MARY FISK

Quoted in Room to Dream

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While David was editing [The Elephant Man], EMI edited a version without him, then called Mel [Brooks] and told him they'd cut the film to show him. Mel said, "I'm not even going to look at what you've done. We're going with David's version." The studio guys will crush you, and they were going to crush David, and Mel was an unreal advocate for him.

STUART CORNFELD

Quoted in Room to Dream

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The first cut of the film ran for almost three hours and was edited down to a final version that's two hours and six minutes. There were lots of shots of people walking down long hallways and atmosphere stuff that ended up being cut, but most of what was shot ended up onscreen. Mel had final cut but he deferred to David on that, and he took no credit at all on the film because he didn't want his name to create any expectations about what the film was.