Elmo Williams

Elmo Williams
Cover of Elmo Williams: A Hollywood Memoir
Born	James Elmo Williams April 30, 1913 (1913-04-30) (age 96) Lone Wolf, Oklahoma
Occupation	film editor
Spouse(s)	Lorraine Williams (died 2004)

Elmo Williams (born April 30, 1913 in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma) is an American film and television editor, director, producer, and executive. His work on the film High Noon (1952) received the Academy Award for Film Editing.^[1] In 2006, Williams published Elmo Williams: A Hollywood Memoir.^[2]

Career

Among the films that Williams edited are High Noon (1952), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), and The Vikings (1958). Williams was involved in the production of The Longest Day (1962) and Cleopatra (1963),^[3] and he was a producer of the film Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). From 1971-74 Williams was the Head of Production for 20th Century Fox.

Williams edited the film Design for Death (1947), which won an Academy Award for Documentary Feature. Williams won the Academy Award for Film Editing for his work on High Noon (directed by Fred Zinneman - 1952, co-editor Harry Gerstad^[4]), and was nominated again for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (directed by Richard Fleischer - 1954).

The editing of High Noon is probably Williams' most studied accomplishment. The critic James Berardinelli wrote, "High Noon's tension comes through Kane's desperation, aided in no small part by Elmo Williams' brilliant editing as the clock ticks down to twelve. For a motion picture with so little action, the suspense builds to almost unbearable levels."^[5] In his memoir, Williams indicates that this well-known montage was specifically edited to match the music that had been composed for the scene by Dimitri Tiomkin. Williams would actually have preferred to edit the montage differently. The editing of High Noon also differed from the contemporary practice in which directors are actively involved in the editing. The film's director, Fred Zinneman, had moved on to other projects after filming was complete and had little involvement in the editing, which wasn't atypical of that era (the 1940s and 1950s) of filmmaking.^[6]

Williams has been elected to membership in the American Cinema Editors (ACE).^[7] In 1971, Williams was honored with the ACE "Golden Eddie" award as Filmmaker of the Year. In 1990, Williams received the ACE Career Achievement Award; he was among the first six editors to be honored with this award.

Personal

In 1940, he married Lorraine Williams (died 2004); they adopted two daughters and a son.^[8] The couple retired to Brookings, Oregon, on the Oregon Coast in 1983, where Williams lives as of 2009.^[8] In December 2008, he donated a chapel to the city in memory of his wife.^[8]

References

External links

• Elmo Williams at the Internet Movie Database