Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1081203
22 CINEMONTAGE / Q1 2019 reform and sympathizes with the rioters' demands. The film rioters' demands were the same as the demands of the Jackson inmates: remodeling cell blocks to give inmates more room and light; separating the mentally disturbed for medical treatment; getting rid of manacles, leg irons, chains and brutal guards; and no reprisals against riot leaders and participants. Wanger added one demand in the screenplay: "Teach us a trade so when we get out we'll be able to hold down a job." He also insisted that Collins eliminate the scripted opening scene starting with a shot of a robin in the warden's wife's garden just outside the walls. Instead, he wanted him to drop the wife and open with newsreel footage of prison riots of the early '50s. From the first shooting script to the final cut of October 20, the producer kept up a continuing correspondence with Production Code Administration (PCA) chief Joseph Breen. On June 17, Breen acknowledged that Wanger "had already eliminated references to perverts and homosexuals," but requested that "the intimate parts of women, specifically the breasts…be fully covered at all times," referring to pin-up pictures posted in convicts' cells. Breen still maintained his major objection to the script on July 21 — "that it definitely throws sympathy to the side of the criminals as opposed to constituted authority and the administration of justice." The PCA gave its approval in October after Wanger described his research, which included listing the penal authorities consulted: Folsom warden Robert Heinze, associate warden William Ryan, and California Department of Corrections director Richard Magee. On July 22, Siegel was hired as director for a $10,000 flat fee. Starting in the industry at Warner Bros. in 1934, he worked up from the stock-shot library to editing to founding the studio's montage department, directing second-unit shoots and editing the material into montages for many Warner pictures until he began directing features in 1946. His early experience is apparent in Riot's opening prison montage and its smooth transition into the film's narrative. Editor Bruce B. Pierce, ACE, assembled an early cut while Siegel shot on location, and they worked closely together through post. As to working with Collins on the final draft of the script, the director told Peter Bogdanovich in a 1968 interview in the English film magazine Movie, "I felt this picture had something to say and didn't choose sides… I molded the script so it would have the excitement it does have. Dick Collins wrote it all — but I think he would admit I contributed." Wanger and Siegel scouted Alcatraz, San Quentin and Folsom as possible locations, deciding on Folsom when they learned the prison had an empty 1880s-built two-story cell block which the production could take over completely. Despite Siegel's guarantee of a 16-day shoot, warden Heinze was reluctant to permit it because a movie shoot went 11 days over schedule in 1951. To ease the warden's mind, Siegel introduced him to the crew members who were on the scouting trip — most importantly, he thought, cinematographer Russell Harlan, ASC, who lensed regularly for director Howard Hawks. But when Heinze met the production assistant on his first movie job (hired with a recommendation from then- California attorney general, later governor, Edmond G. Brown, Sr.), he recognized Sam Peckinpah, the son of prominent Fresno judge Denver Peckinpah. According to Siegel, in the 1993 A Siegel Film: An Autobiography, the warden made the future director the film's production liaison, telling him, "If you run into any trouble, or have need of any information, be THIS QUARTER IN FILM HISTORY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20 CONTINUED ON PAGE 24 Riot in Cell Block 11. Allied Artists Pictures/ Photofest