There seems to be a little confusion regarding the various versions of The Executioner's Song. I read the book written by Norman Mailer in 1980 and looked forward to seeing the film. The original film version was a made for TV mini series which aired in 1982. That version was much longer and also had numerous period songs included. Those songs were listed in the credits at the end. The TV mini-series version did not contain any profanity or full nudity. Some scenes were darkened and some were eliminated while extra scenes with additional dialogue were included. The second version was aired on cable television. It was the same version that was released in Europe in 1985. It was also released on "USA Home Video" on VHS tape. That version was much shorter; however it contained profanity, more violence and several nude scenes of Rosanna Arquette and Tommy Lee Jones. Those scenes seemed a little bit dark however. Also, several period songs were removed from the film even though they are still listed in the credits. The newest version of the film which I watched on Net Flix recently is also referred to as "The Director's Cut". I own the original 1985 "Big Box" VHS tape of the European version and compared those two versions scene by scene. The newest version includes all of the profanity, violence and all of the nude scenes from the European version. The content is exactly the same. The main difference in the two versions is that the newer DVD is much brighter, has more clarity and the colors are superior by far. The nude scenes are not darkened at all. The sound is a bit louder on the old VHS version though. The period songs that were taken out of the film are no longer listed in the end credits with the exception of one Neil Young song only. Waylon Jennings is given credit for all of the original songs he wrote for the film. I do not own the original TV mini-series version from 1982 and have to rely upon my memory to compare it to the newer versions. With that said, I prefer the new high quality version to the older, longer made for TV mini-series and also to the inferior quality European VHS release. Basically what you get with the newest release is a much higher quality European version. Did I mention that a much younger Rosanna Arquette is nude in several scenes?
