparing for and the party at the end of the film is somehow supposed to be a different one.
04) The stun effect of the Looker Gun was shown to last 30 minutes to an hour. It wouldn't be possible for the henchman to be able to catch up to the heroes before they escaped. So many convenient events would need to have occurred for him to catch them. The henchman would need to be shaken out of the stun by the security guard at the desk immediately after the heroes left the Looker Lab. The henchman would need to guess correctly exactly where the heroes parked their car. The henchman would need to know what the heroes car looked like. The henchman would need to correctly guess that the heroes were in their car at that exact moment, since they would still be invisible to him.
05) The film works fine with the sole reason for the model's murders being greed over not wanting to pay their lifetime royalties and not wanting them to be hired for a competitor's commercials. Remember, the main bad guy had made the models so perfect that they would cause people to buy anything, and he wouldn't want them promoting a competitor's product. Even if the Looker computer models are superior, the perfect human models still work better than regular models. This greed is the main bad guy's megalomaniac character flaw that ends up derailing his whole plan. If he didn't have this character flaw, he would have won. This motive is easily understood without the film needing to spell it out for the viewer.
Though in addition to those motives, the model named Tina also knew too much, due to an adventure she experienced that the audience doesn't get to see. She knew about the henchman, knew to wear mirrored shades, knew about the senator, knew she was going to be murdered because she had been made perfect. She was murdered for that AND because she knew too much.
+SeaOfTides : I love this kind of talk. Please, let me offer some notes that'll probably add up to the suspension of disbelief required to enjoy the movie with the deleted footage IN. Regarding your first point, We DO see the hero putting the Looker Gun under his seat. Yes, the Moustache Man was dizzy enough (after the stun, with the device clumsily set in mode 2 or 3, in which the hypnotic effect wouldn't last 30 minutes nor an entire hour) in order to not register that car. The henchman doesn't know if Dr. Roberts dropped the gun among the bushes or if He and Cindy managed to deliver it to a missing accomplice. The Boss will know better (what to do next). As You said, there was already a big leak, Tina knew the perils behind Digital Matrix and She spoke to the hero. By the way, John Reston IS giving a second party in this movie, pressumably rising funds for the mischievous Senator Harrison and an evil cause (blue lights in the eyes of the candidate while a certain speech hits massive broadcasting through television networks), and the hero's escape WAS filmed. Those scenes appear in Gettobomber. Prior to that, Albert Finney's character tried to buy time with the bluff You mentioned, thinking that, immediately, the drunken villain will uncover valuable information on his schemes; above all, the villain can't kill the model and the doctor during that party at his mansion. There's more about this in the outakes, particularly regarding Harrison's own purposes. Every motivation between the good guys (even the police) and the bad guys is based in trial and error, trial and error. Glad to help! Enjoy!
Thanks for more info, gretasonica. I too think the scene shown here is of major importance in tying the entire movie together.
Wow, I always liked this movie, and it's great 80's theme song, but it made no sense. At least now I know the reason for some if it. Thanks Charlie!
RIP Michael Crichton!
When you have to put in a sequence that explains the plot of the movie you are in trouble,
Totally disagree with you guys. This scene clears up the movie completely.
Michael Harpe the audience is stupid... they needed help.
Without it, there's no explanation as to why the models were being killed off. HUGE plot hole, plus it prob helped to fit the movie into a time slot.
Where does this part fit into the movie? People were confused about the motive of the murders, which this clip explains, but it was kinda obvious to me a huge mega corporation that wants to run everything will do what it wants with anyone.
True: especially in the car chase. First they are shooting at Larry Roberts, and then they let him alive and well in the refreshing fountain. Made no sense to me.
I thought that it was a question of money. The models were getting money for life from the usage of their young images. If they kill them, the models would not earn any more money, but the company could keep on using their images. That's what i though anyway.
That’s basically the same reason given in this scene.
This is one reason for the SAG/AFTRA Actors strike in 2023.
@@Mister_Listener It's scary how some films which are considered science fiction they become real. Nobody would have thought at this point, when the movie was made, that this would become real and the main reason behind a strike.
Also, ten years ago. I made this comment 10 years ago and you have replied to it today! @@Mister_Listener UA-cam has a long memory, LOL!
@@LisaSimpsonRules hahah!! Viva la youtube!! I feel like we need to hug each other. And i also need to watch LOOKER again. I am actually recording a cover of the theme song. It is so haunting to me for some unexplainable reason!!
I thought of that but it doesn't make sense either. A company like that could afford to just pay them, and I'm sure the models wouldn't demand that much money.
And Coburn's explanation I don't get either. I don't think if Michael Crichton himself had explained it to me that I'd buy it.
Still, I've seen this movie several times. Lots of neat stuff in it..
This is not bad acting. Its a bad script and directing!!