Video Variation

Last week, as promised in an earlier news item here, The Movie Channel ran The Night They Raided Minsky's.  What we didn't know then was that someone has made an interesting alteration in the film.  In theatres and in its earlier video releases, the movie ended with an instrumental medley of several of the songs from the film.  The version run on T.M.C. replaced that with Rudy Vallee's vocal rendition of the title song, which was heard on the soundtrack album but not on the soundtrack.  And since this song runs longer than what it replaced, they did a video freeze-frame on the last shot of the movie to extend it.  I'm guessing the change was made by someone at M.G.M.-U.A., possibly as they transferred and remastered the film for a forthcoming DVD release…though other explanations are possible.