What Deleted Scenes Exist From The Thrill Of It All Movie?

Scanning an old TV special and a later DVD extra gave me the clearest view of the deleted material: mostly short, character-building beats and a couple of extended comic exchanges. There’s an extra kitchen argument beat that was clearly cut to keep momentum, and a slightly longer ad-pitch bit that shows more of the agency’s internal jokes. A gag reel with flubbed lines circulates too, giving a sense of how much improvisation happened on set.

None of the deleted scenes radically change the story, but they do deepen small relationships and showcase more of the performers’ instincts. For my money, the little cuts make you appreciate both the efficiency of the final edit and the warmth of the actors in rehearsal—good stuff to watch if you’re into the craft.

Digging through old film journals and a couple of fan forums years back, I pieced together a more detailed map of what got left on the cutting-room floor for 'The Thrill of It All'. There’s an alternate opening beat that lingered on the suburban routine before the publicity blow-up, and that version shows more of the couple’s comfortable rhythm so the later pressure lands harder. Also, an extended series of reaction shots—little close-ups of the children and neighbors—were cataloged as deleted; they don’t change plot, but they enrich the neighborhood dynamic.

Film historians who’ve written about the movie also point to a trimmed montage of publicity mayhem: a few press bits and faux-interviews that turn up in production stills and script pages but not in the final cut. If you like behind-the-scenes context, those montages and the reserved alternate ending fragment available in a Warner archive listing are gold, because they show the studio’s hand in shifting tone from wry to uniformly upbeat. Finding those pieces felt like assembling a puzzle, and seeing what was kept versus discarded taught me a lot about comic rhythm and studio sensibilities—made me watch the released movie with new curiosity.

Growing up watching old screwball comedies late at night, I ended up hunting down every extra I could find for 'The Thrill of It All'—and the deleted bits are a neat peek behind the curtain. On the vintage DVD and in a few archive write-ups I tracked, there’s an extended living-room scene that was trimmed for pacing: it adds more of the couple’s domestic bickering and gives Doris Day extra room for her physical comedy. That cut really changes how sudden the career-friction feels, because you see more of the small annoyances that build up.

There’s also a longer advertising-pitch sequence featuring a few alternate jokes and ad-copy banter that James Garner delivers differently in the takes that didn’t make the final splice. Those extra beats show the agency culture more clearly and reveal a subplot about an ad campaign that was almost expanded. Finally, I found notes and a still-frame of an alternate closing shot—more intimate and less tidy—suggesting the studio opted for a brighter, more commercial wrap. I love how these fragments remind you the final film was a choice among many; the deleted material softens the edges and makes the characters feel a touch more human in my opinion.

I tracked down some production notes and a collector’s rip of the old DVD commentary, and what pops up repeatedly are a few small scenes that didn’t survive final editing. One is a family dinner sequence that ran long in rehearsal: it deepened the kids’ personalities and had a few more comic exchanges that amplified domestic strain. Another common cut was a couple of ad-agency sidelines—more filler jokes and business chatter—likely removed to keep the film snappy. A few takes of the same setups survived as outtakes in TV specials from the era, showing extra facial reactions and line flubs that never made the theatrical print.

Beyond that, early drafts of the screenplay printed in some fan magazines include an unfunded scene where the husband briefly contemplates quitting—scenes that either weren’t filmed or were filmed and cut. I like sleuthing these things out; they don’t rewrite the movie but they give texture and remind me how editors sculpt tone. Personally, those snippets make me appreciate the comic timing the director ultimately chose.