"Merrill's Marauders" was photographed by William H. Clothier, who used a trick from his work on "The Alamo" - silence precedes and follows the loud battle scenes. Fuller also eschewed sound effects for the sound of blanks. The U.S. Army was upset at the mood of and events in the film, particularly scenes in the Shaduzup maze of GIs accidentally killing other GIs, and had the scenes deleted. The original Shadazup maze scene was a single take with panning across the battle instead of cutting to close-ups of who was shooting whom. The studio told Fuller it looked "too artistic" and had a second unit director reshoot some of the scenes (only one scene appeared in the final print), and also changed the original ending to feature soldiers on dress parade, which angered Fuller; he fought the studio, and they dropped plans to film "The Big Red One".