Mankiewicz says he was hired because Broccoli wanted an American writer to work on the script, since so much of it was set in Las Vegas "and the Brits write really lousy American gangsters" — but it had to be someone who also understood the British idiom, since it had British characters. David Picker from United Artists had seen the stage musical "Georgy" written by Mankiewicz, and recommended him; he was hired on a two-week trial and kept on for the rest of the movie. Mankiewicz later estimated the novel provided around 45 minutes of the film's final running time.