Hi,

One of my favorite moveis of all time is "The President's Analyst".
However, the movie currently being sold is not the original. There
were a couple of songe by Barry McGuire in the middle of the movie,
one of which is named "Changes". It's a great song, and really fits
with the movie. However, this song, and the other McGuire song have
been hacked out of the movie.

I want to find a good original of the movie, I would prefer DVD of
course, but a new or like-new VHS would suffice.

This will be a hard question to answer.

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 02 Nov 2002 11:53 PST

Do you have access to an old-style pre-DVD laserdisc player? I have
found one copy of the laserdisc edition, which (according to newsgroup
posts) contains the original songs.

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Clarification of Question by cardsharque-ga on 02 Nov 2002 12:34 PST

I don't have access to a laserdisk player.

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Clarification of Question by cardsharque-ga on 02 Nov 2002 12:35 PST

Let me check on the prices for a used laserdisk player. If I can find
one cheap I'll consider the question answered.

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Clarification of Question by cardsharque-ga on 02 Nov 2002 12:44 PST

I found a player for $30, so the laserdisc will be acceptable as an answer.

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 04 Nov 2002 05:10 PST

If you would consider a tape whose copyright legality is questionable,
a movie collector named Bob has "The President's Analyst" in his
collection. He says on his homepage "I will sell copies of movies you
cannot find for sale in your local retail store."

You might drop him an email asking which version he has. If he taped
it from AMC, you're in luck.

Bob's Web site: http://www.nb.net/~bpm123/

Bob's email address: bpm123@nb.net

~Pink

"Changes" was the song that played while James Coburn and the hippie
girl are making love in the field, and a balloon carrying the girl's
dress floats into the sky, right?

I love that scene. It would not be the same without the music.

Yes, it was the baloon scene, and the song is completely integral to
the movie. I was appalled when I saw the tape version and they had cut
the song.

I wrote to Barry McGuire about it. He was overseas, but his wife wrote
me back and told me she wasn't sure why they had cut it, but probably
so they wouldn't have to pay royalties. Her closing words were "Good
luck finding an original".

:)

Cardsharque,

I am sorry to disappoint you.

Here's the laserdisc version of "The President's Analyst" that I
mentioned:

Ebay.com
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1575810959

Unfortunately, I cannot verify whether or not the Barry McGuire music
is present on this version, but I am afraid you may be disappointed by
this one. These newsgroup posts indicate that at least one laserdisc
version lacks the McGuire music:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=4262ig%243e0%40newsbf02.news.aol.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=t9rts88nh1vt82%40corp.supernews.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain

I did not mean to mislead you; when I posted my clarification request
I had not noticed the fine print on the photo of the LD cover that
says "Special Home Video Version," which I believe indicates that this
is the re-edit. Special, indeed. This is an outrage.

American Movie Classics, on cable, has shown the original theatrical
version (letterboxed, and with the McGuire music) at least twice.
Perhaps AMC will air this delightful and little-known movie again some
day. In the meantime, I will keep my eyes peeled for any sign of an
intact copy of "The President's Analyst" for you. I shall consider
this a personal crusade.

Fight TPC! ;-)

~pinkfreud