The Silver Screen Oasis

GREAT GREAT idea, kingrat!

Yes, I'd like to know waaaay more about the editors of our classic films.

David,

Thank you so much for starting this thread. As you know, it is a subject that is near and dear to my heart.

I would ask if you could expand it out a few more years to include the wonderful, Mother Cutter, the great Verna Fields.

Verna began her career in the sound editing department working on such films as While the City Sleeps and El Cid.

During the 1960s, she worked on a number of television shows as a sound effects editor.

In 1960, she added film editor to her job description when she cut Studs Lonigan.

In 1968, she cut Medium Cool for cameraman/director Haskell Wexler and followed that with What's Up, Doc! Paper Moon and Daisy Miller for Peter Bogdanovich.

In 1973, she was nominated for an Academy Award (shared with Marcia Lucas) for editing American Graffiti.

She followed that with The Sugarland Express and won an Oscar for editing Jaws.

Spielberg has often cited Verna's decision to keep the shark off the screen until well into the movie as a major reason why the film works so well (along with John Williams music and the performances).

Given that the film was shot on the water in a variety of weather including sun, clouds and overcast conditions, the first few times you watch the film, you never notice how mismatched some of the scenes are.

Because the shark did not work well throughout the production, the idea to keep Bruce's (the shark) appearances to a minimum and let audience's imaginations do the rest, was one of the best workarounds she ever came up with.

She worked with Bogdanovich, Lucas and Spielberg, often cutting on an upright Moviola in the small office near her pool in Encino, here in the San Fernando Valley.

Coppola would screen his films for her and ask her for notes.

After Jaws she worked in an executive position at Universal.

She was wonderfully supportive of women in film and very helpful to young editors who were just starting out, or wondering what they should do after they got out of school.

We lost her too young at the age of 64 in 1982.

I miss her very much all these years later.

Ooh! This is a good idea for a thread, David! And I loved to hear Verna Field stories about making Jaws.