The “funny, almost endearing” comedy scene that was wisely cut from ‘Saving Private Ryan’
A recurring issue a lot of viewers have with modern movies is when jokes, gags, quips, and one-liners are unnecessarily forced into the script for no reason, and as hard as it seems to believe, it almost happened to Saving Private Ryan.
Then again, maybe it’s not so hard to believe, seeing as Steven Spielberg was at the helm. If there are any flaws in his directorial game, and there aren’t many, seeing as he’s literally the most commercially successful in history, it’s that he’d rather drench his films in sentimentality than embrace the darkness.
That doesn’t apply to his World War II masterpiece, though, which parachutes audiences into the thick of the action and refuses to relent. The filmmaker turned his entire philosophy upside down to make a visceral, brutal, improvisational, intense, and immersive drama, and going against the grain yielded one of his finest hours behind the camera.
However, this being Spielberg, he couldn’t help himself. While there are a few moments of levity sprinkled throughout Saving Private Ryan, which helps humanise the characters and establish them as everyday people placed in extraordinary circumstances, a sight gag ripped right out of a sketch comedy would have been the most jarring and ill-advised scene in the entire film, bar none.
Around the midway point, Tom Hanks’ John Miller and the rest of his squad debate whether or not to execute or free a German prisoner of war. After making him dig his own grave, and against the wishes of several of the soldiers under his command, the decision is made to blindfold the captive and tell him to walk a thousand paces in the opposite direction before he removes it.
Of course, that comes back to haunt them when the very same prisoner utilises his newfound freedom to shoot and kill Miller during the climactic battle sequence, before being gunned down himself by Jeremy Davies’ Upham, who was the only one who spoke to their adversary like he was a real person, bringing the minor character’s arc full circle.
In an internal memo from March 1997, four months before the first day of shooting, it was revealed that Spielberg lobbied to go full slapstick. “Steven preferred that when Miller’s team lets the German go, there is a warm, almost comical feel to the scene,” it read, before detailing exactly what he had in mind.
“When the troops release the German, they blindfold him and instruct him to keep walking straight for 100 yards. They then head off, but turn to see that by a stroke of bad luck, the German is about to hit the only tree in the entire field! They make bets about whether or not he will hit the tree and then watch breathlessly. The German trips over a rock, gets turned around, and then crashes straight into the tree.”
Would it have come complete with comedy sound effects, too? The memo notes that “this funny, almost endearing moment coldly contrasts the feeling when the German blindly shoots Miller later in the story,” but everyone would agree that Saving Private Ryan was much better off without an unnecessary moment of mirth.
