Trivia / The Guardian (1990)

• Alan Smithee: A cable television version of the film is not billed to William Friedkin, but to Alan Von Smithee. This, despite the fact that Friedkin claims on the film's audio-commentary he never heard of such a version. There are two versions of the film: the theatrical cut, credited to Friedkin, and a modified cut, credited to Smithee. The Smithee cut has never been released on home video or DVD, and has only been shown on cable. It includes new scenes, including another scene in the hospital, different dream sequences, a scene of Camilla waking Kate up and alternate angles for other scenes. Also, the ending of the cable cut is different and omits much of the gore.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget, unknown. Box office, $17,037,887.
• Creator Backlash:
  • William Friedkin disowned the cable TV version, mostly due to some small changes and a different ending.
  • Jenny Seagrove was unhappy with the film's constant re-writes, and wanted to make a completely different film. She said to The Guardian in 2007:
  It was about this druid nanny who became a tree. I begged Universal to make it about a real nanny who kidnaps babies. 'No, no, we can't do that,' they said, 'the thirty somethings in America won't come and see the film.' I said, 'I think you're completely wrong; this film is total fantasy, and it's just awful.' Two years later The Hand That Rocks the Cradle was released, so I rang up my friend at Universal and he said, "Don't. Don't even talk about it, you were right".
• The Other Marty: Actor Paul Rawson was originally cast as, Scotty. Rawson fell ill weeks into production. Despite being eight years old, devastated and ill, begged William Friedkin to shoot his scenes near the end of production. Friedkin couldn't afford to change most of the shooting schedule and therefor hired someone else. After seeing the finished film upon its release, Rawson has gone on to say that he was very grateful for having the flu when he did and still has his original script.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Uma Thurman was almost cast as Camilla Grandier.
  • The film was originally going to be directed by Sam Raimi, but dropped out to focus on Darkman instead.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: William Friedkin was never happy with the script, so he kept rewriting it during filming. This proved frustrating to the actors who kept having to learn new lines.

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