I Restored a Missing Sequence from the Classic 1969 Film The Italian Job with the Help of AI.

Restored and remastered with AI, the missing scene was uncovered by a Channel 4 documentary on the classic British film in 1998. The clip shows the Mini Coopers being chased onto an ice-rink by the Police, and the pursuers and the pursued then engage in a surreal waltz to the “Blue Danube”. (Possibly satirizing Stanley Kubrick’s 2001) before the Coopers race off again.

The scene was shot and edited together, but was cut out of the final movie because it dissipated the tension of the chase. Now known as the ‘Blue Danube scene’ the segment was choreographed and performed in an exhibition hall in Turin, usually used for the Turin Motor Show.

The three Minis waltz with three Alfa Romeo Italian Police Cars. The music is supplied by the Turin Symphony Orchestra, who perform the ‘Blue Danube’ by the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II, composed in 1866. Writer Troy Martin Kennedy was apparently not impressed when he heard about the inclusion of the extra scene as he thought it would slow down the fast pace of the getaway chase.