After viewing the ‘final’ cut of the film in September 1977, he wrote to Fassbinder: ‘Stoppard called yesterday... he is now convinced that we have done a marvelous film and is very excited. I told him that he would be shocked here and there the first time around, but that he would be immeasurably proud the second time. I hope this is correct.’ (Watson, 27)

But in the seven-month interval between the version he had seen and what was actually shown at Cannes in May, Bogarde concluded that Fassbinder had edited his part ‘to bits’. In a letter to Wallace Watson, he indicated he was ‘profoundly disappointed when he saw the film at Cannes... in the intervening time Fassbinder had cut the film substantially.’ (27) He believed that the drastic editing was in part to blame for his losing the Best Actor Award to Jon Voight. With a certain amount of disillusioned resignation, Bogarde returned to his farm, pointing out to one interviewer: ‘I retreated, not retired, a whole different thing.’ (Bilbow, 212) Yet Bogarde had now reached the satisfying position where his innovative work with Visconti, Resnais and Fassbinder put him in high esteem with a new group of young British filmgoers. (Coldstream, 416-417)