Stills of some deleted scenes from the Monkees movie Head
A rough cut of Head was shown to a test audience in August 1968, and it tested badly. So Bob Rafelson cut the film down from just over two hours to eighty-six minutes.
I don't know if any of the deleted scenes exist anymore, but on the DVD release of Head, there is an extra called "NY Action", which is a trailer or teaser for the film. The interesting thing about it is that it seems to draw its visual content from a rough cut version of the movie, and as such, during the two minutes of hundreds of fast-cutting images (most lasting not more than four frames each), many brief glimpses of unfamiliar shots can be seen. Some can almost be edited together to form mini "scenes" in their own right.
Using stills from the NY Action trailer, as well as still photographs taken during the filming of Head, I present here some of the more intriguing visual images. Apologies in advance to anyone who I've nicked material from!
If you want to a lot of the unfamiliar film clips from NY Trailer edited into some sort of sequence then click here. (Hope this works).
Near the start of the movie, the Monkees confront their alter egos. Probably the most well known "lost" scene, the script for this scene has been around online for a while now. Where possible, I've added images from the actual shoot itself, to help bring it to life a little.
In this curious little interlude, the Monkees, led by Davy, confront the Coke machine in the desert.
These scenes were supposed to follow on from after the sequences of Davy fighting his way out of the factory and the film sets.
A
grab bag of other curiosities.