November 8, 1949 –
Robert Rossen’s adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer winning novel, All The King’s Men, starring Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge, and Joanne Dru, opened in New York City on this date.
Al Clark did the original cut, but had trouble turning the footage into a coherent narrative. Robert Rossen and Harry Cohn brought Robert Parrish on board to see what he could do. Rossen had a hard time cutting anything he shot, and after several weeks the movie was still over 4 hours long. Cohn was prepared to release the cut after one more preview, throwing Rossen into a panic. Rossen told Parrish “select what you consider to be the core of each scene, put the film in the sync machine and wind down 100 feet before and 100 feet after, and chop it off, regardless of what’s going on. Cut through dialogue, music, anything. Then, when you’re finished, we’ll run the picture and see what we’ve got“. When Parrish was done, they were left with a 109-minute movie. After the film won an Academy Award for Best Picture, Cohn repeatedly gave Parrish credit for saving the film, even though Parrish only did what Rossen told him to do.
The Haus of Dcaligari 