Barbara McLean
Barbara McLean | |
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Best Editing 1944 Wilson |
Barbara "Bobby" McLean
In the period
She had an
Early life and career
McLean was born in
In 1924, she married J. Gordon McLean, who was a film projectionist and later, a cameraman. After marrying, the couple moved to Los Angeles, California. McLean found work as an assistant editor at
20th Century Fox
In 1935, 20th Century Pictures merged with the
McLean retained this position until her retirement in 1969. McLean had more authority over the editing of the studio's films than is typical for contemporary film editors; as Lizzie Francke described it: "McLean worked during a period when the editor was often left to his or her own devices in the cutting room. The pressures of production turn-over during the hey-day of the studio system often meant that the director could not be around to supervise since they were on to their next production."[11]
Darryl Zanuck not only trusted McLean with the editing of 20th Century Fox's more important projects, he depended on her judgment in many other areas of filmmaking, including casting and production.[3] In 1940, a Los Angeles Times story commented that "Barbara McLean, one of Hollywood's three women film editors, can make stars — or leave their faces on the cutting room floor."[12]
The films McLean edited at 20th Century Fox included The Rains Came (1939), the only time she worked with director Clarence Brown, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for editing. She was credited with working on John Ford's Tobacco Road (1941), and George Cukor's, Winged Victory (1944). In 1950–1951, McLean edited three of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's films, including All About Eve, for which she received her final Academy Award nomination. Her nomination was among the 14 nominations for the film.
In the 1940s, McLean and her first husband divorced. In 1951 she married Robert D. Webb, who had been working as King's assistant director.
Collaboration with Henry King
"For all her focus on keeping the narrative moving, McLean's editing could dazzle if called for. In A Bell for Adano (1945), she took material director Henry King shot on the return of the Italian POWs to their village and put it together with such a pure sense of emotion that when she cut at exactly the right moment to King's overhead shot of the prisoners and villagers coming together in the square, the cut was more heart-stopping than conventional close-ups would have been." |
— Tom Stempel[3] |
McLean began her long association with the director Henry King on the films The Country Doctor (1936) and Lloyd's of London (1936); she received her second nomination for an Academy Award for the latter film. McLean received three further nominations for editing films directed by King: for Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), The Song of Bernadette (1943), and Wilson (1944). On Wilson, as Tom Stempel has described, McLean "had to cut down the enormous amount of footage from the 1912 Democratic convention into a workable sequence, and she condensed several bill-signing sequences into montage sequences."[3] Wilson was the only film for which McLean won an Academy Award for Film Editing.[5]
It may be that King and McLean's greatest accomplishment was the film Twelve O'Clock High (1949); Sean Axmaker has written "Twelve O'Clock High was one of the early and arguably the greatest of the Hollywood films to examine the pressures of command and the psychological toll of making life and death decisions for men they come to know and care for."[13] While the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, neither King nor McLean received personal Academy Award recognition for their work in making that film. Nearly half of the 62 films crediting McLean as editor were directed by Henry King.
Later years
McLean edited Viva Zapata! (1952), one of Elia Kazan's films, and Michael Curtiz's The Egyptian (1954). She also edited the first released movie produced in CinemaScope, Henry Koster's The Robe (1953). McLean's last editing credit was for Untamed (1955). She was co-producer of Seven Cities of Gold (1955). Her later work was primarily as a supervisor and administrative. McLean was instrumental in the careers of other film editors such as Hugh S. Fowler, William H. Reynolds, and Robert Simpson.
McLean retired from 20th Century Fox in 1969, apparently because of her husband's poor health.[9] She received the inaugural American Cinema Editors Career Achievement Award in 1988. She died in Newport Beach, California in 1996.
See also
References
- ^ "21 Apr 1940, 47 - The Los Angeles Times at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2019-03-23.
- ^
Thomas, Robert McG. (April 7, 1996). "Barbara McLean, Film Editor at 20th Century-Fox, Dies at 92". The New York Times.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-674-01488-6. Contains an extensive bibliography. Stempel interviewed McLean in 1970 for the American Film Institute; a copy of the transcript is archived at the Margaret Herrick Library Archived February 28, 2009, at the Wayback Machineof the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
- IMDbon February 1, 2009.
- ^ a b "The Official Academy Awards® Database". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 2012-02-25. Retrieved 2017-01-09. No webpage explicitly listing the nominees and awardees by category, etc., is maintained by the Academy. The Academy's database generated a list of all nominations and wins for McLean by Editing award category: Les Miserables (1935; 8th Awards). Lloyd's of London (1936; 9th). Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938; 11th). The Rains Came (1939; 12th). The Song of Bernadette (1943; 16th). Wilson (1944; 17th; win). All about Eve (1950; 23rd).
- ^ Guthman, Edward (February 9, 2001). "Campy Catfights, Superb Comedy in 'All About Eve'". The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved January 14, 2009.
- ^ "Film Editing Facts" (PDF). Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. March 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-11-13. Retrieved 2012-03-01.
- Dannatt, Adrian (April 13, 1996). "Obituaries: Margaret McLean". The Independent (London).
- ^ a b Lewis, Kevin (March–April 2006). "The Moviola Mavens and the Moguls: Three Pioneering Women Editors Who Had the Respect of Early Hollywood's Power-Brokers". Editors Guild Magazine 27(2). Archived from the original on 2008-06-12. This article presents a slightly different version of McLean's early career, and the date of her first marriage, than Stempel's biography.
- ISBN 978-1-55862-449-8. Retrieved 2014-11-09.
- ^ Francke, Lizzie (April 30, 1996). "Invisible hand in the cutting room". The Guardian. p. 14. Archived from the original on February 20, 2012. Obituary for Barbara McLean.
- ^ "Women Behind the Screen". The Los Angeles Times. April 28, 1940. p. H10.
- ^ Axmaker, Sean (June 18, 2007). "Twelve O'Clock High". Turner Classic Movies Website.
External links
- Barbara McLean at IMDb