Although a 140-page shooting script was delivered by May 1962, filming proceeded without a finished script and on-set rewrites were frequent. It had been suggested that a native British screenwriter should revise the dialogue for Niven's character for which Robert Hamer had been hired for the task. Ultimately, his services were later turned away as Hamer had sunken into alcoholism. Four weeks later into production, Niven threatened to walk off set unless the script was rewritten. Yordan ordered Gordon to write "a "Hamlet" scene for him, and he'll shut up." Gordon then wrote four to five pages of monologue for Niven's character to self-reflect on his actions. The new scenes were sent to Niven for which he returned to finish filming. As production continued, Gardner was difficult during the shoot, often turning up late, disliking the script, and drinking heavily. One day, she walked off set claiming an extra had taking her photograph. Ultimately, the idea to write Gardner out of the film came from screenwriter Ben Barzman, who had rewrote "El Cid". According to Heston, Yordan had written a death scene in which the Baroness dies of shrapnel wounds. By the time the scene was shot, Gardner struggled to remember her lines. Heston then suggested giving her lines to Paul Lukas, who was playing a physician. On September 11, 1962, Ray was hospitalized after suffering a heart attack. At this point, production had fallen six weeks behind schedule with Gardner's role being nearly complete, but significant scenes for Heston and Niven had yet to be shot. To replace him, Heston suggested Guy Green, who had previously directed him in "Diamond Head" (1963) to finish the remaining scenes between him and Gardner. Green subsequently left production, and by October 1962, directorial duties were transferred to Andrew Marton, who was directing second unit. Marton reflected, "When I came onboard, I thought the picture was very shallow, just action, action, action - there was no meaning. I wrote a new beginning and a new ending and submitted them to management - who consisted of Bronston and Michael Wasynski...Anyway, they said 'No' with a capital N capital O. And I was very unhappy." Regardless, Marton invited director John Ford onto the set to advise him on shooting the sequences. Filming was finished on October 20, 1962, for which Heston wrote in his journal, "What I have learned from this, I hope permanently, is never start a film without a good finished script."