The Final Cut

"Liza has been cheated out of an Academy Award by the new ending to this movie," declared Burt Reynolds. His audience, entertainment editors from all over the U.S. and Europe, was fascinated. They were gathered on the Queen Mary, which is docked in Long Beach, Calif., to see a showing of the $13 million Lucky Lady (TIME, Dec. 22), starring Burt, Liza Minnelli and Gene Hackman. Stanley Donen, the film's director, was furious. Burt's assault was only the latest he has had to fend off since he decided to change the movie's ending a month ago.

Originally, Lucky Lady was to end with the deaths of Rumrunners Hackman and Reynolds and a hysterical scene for Minnelli, the surviving partner. But audiences do not flock to see downer endings. "I didn't want to make a bloody, serious film about rumrunning," said Donen. "You don't try to wring a tear out of an audience at the end of a film that promises humor."

The revised epilogue showed the trio 20 years later happily in bed together, and filming it was tough. The stars had dispersed, and only a day could be given to filming. In retrospect at least, no one liked the results. The makeup jobs used to age the actors were crude. When Reynolds saw himself, he cracked, "I looked just like Edmund Gwenn."

Raunchy Moment. Liza, who flew in from Rome for the previews, threatened to back out of her promotion gigs. Donen also felt like reconsidering: "The makeup was bad," he said. "The scene looked like a variety turn on the Cher show." He finally went back to work and patched together a third ending, which shows the men alive and the still youthful trio sailing off into the sunset on their brightwork cutter. Since the picture will open on Christmas Day, this is presumably the final cut. The fractious stars went back to their promo activities, leaving Donen to reflect on a raunchy moment in the ending he discarded. As the three middle-aged rogues grapple under the bedcover, Liza says, "You'd think by now we'd have this thing organized."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.