Folks who have looked into finding copies of Song of the South (legitimate or otherwise) have possibly run across the fact that the Japanese laserdisc version of Song of the South runs 94 minutes, while the British PAL VHS version only runs 91 minutes. Why the 3 minute difference? What was cut? Many have rejected the British PAL copy and endured the higher price and the subtitles of the Japanese laserdisc simply because of the longer runtime.
It has been rumored that the British PAL version is missing at least two small segments: namely, an extended scene of Johnny crying after his father leaves the plantation, and another scene at the end in which Brer Terrapin runs after Uncle Remus. After closely comparing my British PAL copy to the Japanese laserdisc, I have determined this rumor to be unfounded: the scenes were identical. And, even assuming this were the case, these two trivial segments would hardly count a fraction towards three whole minutes of missing footage!
Well, I decided to sit down and time the two versions. Sure enough, the Japanese laserdisc clocked in at about 94 minutes, and the British VHS PAL version about 91 minutes. No surprises there. But as I began watching them again, this time side-by-side to determine what had been cut, I noticed that the sound of the two copies quickly went out of sync as the credits rolled. Three minutes into the movie, and the sound was already out of sync by about 7 seconds. This meant that the British PAL VHS copy was running about 3.5% faster than the Japanese laserdisc. Sure enough, 91 x 1.035 = 94.185. Close enough!
So, it appears that the three minute difference is NOT, in fact, due to missing scenes, but rather due to the fact that the British PAL version runs slightly faster than Song of the South‘s official runtime of 94 minutes. If anyone has proof to the contrary, I would love to hear from them!
