Ferris Webster

Biography

Ferris Webster (1912-1989) was an American film editor with around seventy-two credits to his name. Trained at MGM, his career spanned classic studio Hollywood and the auteur cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, and he appeared as an actor once, in a film directed by John Frankenheimer.

At MGM he cut six films for Vincente Minnelli, among them Madame Bovary and Father of the Bride. His first Academy Award nomination came for Blackboard Jungle, directed by Richard Brooks. He later worked on John Frankenheimer's paranoia trilogy, whose best-known title, The Manchurian Candidate, critics regard as his finest work. With John Sturges he collaborated on fifteen films between 1950 and 1972, including The Great Escape, which also earned him a nomination. In his final phase he edited several Clint Eastwood films, until a falling-out that reportedly ended his career.

Webster died in 1989. His name is still linked mainly to the editing room rather than to the wider public.

Key films

• Blackboard Jungle (1955): Webster's first Academy Award nomination, with Richard Brooks directing.
• The Manchurian Candidate (1962): the editing of the long brainwashing sequence, considered his masterpiece.
• The Great Escape (1963): an Oscar nomination for editing, made with John Sturges.
• Father of the Bride (1950): one of six films he cut for Vincente Minnelli.
• The Magnificent Seven (1960): a Sturges western and another project in their long partnership.