'Scrapped' Burton film footage gets a public showing

Previously unseen footage of Richard Burton from an abandoned film project is to be given its first screening.

The Welsh star, renowned for his commanding screen presence, was dumped from the film Laughter In The Dark after only a few days worth of material had been shot.

It's to be shown at the Bradford Film Festival this month as part of a season devoted to unfinished films.

The film, based on a novel by Lolita writer Vladimir Nabokov, was directed by Tony Richardson.

Burton's departure was never fully explained but he was replaced by Nicol Williamson.

The few surviving minutes of footage of Burton were rescued and are now in the possession of author and film historian Kevin Brownlow.

The material has never been publicly screened before and will form part of a talk by movie expert Eric Monder on other great unfinished films on Monday.

It will also feature fragments of Marilyn Monroe in Something's Got to Give, Orson Welles's Don Quixote and test footage of Hitchcock's Kaleidoscope.

The Festival is organised by Britain's National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford.

A museum spokesman said: "Burton was one of our greatest screen actors and this fragment, from a time in his troubled career when he was still capable of brilliance, gives a glimpse of what would have been a very different film to the one Tony Richardson eventually made."

Burton, famously married to Liz Taylor, died in 1984 aged 58 from a brain haemorrhage.