Being Hal Ashby. Nick Dawson

cut at a brisk pace, and Ashby's decision to end the latter scene on a shot of an exhilarated, blood-hungry Ann-Margret in the audience, rather than the birds tearing each other apart, was an inspired and effective one.

      Ashby had no preconceived ideas about how a film should be cut. “The film will tell you how to edit it,” he said. “The film will tell you what to do in the end.”¹⁶ And just as Jewison kept Ransohoff at arm's length, Ashby let Jewison know he needed space in order to edit effectively.

      “I was always very rebellious and I fought real hard,” he confessed later. At one point, Jewison asked Ashby whether he should come to the editing room so that he could possibly help him “pick some takes and things.” “Well, Christ, if you don't trust me,” Ashby retorted, “why don't you get somebody else? You go fucking cut the picture!” They would look at the film together, he explained, when he'd finished editing it.¹⁷

      Even after this outburst, Ashby still had to fight for his autonomy. During his years in television, Jewison had picked up the habit of snapping his fingers where he felt there should be a cut and would irritate Ashby by doing this while they were watching dailies. After three days of putting up with this, Ashby snapped his fingers just as Jewison was about to. They laughed about it, but Jewison knew never to do it again.

      The importance of The Cincinnati Kid in both Ashby's and Jewison's careers cannot be overestimated. Jewison said the film “really kind of saved me emotionally” and called it “the one that made me feel like I had finally become a filmmaker.”¹⁸ As for Ashby, after his anguish over The Loved One, working with Jewison on The Cincinnati Kid revitalized him: “I also got my head together at the same time. I was feelin' good, and from there on, things really happened.”¹⁹

      The Cincinnati Kid opened on October 15, 1965, to generally very positive reviews, particularly in the trades. Variety said: “Jewison early establishes the rightful mood for the story and he draws top performances from his entire cast.…His tempo is aided by the sharp editing of Hal Ashby, whose shears enable quick change of scene.”²⁰ The Hollywood Reporter waxed lyrical about the film, dubbing it “thoroughly satisfying…in every way” and one of the best of the year, and saying that “Jewison's direction stamps him unmistakably as an important movie director, daring, imaginative, assured.” Ashby's editing also drew praise for ensuring “the tempo never slackens from the opening shots, though it is never hurried or brusque.”²¹

      The Loved One opened the same week to a decidedly mixed reception, gaining the notoriety that Richardson no doubt had hoped for. The Hollywood Reporter's reviewer feared that “its sick, sick message may be taken to heart and purse by younger audiences,” while Variety felt it was “so way out…—frequently beyond all bounds of propriety in an attempt at brilliance—that its appeal probably will be restricted to circles which like their entertainment weird.”²² Critics found it more black than comic, audiences were more confused than amused, and—despite its all-star cast and MGM's high hopes—the film underperformed at the box office.

      Conversely, The Cincinnati Kid was a big hit, earning $6 million domestically and $10 million worldwide, and guaranteeing Jewison a bright future. Ashby found himself best friends with a young(ish) director on the up who wanted to take his editor along with him. And by the time The Cincinnati Kid opened, filming on The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming was well under way.

      7

      Motion Picture Pioneers of America

      All of us, including Hal Ashby, although we didn't share some ideology or some political party, we did have strong feelings about what America was and what we could be, and we felt our responsibilities as artists and citizens.

      —Haskell Wexler

      Back in 1963, Jewison had bought the rights to Nathaniel Benchley's The Off-Islanders, a novel about a Russian submarine that gets beached off the New England coast. He had engaged William Rose, the writer of Genevieve (1953) and The Ladykillers (1955), to adapt the book, but it was Christmas 1964 before Rose delivered his first draft. Jewison could not interest any of the studios in a film that they felt was, as he put it, “about a bunch of communists,” but he set it up as part of his three-picture deal at the Mirisch Corporation.¹ Run by brothers Walter, Marvin, and Harold Mirisch, the company had already attracted top-line directors like Billy Wilder and William Wyler by offering them complete creative control.

      Jewison and Ashby saw an opportunity to make an antiwar film that stressed the similarities between the opposing sides in the Cold War and would humanize the Russian sailors whom the Cape Cod residents mistakenly believe are invading their little island. As soon as The Cincinnati Kid was ready for release, Jewison went upstate to Mendocino County, California—which was doubling as Cape Cod—to begin shooting the film, now called The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming.

      When filming began on September 9, 1965, Ashby was back in Los Angeles, and every day new footage was flown down to him. Despite what one might expect from a future director, he was happier being away from filming, as it allowed him to focus entirely on the material. “I didn't want to know what the problems were,” he said. “If it took you eight hours to get this particular shot because of this and that, I didn't care; what was important was what was happening on the piece of film. You put the film together and tell the story in the certain way you feel it from the film you have.”² They spoke on the phone every night to discuss the dailies, and even though Jewison had J. Terry Williams, his editor on the Doris Day picture Send Me No Flowers (1964), working alongside Ashby, it was Ashby he most depended on. “He was my rock,” recalls Jewison. “He was totally supportive. Everything I shot, he loved. Whatever I did, he would fix it.”³

      The understanding Ashby and Jewison achieved in their working relationship was remarkable. “It was the most productive partnership imaginable,” Ashby wrote. “From in front, Norman always gave me good film. Then, to top it off, he trusted me and my instincts. He never stood behind me in the cutting room. He let me select, and cut his film as I felt it. It was an editor's dream.”⁴

      On December 6, location filming on Russians ended, and Jewison and the company returned to Hollywood to shoot a week of interiors. Around that time, it was announced that Johnny Mandel—who a few months later won an Academy Award for Best Song for The Sandpiper (1965)—would write the score for Russians. By chance, Ashby and Mandel, both excelling in their fields, ended up working together.

      As Ashby settled into his work, he found that the material posed some unique challenges. A particular problem was the inconsistency from shot to shot caused by the fickle Mendocino weather. As the production designer, Robert Boyle, remembered, there would be “six kinds of weather every day,” including “absolutely dense fog, heavy rain, bright sunshine,” and this made cutting scenes together difficult and allowed very little editorial leeway. Boyle recalled that in dealing with this problem, Ashby displayed “an editorial genius. He was just marvelous. He would take pieces of film from the end—sometimes the wardrobe didn't even match—but if it worked he could put it together.”⁵

      Ashby's main challenge, however, was how to structure the film; with five or six separate plotlines, it could have been cut together in an infinite number of ways. Ashby created version after version, turning the film inside out and then back again as he worked to find the most watchable and logical sequence of scenes. The difficulties, however, seemed only to fuel his creativity. “That was a lot of fun to edit, a lot of craziness going on,” he recalled. “Whenever there's craziness going on it's always fun because you can get a little crazier, you know, and that's always a great relief. The crazier you get, the better chance you have of surviving it all.”⁶

      Someone who added to Ashby's fun in the editing room was Pablo Ferro. The young Cuban-born, New York–based graphic artist had made an impact with the title sequence for Dr. Strangelove and was now designing the opening credits for Russians. Ferro was immediately taken with Ashby and would become one of his