The editing of "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" took much longer than its filming. Altman and Lou Lombardo, the editor and second unit director, spent nine months editing the film in North Vancouver, close to the location of the filming itself. The editing was an innovation in its time because the principal storyline about John McCabe and Constance Miller occupies relatively little of the film's running time, especially in the first half of the film. Pauline Kael emphasized this in her 1971 review of the film. She wrote,