 | |
| |
Page 1: Harold Kress, Michael Samuelson andPeter Taylor
Obituary: Harold Kress FromThe Independent October 26th, 1999, written by Tony Sloman
VERY FEW members of the picture-going public canname a film editor. Film buffs may be able to identify acameraman or two, or even a dress designer, but the names, andindeed the crafts, of the editor remain trade secrets. Theeditor's testimonial is the film itself, for no other technicianstays with a film from script to premiere. In the great days ofthe American studios, studio style was set by the art directorand the editor. The art department created the MGM gloss or theParamount sophistication, the editor the Warner Bros pace or the20th Century-Fox polish. Harold Kress spent over 40 years at MGMand Columbia Studios, and edited more than 50 major features. Hewas a tireless fighter for respect and recognition of his craftand when he himself was awarded the American Cinema Editors (ACE)Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992, he stated that it was hisintention, as both a board member of ACE and as president of theMotion Picture Editors' Guild, "to get our names from thebottom of the crawl to the top, with the director,cinematographer, and the costume designer." Born inPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1913, but educated on Hollywood'sdoorstep at UCLA (the University of California at Los Angeles),Kress fetched up at MGM Culver City as assistant editor on theJoan Crawford- James Stewart film Ice Follies of 1939 and wasswiftly promoted to editor on such MGM products as These GlamourGirls (1939) and It's a Wonderful World (also 1939). MGM was theglamour film factory, the Rolls-Royce of Hollywood, and they puta new movie into production every 10 days. Kress's six films of1939 (including Richard Thorpe's The Adventures of HuckleberryFinn, as supervising editor) proved he could work well underpressure and was unfazed by glamour. In 1940 he went on to editAndy Hardy Meets Debutante, one of Louis B. Mayer's favouriteseries episodes, Comrade X, starring the studio's pride and joy,the king of Hollywood himself, Clark Gable, and two extremelysuccessful Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy vehicles titled BitterSweet and New Moon. The success of these films thrust Kress intothe top rank of MGM feature editors, a position consolidated thenext year by an Academy Award nomination for Dr Jekyll and MrHyde, wherein Spencer Tracy's transformation sequences drewindustry attention to Kress, who was rapidly becoming a favourededitor on the lot. Two more Academy nominations were to follow,for the massively popular propagandist film Mrs Miniver (1942)and the long- gestating but utterly charming The Yearling (1946).Kress worked well within the MGM system, absorbing andpromulgating the studio style and well able to enhance the studiotalent. The titles of the movies edited by Kress rapidly becamehousehold names: Random Harvest (1942), Cabin in the Sky (the1943 musical directing debut of Vincente Minnelli), CommandDecision (1949). During the Second World War, Kress directed thefive-reeler Wardcare of Psychotic Patients (1941), and the healthdocumentary Purity Squad (1945), and, like many editors, began toget a yen to direct. As the varied likes of David Lean, RobertWise, Terence Fisher and Dorothy Arzner have proved, the cuttingrooms are easily the finest grounding for film direction.However, many editors - and Kress was no exception - proved to bemore valuable to the cinema as skilled editors rather than asindifferent directors. Louis B. Mayer gave Kress his featuredirecting break with The Painted Hills (1951), the last MGM filmof a veteran star, the 11-year-old Lassie, but this cross betweena "B" western and a dog movie failed to continueLassie's screen career, although Lassie was excellent in the roleof the dogged Shep. No Questions Asked (1951) was a snappy co-featureabout insurance fraud, but after directing Apache War Smoke (1952),Kress returned to the MGM cutting rooms. There his films includedmany of Metro's prestige successes of the 1950s and 1960s,including such famous titles as Green Fire (1954), I'll CryTomorrow (1955), The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), SilkStockings (1957), Merry Andrew (1958), Home from the Hill (1960)and King of Kings (1961). He worked with such distinguisheddirectors as Vincente Minnelli and Mervyn Le Roy and a roster ofMGM stars including Ava Gardner, Glenn Ford, Robert Taylor,Stewart Granger, Grace Kelly, Howard Keel and Paul Newman. Thisculminated in a well-deserved Academy Award for Kress's editingof the joint MGM-Cinerama venture, the all-star, triple-directorHow the West Was Won (1963). How the West Was Won was technicallyvery complex, being the first narrative film to be photographedin three-screen Cinerama, with no covering "flat version"shot. There was a serious delay in receiving editing materialsand the equipment was cumbersome and in its infancy (and wouldsoon be replaced by single-lens 70mm). However, Kress helpedbring a visual dynamism to the extremely large canvas, mostnotably by starting the Civil War night scene directed by JohnFord with a dramatic sluice-down of the surgeon's makeshift tablewhich recurs later on in the sequence. Its impact is greatlyreduced by viewing this film in the 35mm copies available on tapeand television. The three-strip Cinerama original can be seenonly at the Pictureville Cinema in Bradford, the only existingpublic Cinerama theatre in the world. How the West Was Won and astint on the Elvis Presley film It Happened at the World's Fair (1965)marked the end of Kress's long MGM career. He remained greatly indemand, and settled for a while at Columbia after supervisingGeorge Stevens's mammoth The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).Kress's Columbia titles included Alvarez Kelly (1966), CaryGrant's film Walk Don't Run (also 1966) and the Matt Helm flickThe Ambushers (1967), as well as a stint directing second unit onCromwell (1970). Kress also established a profitable workingrelationship with the director John Frankenheimer on four keyfeatures including The Iceman Cometh (1973). The tremendouspopular success of the producer Irwin Allen's The PoseidonAdventure (1972), edited by Kress, ultimately led to Kress'ssecond Academy Award for Allen's follow-up, the definitive groupjeopardy movie The Towering Inferno (1974), which Kress co-editedwith his son Carl, who would go on to a separate, though lessdistinguished career in the cutting rooms. The Towering Infernois superbly put together, its pyramidal star structure cleverlymaintained throughout, its climax as the high-level water tanksflood the blazing glass tower genuinely riveting, but there is asingle edit within that film which encapsulates the art, craftand skill of the professional editor. Fred Astaire has taken aspreadsheet-sized junk bond certificate from out of his briefcaseand puts it folded into his inside pocket. Seamless, except younever see him fold the document. It's done - brilliantly on acut, an edit that must have brought great satisfaction towhichever Kress wrought it, and a supreme example of great (andtotally invisible) editing. When asked what his own mostsatisfying screen moments were, Harold Kress isolated threesequences from his great MGM period that have become part ofHollywood movie folklore. In Kress's own words: "From RandomHarvest, where Greer Garson is trying to stimulate RonaldColman's amnesia-affected memory; from The Yearling - the boy-deersequences; and from Mrs Miniver, where the German soldier comesto the old lady's house and demands food at gunpoint." TonySloman
Harold F. Kress, film editor: born Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania 26 June 1913; married (one son); died Palm Desert,California 18 September 1999.INDEPENDENT, 26th October 1999
Obituary: Michael SamuelsonFromThe Independent September 11th, 1998, written by Tony Sloman
THE FAR-REACHING influence and considerableactivity of the Samuelson brothers, David, Sydney, Anthony andMichael, throughout the British film industry is by no means aspublicly well-known or as well-documented as contributions by farlesser lights, and perhaps that's the way they'd prefer. The fouroffspring of the British film industry pioneer G.B. "Bertie"Samuelson, a Lancashire cinema exhibitor who became an early filmproducer in the days before the cinema could speak, went on tobuild up the Samuelson Group, the largest film equipmentservicing company in the world. Founded in 1955 as the SamuelsonFilm Service Ltd, it grew under the control of the four brothersand was eventually acquired by Eagle Trust in 1987. At that timeMichael Samuelson organised a management buy-out (funded by hisown family, his two daughters and two sons) of the LightingDivision of Samuelson Group, and established himself - and thecompany - world- wide as Michael Samuelson Lighting Ltd. Amongthe many films serviced by Samuelson Lighting were Gandhi (1982),Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Good Morning Vietnam (1987),Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) and Howards End (1992).Television series included Poirot, The Camomile Lawn, Jeeves andWooster, Love Hurts, and Minder, among many, many others, beforethe company was taken over by the VFG group earlier this year.Michael Samuelson was born in 1951 and educated at ShorehamGrammar School. During his National Service in the Royal AirForce he received training as a photographer, but a career infilm was not immediate, for he found a job with the WorthingRepertory Company, assisting the assistant stage manager. Thestage manager was Andrew Sachs, now better known as the actor whoplayed the Fawlty Towers waiter, Manuel. Samuelson toured Europeas stage director of the spectacular Holiday on Ice extravaganzafrom 1952 until 1956, with responsibilities including supervisingthe erection of the portable ice rinks and lighting rigs. InSpain, the ice rinks were often set up in bull rings; one of thedifficult tasks was to prevent the ice from melting in the hotsummer months. Coinciding with the launch of independenttelevision in 1955, Sydney Samuelson founded what was to becomethe Samuelson Group by purchasing, for a down payment of pounds300, a Newman Sinclair clockwork camera, which swiftly paid itsway in rentals. Sydney persuaded his three brothers to stump up afurther pounds 100 each to invest in another cameras and thus"Sammy's" was born. Michael Samuelson eventuallysecured a position in the film industry as a unit manager andjoined Movietone as a cameraman, where he developed a new mannerin which great sporting occasions were captured on film. Many ofthe sporting events he was sent to film were being photographedin the conventional manner, cameras shooting the FA Cup Final,for instance, from inevitable fixed positions. Samuelsonrecognised that with more flexible cameras and longer fixed focallength lenses available, football and other sporting events couldbe made much more exciting for the home or theatre viewer. Hisassociate Drummond Challis recalls: "Michael had his crewsdrill holes around the touchline of the turf and from ball heightpenetrate the otherwise hidden depths of our national game."Michael eventually joined Sydney Samuelson in the family firm in1960, and in 1965 the four brothers took the company to theLondon stock exchange, but executive management never stoppedMichael's work behind the cameras. In 1966 he was the Director ofPhotography on the official film of the World Cup, Goal!, but hiscontribution to that was not merely in photographing tha BaftaAward-winning documentary. On the very evening before the finalat Wembley, the film's producers ran out of cash and it wasSamuelson who paid the technicians out of his own pocket.Unsurprisingly his craftsmanship, care and sheer professionalismbegan to win him world attention. The Mexican governmentappointed him Director of Photography for Olympiad in Mexico (1960),and he followed with a remarkable succession of theatricalfeatures including The World at Their Feet (the 1970 World Cupfilm) and Visions of Eight (1972, the multi-directorial Olympicfeature). He also directed another football film, Heading forGlory, and produced the 1976 Winter Olympic feature White Rock.Other features as producer and/or director included OlympicHarmony and Golden Opportunities (both 1976, Montreal Olympics)Europa 80 (1980, the European football Championship) and G'Ole! (1982,the official film of the World Cup in Spain). Samuelson built upan impressively strong team of loyal technicians who workedregularly over a 35-year period with him and with the passing ofthose years, became known affectionately as "Dad's Army",with Samuelson as Dad. Only eight weeks ago, he was the seniormember of the team at the Stade de France for this year's WorldCup Final. As though film-making in itself was not enough for onelife, Samuelson also undertook tireless charity work. Heregularly produced appeal films for the Variety Club of GreatBritain, the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, and forCanterbury Cathedral and the Royal Opera House. He organised filmcrews to travel to Biafra, Vietnam, and Uganda, and took acontroversial but admirable position in insisting that theVariety Club should take a leading role in resettling the manychildren among the 50,000 refugees expelled from Uganda in 1972by Idi Amin. Samuelson had joined the Variety Club of GreatBritain in 1965, and by 1974 had become their president (known asthe Chief Barker). From 1989 to 1991 he was chairman of VarietyClubs International. A prolific fund- raiser, he was instrumentalin the club's policy of arranging life-saving surgery forchildren from the Third World and, to date, over 200 childrenhave had such operations. He was also responsible for instigatingan Australian branch of the Variety Club (Chief Barker: PaulHogan), plus new branches in both Israel and New Zealand. At thetime of his death he was planning the formation of a SouthAfrican branch. The biggest charity appeal ever in Great Britain,the Wishing Well Appeal, was set up in 1987 to raise money toredevelop the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. Samuelsonwas the vice-chairman of the appeal and co-chaired the specialevents committee. In 1989, the appeal passed its target a yearearly, raising a total of pounds 54m, and the hospital's VarietyClub building was opened in 1994 by the Princess of Wales.Nothing indicates Samuelson's embrace of charity more than thetale of his witnessing an unknown javelin thrower create a 64-metrethrow back in 1978. He found himself travelling on a plane withthe young record- holder, Tessa Sanderson. Finding that there wasno official support for her among the UK athletic establishment,Samuelson formed a group of fellow Variety Club members, dubbed"Tessa's Six Gentlemen Friends" who privately fundedSanderson's training. She did them all proud in 1984 by winningGold with a world-record Olympic throw. Samuelson's influence inthe film industry was far-reaching in many ways. His daughter,Emma Samms, became an actress, most notably as Fallon in the UStelevision series Dynasty. Additionally, he was appointed to thataugust and secretive group, the Council of Management of theBritish Board of Film Classification, working with the outgoingchief censor James Ferman. A long-time lover of opera, Samuelsonalso supported the local Holland Park Opera Festival,entertaining many guests at each production. In a uniquelyfulfilled life, his only source of constant disappointment washis undying affection for his football clubs Tottenham Hotspurand Brighton and Hove Albion.
Michael Edward Wylie Samuelson, film producer anddirector: born London 25 January 1951; CBE 1988; married 1957Madeleine White (two sons, two daughters, and one son deceased;marriage dissolved 1990); died London 26 August 1998.INDEPENDENT, 11th September 1998
Obituary: Peter Taylor FromThe Independent January 6th, 1998, written by Tony Sloman
Peter John Brough Taylor, film editor: bornPortsmouth, Hampshire 28 February 1922; married first ElizabethHolden (three sons, one daughter; marriage dissolved), secondFranca Silvi (two daughters); died Rome 17 December 1997. The1957 Academy Award for film editing went to the British editorPeter Taylor for The Bridge on the River Kwai, David Lean'smagnificently realised CinemaScope epic of the shameful buildingof the Siamese wartime railway by British soldiers interned bythe Japanese. It is a marvellous film which won seven AcademyAwards, including Best Picture, and still stands today as one ofthe finest ever war films, a recognised popular classic. Althoughfilm industry wags may assert that the editing Oscar came withthe letter of engagement on a David Lean film - and in lateryears it is certainly true that Lean, a former editor, wouldhimself dictate the precise nature of the cutting - none theless, Peter Taylor had served a long apprenticeship with Lean.His Oscar for Kwai was an honest vindication of his talent, forTaylor physically edited the film into shape, working closelywith Lean only on the final cut. In fact, the first assembly wasmade by Teddy Darvas, since Taylor was involved as supervisor ona series of British "B" features produced by theAmerican Danziger brothers, a position he left as soon aspossible to fly to Ceylon to edit Kwai. Taylor had worked his wayup through the cutting rooms, including assisting Lean when hewas an editor, graduating to assembly editing on suchdistinguished British films as Uncle Silas (1947) with JeanSimmons, the superb Academy Award-winning Laurence Olivierversion of Hamlet (1948), and Carol Reed's brilliant and nowclassic The Third Man (1949), assembling for the editor OswaldHafenrichter. As assembly editor on The Sound Barrier (1952),Taylor assisted its director David Lean and his editor GeoffreyFoot by sifting through all the flying material and assembling itinto rolls in order to facilitate cutting: all aircraft left-to-right,all aircraft right-to-left, and aeroplane dives, and so on.Although Taylor had already edited Cairo Road (1950) and hadreverted to assembly editing for financial reasons during the1950/51 slump in the industry, his work on The Sound Barrierproved him invaluable to Lean, and when Geoff Foot wasn't able toedit Hobson's Choice (1954) Lean offered the position of editorto Taylor. Taylor's contribution to Hobson's Choice wassignificant. On one occasion, the striking scene where Brenda daBanzie as Maggie proposes to John Mills as Willie Mossop, Leanwas having particular difficulty securing the performance herequired from a very truculent da Banzie. He asked Taylor to editthe sequence together in order to determine whether retakes wouldbe required, and where. The sequence was screened for Lean on thescoring stage at Shepperton, and when the lights went up Leanlaughed and told Taylor: "Never in a thousand years would Iimagine the scene could be cut that way." Taylor's facedropped, but Lean intended his comment as a compliment. Therewere no retakes. After he edited a series of English features,including Guy Green's interesting Portrait of Alison (1955), Leanoffered Taylor Summer Madness (1956), the Katharine Hepburn-starrerknown in the US as Summertime, and inadvertently began PeterTaylor's lifelong love affair with Italy. Summer Madness was thefirst film in Britain to be edited entirely on magnetic film (nooptical sound transfers at all during editing), and the filmunion the ACT gave permission for the French adviser editorJacqueline Thiedot to work alongside Taylor, for whom she endedup as assembly editor. Taylor edited the prestigious 20th Century-FoxCinemaScope adventures The Man Who Never Was (1956) and Sea Wife(1956), a film originally begun by Roberto Rossellini, and thenthe call came to cut Kwai in Ceylon. Despite winning the AcademyAward over the editors of Gunfight at the OK Corral, Pal Joey andSayonara, Taylor - never pushy and without an agent - failed toconsolidate his Oscar success with a comparable feature. Insteadhe returned to Europe to edit Michael Powell's long-delayedHoneymoon (1959) and a slew of British features, including GuyGreen's notable The Mark (1961) which secured its star StuartWhitman an Academy nomination for Best Actor. By 1963 the BritishNew Wave had beached, and Peter Taylor edited the superb ThisSporting Life, the debut feature of the cine-literate directorLindsay Anderson. It is a remarkable study of working-classangst, with a cutting style like no other British feature beforeit, an ever-underrated achievement by Taylor, as Anderson,received all the credit, as directors do. This Sporting Liferemains, with The Bridge on the River Kwai, the supreme testamentto Peter Taylor's craft and talent. Also from that period was One-WayPendulum (1965), directed by Peter Yates from N.F. Simpson'sabsurdist play, allowing Taylor some bold strokes of originalnarrative editing. Unfortunately the film failed to find a massaudience, and has barely a cult following today. Taylor marriedfor a second time Franca Silvi, the sister of the Italian editorRoberto Silvi, settled in Rome, and edited a series of high-budget,would-be distinguished movies: Judith (1966) with Sophia Loren,the director Edward Dmytryk's Anzio (1969) with Robert Mitchum,and the all-star comedy extravaganza Monte Carlo or Bust! (1970).More satisfactory was the period editing for Franco Zeffirelli,including the Taylor- Burton Taming of the Shrew (1967) and theopera films La Traviata (1982) and Otello (1986). Later workincluded Hugh Hudson's feature-length documentary Fangio (1971)and the made-for-cable Mussolini: The Decline and Fall of Il Duce(1985), with Bob Hoskins as the dictator and Anthony Hopkins ashis son-in-law. There was little doubt that Taylor's self-imposed Roman exile kept him away from contemporary mainstreamproduction. He was still called upon, though, and did salvagework for the director Terence Young when his editors (and one ofhis stars) decided not to return to Italy after their Christmasbreak, on a virtually unshown feature known either as Marathon orRun For Your Life. Taylor edited the complex Rome- set marathonsequences and finished the film for Young. Well respected, andhighly regarded amongst his peers, Peter Taylor featured in FilmComment magazine's 1977 listing of the world's top film editors,scrupulously checking and correcting his own credits. Thisdistinguished editor's legacy lives on not just in his work butin a virtual cutting- room dynasty including many fellowtechnicians via marriage (Taylor's daughter, for example ismarried to Christopher Lloyd, the son of John Huston's editorRussell Lloyd), embracing many film-industry families.
- Tony Sloman, INDEPENDENT, 6th January 1998
Page 1: Harold Kress, Michael Samuelson andPeter Taylor