OK, in that thread you wrote:
I don't own this yet (and may not given the following) but a friend has alerted me to a surprising variation in the opening sequences of the movie which differ significantly from the original print.
I am quoting from the SBS Australia TV print (one of their few good ones) and many many theatrical viewings of it since 1971.
In the new disc the movie begins as follows:
Opening faux news footage (with Paso lurking in the background as a reporter); then the credits over the volcanic ash; then the party scene at the household in which a girl says in English to Wiazemsky "who's that boy?", she replies, in English "oh, a boy." Scene goes on to show Terrence in long shot background, cuts to admiring Sylvano, cuts to Terrence in Medium. THEN comes a short sequence in Black and white of the householders going about daily chores. THEN the short sequence of Ninetto Davoli delivering a telegram, apparently announcing Terrence's arrival after we have already seen him at the party.
THEN the movie proceeds with the garden scene with Laura Betti and Terry, her attempted gassing etc and the rest of the movie progresses as normally.
In what I always understood to be the original release print the sequences are:
Faux news footage; credits over ash; party scene (all exactly as the same as K-L). THEN immediately cuts to the Laura Betti and Terry in the garden scene and the movie progresses through the family seductions, ending with the father, to approx 36 minutes in (PAL time) when Ninetto delivers the telegram with no dialogue mentioning arrival. In the next sequence mention is made of Terry having to "return", and so on.
I am totally puzzled by the B&W footage which I have NEVER seen, and this seemingly incongruous, insertion of the Ninetto telegram scene into the wrong part of the movie.
...and the BFI disc looks like this:
1) Faux news footage (i.e. the interview outside the factory)
2) Credits over ash, culminating in colour pan around the volcanic landscape with strikingly blue sky;
3) Sepia-tinted BW sequence, starting with silent shots of factories, then introducing us to individual family members (no diegetic sound: just Ennio Morricone's discordant score) - Paolo driving car; Pietro clowning with his classmates prior to meeting a girlfriend; Odetta walking with fellow students through parked cars, looking pensive, encounter with unidentified man and brief squabble over photo album, followed by them running through the tree-lined avenue; Lucia reading, brief (still silent) conversation with Emilia, followed by Emilia answering the door to the postboy (the music has changed to a catchy pop tune, but there's still no diegetic sound). He then prances off.
4) The dinner scene with the telegram (still in sepia-tinted silent BW)
5) The party scene, in full colour with diegetic sound, in which we see the stranger for the first time.
6) The sequence with Emilia in the garden watching the stranger...
...and so on.
But it's worth noting that there are actually two scenes with Ninetto delivering a telegram - the first announces the stranger's arrival (so it's appropriate that this scene should precede the first shots of the stranger at the party), and the second announces his departure approx. half an hour later. The first telegram scene is silent, but the second includes a conversation in which Emilia's name is revealed for the first time.
Does that help?
(
UPDATE: Reading the rest of that thread, it looks as though it matches the VHS version described a few posts later on. And DVD commentator Robert Gordon has definitely done his homework (he quotes extensively from the script), so I suspect he'd have noticed if the footage was in the wrong sequence.)
