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Questions about The Red Badge of Courage (1951 film)

Short answers, pulled from the story.

Who directed The Red Badge of Courage 1951 film?

The Red Badge of Courage (1951) was directed by John Huston, who also wrote the screenplay. Gottfried Reinhardt produced the film, with Dore Schary as executive producer.

Why was The Red Badge of Courage 1951 cut from its original length?

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cut the film from a two-hour assembly down to 70 minutes after poor audience responses at West Coast screenings. Huston considered his original cut the best film he had ever directed, and he and Audie Murphy unsuccessfully tried to purchase the film to restore it.

What happened to the original footage cut from The Red Badge of Courage 1951?

MGM later claimed the excised footage was destroyed, most likely in the 1965 MGM vault fire. In 1975 the studio asked Huston if he held a copy of the original cut; he confirmed he did not and that the footage no longer existed.

How did The Red Badge of Courage 1951 perform at the box office?

According to MGM records, the film earned $789,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $291,000 in other countries, resulting in a loss of $1,018,000. It ranked among the studio's least successful releases of that year.

What is Lillian Ross's book Picture about?

Picture, published in 1952 and originally serialized in The New Yorker, documents the production of The Red Badge of Courage (1951). It is a critically acclaimed firsthand account of how the film was made and the tensions between John Huston's creative vision and MGM's commercial decisions.

Who starred in The Red Badge of Courage 1951 film?

Audie Murphy played the lead role of Henry Fleming, with Bill Mauldin as Tom Wilson, Andy Devine, Arthur Hunnicutt, and Royal Dano also appearing. All three of the film's main veterans, Murphy, Mauldin, and narrator James Whitmore, had served in World War II.