THE VERSIONS I’VE SEEN

 

 

As stated on the Home page, I first discovered this movie as Liz on the American cable channel Showtime in the late ‘80s, when I was a teen. I didn’t have the foresight to record it back then, but I’m pretty sure what I saw then is the same as the version I discovered online earlier this year from the website TrueTvMovies.net.

 

I purchased the direct download version and this one is 74 minutes long, the same as the US theatrical release back in 1977. It’s likely a transfer from a VHS recording of the cable broadcast (nice to know somebody was on the ball back then) and it’s a pretty clear version, only slightly fuzzy and washed out. It’s what the majority of the screenshots on this site come from.

 

But I didn’t give up the search for other versions and, through some Google-fu, I stumbled upon an offering from a website called DVDLady.com. They listed a version of Liz for sale, with no runtime listed, but with mention of “Swedish subtitles.” That was confusing since Liz was the name of the US release and, since the whole film is in English, no subtitles are needed. I figured the price was reasonable, so I took a shot.

 

To my surprise, what arrived was two barebones burned DVDs, one marked “Liz (1976) US version” and the other marked "Liz (1976)". The US version is exactly the same as the rip I already had. The other is credited onscreen as Ceremony (I Lust Och Nod in the Swedish subtitles) and was 94 minutes!

 

Viewing it was both a dream come true - and a nightmare. What I had on my hands was an unbelievably murky version of the film recorded off of Swedish cable (the defunct channel known as FilmMax which courted controversy for airing explicit fare uncensored). The omnipresent FilmMax logo on the top of the screen and the uncensored hardcore in the film date the airing of this version to sometime around 1994. What could have possibly happened to this poor quality dub in the intervening years one can only guess as this is a nearly unwatchable copy without utilizing video color correction tools and even then...

 

But, still, I had a very nearly complete version of the film to compare and contrast.

 

The differences:

 

The main difference is that the US version did some juggling of the scenes making the already jumbled timeline (there are flashbacks inside of flashbacks!) even more confusing. There’s less focus on the “parallel personas” metaphysical stuff (only one of the Elizabeth/Karl Frederik Andersson conversations remaining - so not only sex was cut) and more on the “Elizabeth as a tortured nympho” storyline.

 

And a huge difference is in the addition in the US version (maybe it’s in others?) of voiceovers by Elizabeth narrating her inner thoughts. In the Swedish version, for instance, we only watch as Elizabeth paces back and forth on her lake house's deck, looking with maddening curiosity at the mystery boat, but, perhaps because American audiences are assumed to be clueless and need things spoonfed to us, we hear Elizabeth thinking:

 

"Damn it, that boat! Why did it come here? Damn it, this is tearing me apart! I feel like...I feel like two people at the same time! ... Damn it I want to know what's on that boat! Who's on that boat?" etc. More "damn it"s.

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And at the outdoor cafe where we see Elizabeth noticing the balding smarmy guy checking her out and saluting her with a glass of Coke (with lemon), we get:

 

"That guy - why is he staring at me? God, I know why. No, I won't let those feelings come to the surface. Not anymore. I've got to be the person David thinks I am. ... That guy, he is very sexy. ... I want to make love to him!"

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Not just voiceover is used as a tool to underline the conflicts in the movie, in Liz we also get quick flashes of the various sex scenes cut into a few scenes of Elizabeth in contemplation (in the bathtub at the beginning of the film, in the talk with Andersson when he’s laying out the concept of our “other side” doing things we would never dream of doing). Where the Swedish version trusts its audience to accept quiet, drawn-out scenes of the central character’s struggle with her urges, the US version wants to remind us that Elizabeth’s a horny minx.

 

Several small scenes are cut in the US version (a little bit more dialogue with Elizabeth’s family, for instance) but, of course, it’s the sex that took the biggest censorial hit.

 

The opening tryst with the nameless guy in the tenement apartment is longer in the Swedish version but not appreciably more explicit (the sex seems real, but no shots of genital contact are shown).

 

Both the outdoor sex scene and the bedroom scene with David are longer in the Swedish version but, again, this doesn’t appear to have strayed into hardcore territory (you’re off the hook, Ulf!).

 

The boat scene is longer and, as you can see in my Synopsis screenshots, is explicitly hardcore. Elona Glenn is clearly stroking the actor’s erect cock (too washed out for screenshots, sorry) and then is clearly having penetrative sex throughout the scene.

 

The movie theater scene where Elizabeth is fingered to orgasm is longer but...I have no idea what it might show since this one particular scene is absolutely impenetrably dark on the Swedish cable version I have. Literally, there are Swedish subtitles onscreen to let you know what the dialogue in the movie Elizabeth’s watching is, but they’re on top of an absolutely black screen. Soooo frustrating.

 

And the final four way scene is nearly as bad. It is longer in the Swedish version, showing more clearly that Mary Millington is actually performing oral sex on Elona Glenn, that there’s actual sex occurring between Elona and the second guy and Mary and the first guy with the mustache, that there’s actual “money shots” (shown in slowmo close-up a la Behind the Green Door), but you have to max out the brightness and gain to even make out the ghostly suggestion of what’s happening. So close but so far from what should be a very hot scene.

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My dream (besides a DVD/blu ray release of the original uncut version) would be for one of you awesome folks out there - a fellow collector of the obscure - to share any old rental VHS tape or cable TV dub with me.  Have you seen Ceremony/I Lust Och Nod/Liz/La Insaciable/etc.? Talk to me here!