Aside from various shots of Robocop driving, Hellman worked on the following scenes:
1. The boardroom scene in which the malfunctioning ED-209 robot kills OCP executive Kinney (Ken Page): "I did the close shots of Ed shooting the employee who falls on the model city (on the employee getting shot, not Ed). You can pretty much tell what I shot by whether there are other characters in the shot. On bullet hits, both in the scene where he falls on the model city, and at the end, my material is always isolated on the characters getting the hits."40 Hellman also recalls shooting "blood running through the streets of the model city, close shots of the model being shot up and the blood running through it,"41 but none of this footage was used in the final version: "They may have been forced to cut the footage of the model, since it was possibly too graphic for sensitive audiences. Verhoeven usually tries to stretch the envelope."42 After Hellman's departure, Jon Davison was asked to shoot footage that would make this scene even more graphic. As Davison recalls, "Paul felt there wasn't enough blood and carnage in what he shot; he felt the same about what Monte shot, so it is my recollection that I was the last to have a go at it. I sent the FX guys down to 7-Eleven to buy the biggest baggies made, filled them full of stage blood and taped them all over Kinney's body and blew the hell out of him. Paul was happy, the MPAA wasn't."43 Hellman also directed two exterior shots of the glass elevator at the Plaza of the Americas in Dallas—one showing it going up at the beginning of the sequence, the other showing it coming down at the end — as well as a single close-up of a scientist's hands pulling wires out of a computer in order to shut down ED-209.
2. The sequence in which Murphy (Peter Weller) and Lewis (Nancy Allen) chase the van that Clarence (Kurtwood Smith) and his gang are using to escape from a robbery. Hellman directed all the second unit material for this scene on location in Dallas, working with Weller, Allen and Smith. Everything relating to the actual chase — including all of Weller and Allen's dialogue — up to the point where Bobby, a member of Clarence's gang, lands on the windshield of Murphy's car, is by Hellman, though he was not responsible for the dialogue inside the van: "I frequently had the use of Peter and Nancy, but not always the other actors. But in the van chase, I had the actors inside the van, but as seen from the outside. Verhoeven gave me storyboards for the car/van chase. I followed them, but found them very restricting. I felt I could have done a better job if I had been given more freedom. I didn't have storyboards for any of the other scenes I worked on."44 According to Jon Davison, Verhoeven later shot some additional footage for this sequence on Long Beach in California: "Basically, everything with the tall, skinny space needle looking building in the background (sometimes with an overpass) is Dallas. Everything after Bobby hits the roof of the police car is in Long Beach (notice the sign that says 'Marina')."45
3. The scene in which Ron Miller (Mark Carlton) holds the Mayor and his staff hostage at City Hall contains one Hellman-directed image of Miller being thrown through a window by Robocop (shot from the outside).
4. Hellman directed all the exteriors of Murphy's house on Primrose Lane — a single shot of Murphy's wife (Angie Bolling) and son (Jason Levine) standing outside the house waving at a retreating camera (inserted into the sequence in which Murphy undergoes an operation), and the later shots of Robocop driving down Primrose Lane, pulling up outside the house and getting out of the car. Hellman also recalls directing part of the sequence inside the house: "I believe all I shot inside the house was the picking up of the polaroid picture, and the insert of it."46 Jon Davison agrees: "I believe Monte is correct. He filmed only the exterior shots. He may originally have shot some of the interior of the house but I doubt any of it was used. Paul did film that sequence himself."47
5. During the sequence in which Clarence kills Robert Morton (Miguel Ferrer) with a hand grenade, Hellman was responsible for some shots of television screens displaying OCP executive Dick Jones' (Ronny Cox) farewell message. He also filmed two exterior shots showing Clarence leaving and Morton's house exploding.
6. Hellman directed the brief sequence in which Robocop, on his way to see Dick Jones, drives into an underground car park, gets out of his car, walks towards a glass elevator, and takes the elevator up to the OCP boardroom. Following the confrontation with Dick Jones, Hellman directed "some of the ED-209 chasing Robocop down the stairs scene, only without Ed (he was added in post)."48 When Robocop then returns to the underground car park, Hellman was responsible for "some of the scene where the troops shoot at Robo, mostly pans across shadowy figures firing."49
7. When Robocop returns to the OCP building at the end, Hellman directed "Robo arriving outside the building and shooting Ed (again without Ed). My memory is dim on this scene (I don't remember the small cannon he uses) so maybe I didn't do that part of the scene."50 Hellman also directed the climactic shots of Dick Jones being riddled with bullets and falling through a glass window: "I don't believe I did the shot from the inside of the man going through the glass. I definitely did the one from the outside."51 Visually, this material is almost identical to the death of Hans Leber in Shatter (as Hellman observes during Shatter's DVD commentary).
It was around this time that Hellman came close to making Cold Sassy Tree, from the novel (set in a turn-of-the-century Southern town) by Olive Ann Burns: "Cold Sassy Tree was turned down by Barbet Schroeder, who suggested me to Faye Dunaway. She and I were old friends, and I spent some time developing it and working on a budget. The television production company didn't like the fact I wanted to shoot it like a low-budget movie, with more bang for the buck, rather than the traditional way that TV movies are shot."52 The film was eventually made by Joan Tewkesbury in 1989.
"Another project I was involved with during this period was Secret Warriors, originally titled Tag, based on the novel The Miernik Dossier by Charles McCarry. The first screenplay was by Jerry Harvey, and was going to be produced in 1979 by Klaus and Juergen Hellwig for Janus Films. Klaus and Juergen were involved over a fairly long period, and I had various deals at different times, culminating with a deal with Limbo Films, Switzerland, in 1988, and Cannon Films in 1989. At one time Donald Sutherland was attached to play Miernik, later Daniel Day Lewis. The script was ultimately revised by Steve Gaydos. I went to Seattle in 1987 to meet Daniel, and later went to London to meet Chris Reeve for another role, and to Paris to meet with Daniel again, and with Juliette Binoche. The title Secret Warriors was suggested by Sergio Leone when I visited him in his home outside Rome while he was editing Once Upon a Time in America. I went to Paris, I believe around Christmas, 1986, to sign contracts on a deal with a guy who was arranging financing through a German bank. I was supposed to meet him at one of the five-star hotels on the right bank near the Etoile. I was there with my lawyer, and we waited three days. I discovered during those three days that there were a number of other producers waiting for the same purpose. The guy finally showed up, only by then I had done some research and discovered he was a wanted Nazi war criminal, now living in Bolivia. He left the hotel at 4 am the morning after our meeting, Interpol hot on his trail. We never signed the agreement (it turned out to be some kind of scam). I asked one of the other producers, whom I knew, how he felt about taking money from a Nazi war criminal. He said, 'What better way to screw them!' "53 According to Steven Gaydos, "Secret Warriors is the greatest movie never made. Monte found this book, loved it, and has such a brilliant vision for this film. The script never quite came together, but that's only a function of money and time. It's a simple story, powerful, perfect. The source material is absolutely unbreakable. It's a crime that he hasn't made this or In a Dream of Passion. They would add two masterpieces to his oeuvre."54