How can they see with sequins in their eyes? If you saw Adam McKay’s Dick Cheney biopic Vice and guessed, based purely on editing, that there was a musical number somewhere on the cutting room floor, we’ve got excellent news. Fox released the deleted song-and-dance scene, which features Alabama Shakes front woman Brittany Howard belting out the shadier secrets to political success, while accompanied by Hamilton choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler’s graceful hoofing.
The number provides a backing track for Donald Rumsfeld, played by Steve Carrell, as he delivers a frank explainer to Christian Bale’s Dick Cheney on how to manipulate Washington bureaucracy. Unfortunately, as the film’s editor told The Hollywood Reporter back in January, the scene was ultimately sacrificed to preserve narrative flow. “Adam directed the heck out of it; it was really entertaining,†said Hank Corwin. “But what we found was, in the context of the film, it weighed the film down at the wrong time. Because if you’re going to do something underhanded, it can be tough to pull it off with jazz hands.