MOVIE DIRECTORS VERSUS TV EDITING : Beatty’s Recent Victory Involving Television Version of “Reds” Draws Support From Other Leading Film Makers Who Share His Disdain for Network Policies

Warren Beatty grimaced when he tuned in the television debut of “Bonnie and Clyde” on a September night 11 years ago. The blood and violence didn’t repulse him, as it did some viewers. In fact, the star and producer of the 1967 Oscar-nominated movie felt shortchanged. Half the bullets from the film were missing from the screen, scattered instead on a cutting-room floor.

“I knew every cut and every gunshot and I knew they were there for a reason,” said Beatty, sipping a Diet Coke on ice in a suite at New York’s Ritz-Carlton hotel on a recent weekend.

“And then they were gone.” The scenes were not excised for violence and language alone; there simply wasn’t enough time for all the bullets.

Director Milos Forman never thought “Hair” would make the transition to television. His contract gave him final cut (a contractual agreement guaranteeing the director’s right to approve what finally appears on the screen). Forman knew he could never pare the counterculture fable’s language and nudity enough to satisfy television standards. Someone else did that for him: In February, 1984, says Forman, executives at MGM short-circuited the deal by selling a severed version of the movie to 117 independent stations. “It was outrageous,” the director of “Amadeus” recalled. “They knew I would never approve a mutilated version, so they took the back door out.”

Edited for Television : The phrase is a director’s nightmare and a network’s obligation. Those three words are the focal point of a longtime feud between directors, who want to keep their movies intact, and the networks, which hope to protect their profits and their licenses. The feud boiled up again this month when Beatty won a ruling that guaranteed the director’s final cut and would have allowed ABC to cut only for content.

Beatty’s costly battle may prove something of a Pyrrhic victory for the 47-year-old director. “Reds” was scheduled to air in two parts, concluding tonight, but ABC decided to yank the film when it became apparent that its 200-minute length would cut into affiliate stations’ profitable local news programming. The network purchased the TV rights to the estimated $33-million movie for $6.5 million in July, 1982, before the cable and videocassette markets reduced network television to a last resort for movie viewing.

Because of diminishing returns, says CBS Senior Vice President of Entertainment Harvey Shephard, CBS has stopped buying movies for television. “There is very little market for theatrical films on television anymore,” says Shephard. “Everyone is always interested in the bigger films and those are the most overexposed anyway. They no longer get the ratings.”

Beatty is skeptical. “Of course they’ll buy movies,” says Beatty of the networks. “What they are hoping to do is lower the price. He (Shephard) doesn’t have to say that to lower the price.”

To Beatty, money is hardly the issue. In an exclusive and often emotionally charged 90-minute interview--his first since 1978--the actor-director chastised the networks for “slaughtering” movies on television. Beatty charged the networks with misleading the public through indiscriminate editing and by speeding up tapes to make movies end sooner. He also said that a high-ranking network executive confessed to him that in the last year most films, except those that aired on Sunday evenings, had been cut for time.

“They’re cutting everything, regardless of quality,” says Beatty, “and I don’t think the public knows.”

The battle over “Reds” provides a textbook case in Hollywood’s hardball economics. Early on, even though his contract gave him the coveted “final cut,” Beatty was worried about trims the network might make in the movie and expressed those concerns to Barry Diller, then Paramount chairman, and an old friend. Diller made an unusual--and what appeared to be savvy--handshake deal: If Beatty could not live with whatever cuts ABC proposed, the studio would buy the film back.

In exchange, Beatty had to help the studio land an extension on the movie rights to “Dick Tracy.” Paramount had optioned the rights to the celebrated comic strip from the Chicago Times Syndicate in 1978, and soon after Diller interested Beatty in starring in the movie. The project languished, however, when Beatty and Paramount were unable to come to terms. By October, 1983, Paramount’s rights were about to expire and studio executives were concerned that Beatty might go after the rights for himself.

“Warren never owned the rights but he had an excellent relationship with the Tribune Syndicate,” said Beatty’s attorney, Bert Fields. “When he got an extension for Paramount, that meant the studio was the only Dick Tracy store in town.” In early 1984, a deal was finally made and Beatty has agreed to star in and produce “Dick Tracy” for Paramount.

Meanwhile, on March 29, Beatty was scheduled to meet with Andre DeSzekely, executive producer and director of creative films for ABC, and Alan Wurtzel, vice president, broadcast standards and practices, to discuss the network’s proposed trims for the “Reds” broadcast. Anticipating problems, Beatty invited New York Times television reporter Sally Bedell Smith to sit in. When Beatty introduced Smith at the meeting, the network executives balked, refusing to continue until she left.

She did. But when Beatty himself started taking notes on a legal pad, he says the network again refused to continue, arguing that Beatty was no longer negotiating in good faith.

“My argument was let’s put some sunlight on this issue,” Beatty said. “Let’s let the public know what happens in this room.” In the days that followed, Beatty and the Directors Guild of America brought and won the arbitration that effectively required ABC to air all or none of “Reds.”

ABC has steadfastly refused to comment on the “Reds” case, arguing that the dispute is between Paramount and Beatty. (His final-cut contract was with the studio, not the network.) A spokesman confirmed that the meeting with Smith had taken place and added, “We do not conduct our business in front of reporters.” The New York Times never ran a story on the incident.

For Beatty, the “Reds” case is symptomatic of a much greater evil. “At a certain point, you feel a little silly about trying to retain nine minutes of a film,” he said. (ABC first proposed trims of 12 minutes, then 9 minutes, but Beatty would not relent.) “But then you remember when you were out on a location trying to get something right. To think that this goes down the tubes because someone in some town insists that the local news must start at 11 o’clock. . . . It’s bad enough it has to be interrupted by someone selling Roto-Rooter.”

Network treatment of movies has been a sore point with Beatty for years, and he readily acknowledges that he had been waiting for the right movie to challenge the networks with. When “Heaven Can Wait” first aired, Beatty convinced the network to allow the film to spill over, delaying the news. With “Shampoo,” which aired in 1979, Beatty thought the sexual content could have sidetracked the issue and he decided not to make a stand.

But with “Reds,” a best-picture Oscar winner, Beatty believed he had the right test case. “I feel I’m endowed with a certain responsibility to respond on behalf of this very fragile medium of movies,” Beatty said, choosing his words carefully. “It is important how movies are cut, and the best people to adjudicate the way they are cut are those making them.”

Beatty is by no means alone in his contempt for the networks’ treatment of movies. DGA President Gil Cates recently announced that the guild will argue for the right to prevent networks from cutting for time in their next round of negotiations with the Assn. of Motion Picture and Television Producers in 1987. “We want to ensure that films are aired on television in the same way they are presented in the theaters,” Cates said.

Elia Kazan, 75, now working on his autobiography in New York, gave up watching his movies on TV years ago when a dramatic courtroom scene in “On the Waterfront” was interrupted by a commercial that was set--of all places--in a courtroom. “It’s outrageous what they can do without our permission,” Kazan said. “They make us look inept. We all work very hard on cutting our films and some damn fool starts cutting just to get the commercials in. It’s shameful.”

Martin Scorsese, whose films have been sharply edited because of their often violent content, hopes Beatty’s public outcry might heighten public awareness on the subject. “What he (Beatty) is trying to do is lay the foundation for a philosophical change where the emphasis is off economics and onto art,” Scorsese said in a telephone interview. “If we can just raise people’s consciousness to appreciating movies as an art form--after all, a movie is like a moving painting.”

But whose canvas is it anyway? “What would you think of a guy who chops two feet off Michelangelo’s statue of David because the ceiling is too low?” asks director Milos Forman, puffing furiously on a Dunhill Montecruz cigar. “Would you think he’s barbaric? Uncivilized? That’s the same thing these people are doing.”

Despite such ardent pleas, movies are likely to continue going to the chopping block. And it’s not just the networks that are doing the cutting. Airlines regularly show edited versions of movies, sometimes for time and sometimes for content. And director Scorsese says he’s heard whispers that even cable has started cutting for time so that movies can be aired on the hour. Seth Abraham, senior vice president program operations for HBO said HBO has never shortened a movie for broadcast. “We play uncut, uninterrupted, uncensored movies,” he said. “We don’t worry about the clock the way commercial networks do.”

“It all comes back to the same question,” Beatty says. “Do we want to make an art form out of the movies, or do we want to just say they’re made for distraction.”

That kind of thinking prompts a cynical reaction from some Hollywood quarters, but that doesn’t bother Beatty. “What are we spending our time doing this for?” he asks, exasperated. “Acting and directing movies are hard enough for me anyway. You feel foolish enough when you are trying to keep a 95,000-ton souffle from falling, so we have to go through some rituals in order to keep our dignity in this work.”

Ironically, the battle over “Reds” ends with a finish only Hollywood could have scripted. On the surface, at least, there are no losers.

ABC is happy because it got its $6.5 million back--a price that in retrospect seemed far too high.

Paramount is happy because it has “Dick Tracy,” a project that on paper has great commercial potential.

And Warren Beatty is happy too. He and his movie have narrowly dodged the editing knife, proving that the clock does not always have final cut.