Show Business: Uprising at MGM

Producer-Director Herbert B. Leonard had just turned in the finished version of his movie Going Home to MGM. Arriving for a scheduled meeting with MGM President James Aubrey, he was told that Aubrey was busy recutting a new film and could not be disturbed. "What movie is he recutting?" Leonard asked. "Yours," came the reply.

In Hollywood, it was nothing new for a studio boss to fiddle with a director's efforts. What was unusual was that Leonard, unlike the sometimes helplessly subordinate directors of old, protested loudly and publicly. In the version of Going Home that was recently released, starring Robert Mitchum,...