Watching the wonderful John Wayne movie "The Cowboys", I am amazed at how it's been mutilated by the Channel 4 editors. The scene where John Wayne gets one boy to stop stuttering was cut - no doubt because a young boy using the phrase "son of a bitch" is considered unsuitable for fragile daytime viewers. They ignored the fact that it explained why the boy no longer stuttered, and that there were later references to it which were rendered meaningless.

Now they just cut out the shot which killed John Wayne, along with the most famous line of the movie. Awful treatment of a classic.

According to my copy of Halliwell's film guide - it's quite normal for films to be "speeded up" or "slowed down" to make them "fit" TV schedules.

Apparently you can "lose" 10 minutes from an average film without anyone noticing.

Projectionist sometimes used to speed the film up a bit - if it was a small house and the pub beckoned

I don't mind them cutting some scenes in order to fit the schedules, but it's when they cut key scenes that I become amazed. Another prime example is when ITV cut the scenes from the Dennis movie which showed him swapping Mr Wilson's mouthwash for nasal spray and vise versa, rendering useless the scene where Mr Wilson was suffering from the effects. They also showed where Dennis was helping the vilain out of the river, but cut the scene which explained why the vilain was in the river.

It's about applying common sence and good judgement. There are always plenty of incidental scenes which could be cut instead of the key ones.

Ah well, it could be worse, beware the dreaded directors cut!
I actively seek out the original "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind" without the apparent three hour long boring ending!