Beatty Wins Battle; ‘Reds’ Won’t Be Cut for ABC-TV

Actor-director Warren Beatty won a decision in arbitration Monday that will require ABC-TV to run the entire 200-minute version of “Reds” when the 1981 Oscar-winning movie debuts on network TV.

To avoid spillover into local evening news programs, ABC had contracted with Paramount Pictures to show a version of the film with about 10 minutes, or 5%, of the picture cut. When Beatty could not persuade the network to run his original version, he took the battle to arbitration. Entertainment attorney Edward Mosk ruled that Beatty did have the right to final cut.

“He (Beatty) concedes they have the right to cut the picture for censorship reasons (i.e., nudity and language) but that is not the issue here,” Beatty’s attorney, Burt Fields, said. “His position was you can’t cut movies like sausages to fit preconceived time slots.”

Networks often insist on their own cut to ensure that affiliates will be able to show news programs in their entirety. An ABC-TV spokesman confirmed that the film will not air as scheduled April 28-29 but would not make any further comments. A Paramount Pictures spokesman said the studio had no comment.

According to Fields, Beatty spent a full year cutting “Reds” and insisted that the 12 minutes of cuts that ABC-TV proposed significantly altered the movie. “This was a battle for all directors,” Fields said. “You take 5% out of a picture and all of the scenes are changed.”

Only a handful of movies have cut into the coveted news time before. Ironically, one of the few was another Beatty movie, “Heaven Can Wait.”