10 Film Director's Cuts That Actually Made The Movie Shorter

Shorter by: 29 minutes

The undisputed champion of the shorter director's cut, Breakfast At Tiffany's director Blake Edwards shed the best part of half an hour when producing his preferred cut of this disastrous box office bomb musical spy romance.

The film, in which Julie Andrews plays a First World War-era English musical performer who is secretly a German spy, had a hugely troubled production with its budget spiraling out of control and studio Paramount constantly interfering with Edwards's shooting process.

The studio ended up making their own cut of the movie without much involvement from Edwards and giving it a very limited distribution, which resulted in the already cash-strapped Paramount making losses over $10 million (a pretty huge amount for 1970).

In 1991, two decades after the movie first flopped, Edwards was given the opportunity to cut together his own version. While the movie that 70s audiences first got to see was well over two hours (running to 136 minutes), back in the hands of its director Darling Lili is a much brisker 107 minute movie. Much easier to handle even if it's not exactly a masterpiece.

Still, if the slashing of Darling Lili from theatrical to director's cut seems like a lot, let's not forget that, like many other blockbuster musicals, it was also originally shown in an extended "Roadshow release" at Radio City Music Hall with a lengthy overture. The roadshow version of Darling Lili ran to a monumental 190 minutes, almost an hour and a half more than the final director's cut!