Talk:A Night at the Opera (film)

Dispute over Italian cuts

There is currently a dispute over the following text. The original text is as follows:

Maltin<ref name="Adamson">''Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo: A History of the Marx Brothers and a Satire on the Rest of the World'', Joe Adamson. Simon & Schuster, Paperback (1983), {{ISBN|0-671-47072-8}}.</ref> stated the scene was cut during World War II to remove references to Italy, and unfortunately, the main negative was cut as well, so the scene is now lost.<ref name="Mitchell">{{cite book

The replacement text I've proposed is as follows:

In his commentary, Maltin stated the scene was cut during World War II to remove references to Italy.  However, according to MPAA records<ref>{{cite web |title=A Night at the Opera, 1935 |url=http://digitalcollections.oscars.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15759coll30/id/9990/rec/1?fbclid=IwAR1TRFQd3ZJhZsQErEDLRDg5iVlkiRSYmy-GAOX5ejNKX1s2bxRuRxu_vlI |website=Margaret Herrick Library Digital Records |publisher=MPAA |accessdate=16 May 2020}}</ref>, the film was re-edited by MGM in 1938<ref>{{cite web |title=A Night at the Opera, 1935 |url=http://digitalcollections.oscars.org/utils/ajaxhelper/?CISOROOT=p15759coll30&CISOPTR=9987&action=2&DMSCALE=15&DMWIDTH=351&DMHEIGHT=450&DMX=0&DMY=0&DMTEXT=&DMROTATE=0 |website=Margaret Herrick Library Digital Records |publisher=MPAA |accessdate=16 May 2020}}</ref>, prior to the war, because of complaints from the Italian government that it "made fun of Italian people"<ref>{{cite web |title=A Night at the Opera, 1935 |url=http://digitalcollections.oscars.org/utils/ajaxhelper/?CISOROOT=p15759coll30&CISOPTR=9986&action=2&DMSCALE=15&DMWIDTH=351&DMHEIGHT=450&DMX=0&DMY=0&DMTEXT=&DMROTATE=0 |website=Margaret Herrick Library Digital Records |publisher=MPAA |accessdate=16 May 2020}}</ref>. Unfortunately, the edits were made to MGM's master negative, and no prints of the original uncut version are known to survive.<ref name="Mitchell">{{cite book

The reason I've proposed this change is that the primary documents presented are clearly reasonable and credible proof of the contrary of Maltin's assertion, and should be presented in the article as an alternative.

The reason I've removed the reference to the Adamson book is that the text says that Maltin made the assertion, not that Adamson did, and there does not seem to be any textual connection to Adamson's text, which was written decades before Maltin made his commentary. I'm amenable to keeping the reference to the Adamson book in the text if it's made clear in the page text that Adamson made this assertion (I can't remember if he did: it's been a few years since I read that book, and my copy is currently a few thousand miles away).

However, this change seems to be contentious, as @Beyond My Ken: has now reverted it twice, so I'm hoping that we can resolve the issue by discussing on the talk page.

Jm307 (talk) 07:44, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

What is contentious is your removal of the reference which supports the statement of what Maitlin said. You can certainly introduce new information with a new source, but if you remove the source that supports the old information, that information becomes unsourced. Simply add your new information without changing the sourcing of the old information. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:00, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: What confuses me about that citation is that it is in a book that is not otherwise mentioned in the article. If Adamson (a reputable source) is making that assertion, why doesn't the article say that Adamson is making that assertion, not Maltin? Maltin is also a reasonably reputable source, and the paragraph already says where he made his comments, so from that perspective, the statement is already sourced. (If you can confirm that Adamson makes this claim, I'm happy to make this change.) Jm307 (talk) 14:21, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

If a reliable source says "X", then we generally reflect "X", we don't have to say "Adamson says X" (although we can). Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:21, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Tell you what: I'll keep in the assertion and the ref, and reword it so it makes sense to me, and we can talk more if you still think it is a problem. Jm307 (talk) 00:58, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

OK Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:07, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

It's good for me now. Thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:10, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

There's an additional problem here, which is that although Maltin mentions Adamson's book as a source in his DVD commentary, Adamson actually makes no such claim in his book; in fact, he doesn't mention the Italian cuts at all. This was simply a mistake on Maltin's part. The book he should have been referencing was Glenn Mitchell's "The Marx Brothers Encyclopedia" (1996, 2nd edition 2003), which he was certainly familiar with, as he wrote the preface to the book. In his book Mitchell makes the specific point that he was – to his knowledge – the first writer to draw attention to the Italian cuts and offer an explanation for them. Since the text now states that the assertion is found in Adamson's book (rather than saying "According to Maltin, Joe Adamson states in his book..."), it has unequivocally incorrect information and should be amended, either by acknowledging Maltin's error or finding a way to get around it by changing the wording. Veikko79 (talk) 15:05, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I made the edits myself, changing the source for the WWII reissue claim from Adamson's book to Mitchell's "The Marx Brothers Encyclopedia", and also editing the "Hungarian Rediscovery" section a bit to reflect that there are now two plausible theories about the edits (either made for the Italian market in 1938 or for a rerelease during WWII). I hope the edits were technically proper, as I haven't edited Wikipedia in a long time. Veikko79 (talk) 13:14, 15 October 2020 (UTC)