of the Madonna as though it were Fonda's mother (who had committed suicide when he was 10 years old) and ask her why she left him. Although Fonda was reluctant, he eventually complied. Later Fonda used the inclusion of this scene, along with the concluding scene, as leverage to persuade Bob Dylan to allow the use of Roger McGuinn's cover of "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding). Post-production Despite being filmed in the first half of 1968, roughly between Mardi Gras and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, with production starting on February 22, the film did not have a U.S. premiere until July 1969, after having won an award at the Cannes film festival in May. The delay was partially due to a protracted editing process. Inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of Hopper's proposed cuts was 220 minutes long, including extensive use of the "flash-forward" narrative device, wherein scenes from later in the movie are inserted into the current scene. Only one flash-forward survives in the final edit: when Wyatt in the New Orleans brothel has a premonition of the final scene. At the request of Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, Henry Jaglom was brought in to edit the film into its current form, while Schneider purchased a trip to Taos for Hopper so he wouldn't interfere with the recut. Upon seeing the final cut, Hopper was originally displeased, saying that his movie was "turned into a TV show," but he eventually accepted, claiming that Jaglom had crafted the film the way Hopper had originally intended. Despite the large part he played in shaping the film, Jaglom only received credit as an "Editorial Consultant." It is unclear what the exact running time of original rough cut of the movie was: four hours, four and a half hours, or five hours. In 1992 the film's producers, Schneider and Rafelson, sued Columbia Pictures over missing negatives, edit footage and damaged prints holding them negligent concerning these assets. Some of the scenes which were in the original cut but were deleted are: The original opening showing Wyatt and Billy performing in a Los Angeles stunt show (their real jobs) Wyatt and Billy being ripped off by the promoter Wyatt and Billy getting in a biker fight Wyatt and Billy picking up women at a drive-in Wyatt and Billy cruising to and escaping from Mexico to score the cocaine they sell