the grandchildren's parents listen helplessly on the telephone as the deaths happen. The final words are from one set of parents to another: "Our children have killed each other." In other prints, the film ends with the four horsemen riding on to create future havoc for other generations. Cast Production Development The silent film rights to the original story had been purchased by Metro in 1918 for $190,000. There had been discussions by MGM about remaking the film before the American copyright expired in 1946. The following year MGM producer Sam Marx announced the studio might remake the film as a vehicle for Ricardo Montalbán, and if they did, the story would be updated to World War II. Early in 1958, MGM set about clarifying the copyright situation. It had recently authorized a remake of Ben-Hur, which seemed to be a phenomenal success, and it was looking for other old MGM properties to remake. It obtained the necessary rights and announced they would make the movie in June 1958. Julian Blaustein was assigned as producer. Scripting Blaustein announced the story would be updated from World War I to World War II: The driving force of the book is of love among men instead of hatred. I don't think it can be said often enough that such love is indispensable for all of us if we are to have any future. If a motion picture can dramatize such a theme entertainingly then the motion picture may make a small contribution to peace in the world. It certainly impresses me as being worth the try.... The Paris of the occupation, the births of the resistance movements have never been thoroughly explored on the screen to my mind. I'm not interested in trying to recreate the shooting war. That's almost too difficult to realistically do on the screen today. What I want to put on screen is the atmosphere, so that when you sit in the theatre you will feel the hope and frustration of people struggling against invasion and may realize no man is an island. Robert Ardrey wrote the initial script. The movie was, along with a remake of Cimarron, going to be one of MGM's big films for 1960. MGM allocated a budget of $4 million and Vincente Minnelli to direct it. He said he had doubts about relocating the time period and wanted it set back in World War