Reginald Beck

Reginald Beck (5 February 1902 – 12 July 1992) was a British film editor with forty-nine credits from 1932 to 1985. He is noted primarily for films done with Laurence Olivier in the 1940s and with Joseph Losey in the 1960s and 1970s.

His sister, Violet Hélène (called "Helen"), was wife of actor Peter Cushing.

Early life and career Beck was born in Russia to a British father and Finnish mother. His family moved back to Britain when Beck was thirteen. He began working in the film industry in 1927 when he joined Gainsborough Pictures before going on to work on "quota quickies" at Wembley Studios. He later worked with a number of directors including Carol Reed, David Lean, Laurence Olivier and Joseph Losey.

Collaboration with Joseph Losey Joseph Losey was an American film and theatre director who emigrated to Britain in the 1950s after being blacklisted for work in the entertainment industry in the United States. Beck and Losey collaborated on sixteen films from The Gypsy and the Gentleman (1958) through to Steaming (1985), which was both Beck's and Losey's last film. Until about 1964, Losey actually worked primarily with Reginald Mills, who had edited the very first of Losey's British films in 1954. Mills edited The Servant (1963), which was the first of Losey's films with a screenplay written by Harold Pinter, a playwright who ultimately received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005. After a public falling-out between Mills and Pinter, Beck edited essentially all of Losey's subsequent films.

In his comprehensive obituary, Anthony Sloman singles out Accident (1967) as the pinnacle of their filmmaking, writing "There is a sustained exterior hold in Accident that is totally of the cutting room: it is breathtaking in its audacity, and became influential in its style." The film was the second collaboration between Losey and Harold Pinter. Roy Perkins and Martin Stollery single out the editing of The Go-Between (1971), the third and last film of the Losey-Pinter collaboration, writing that "sharply cut, initially cryptic alternations between time-past and time-present are deftly integrated into the narrative.". For this film, Beck received the César Award for Best Editing, which is given mostly to highly regarded French productions; it was the only such distinction in Beck's long career.

Sloman concludes of Beck and Losey's collaboration, "Their professional and personal relationship was regarded as one of the great screen partnerships". They Made Me a Fugitive (Cavalcanti-1947). Supervising editor. Hamlet (Olivier-1948). Associate producer; Helga Cranston edited. Anthony Bushell was an assistant producer. Soon after, Beck edited Bushell's first film as a director, The Angel with the Trumpet. The Angel with the Trumpet (Bushell-1950). Supervising editor. The Long Dark Hall (Beck and Bushell-1951). The only film that Beck directed; Penelope Houston wrote "The tandem direction is surprisingly able and occasionally inventive." The Wonder Kid (Hartl-1952). Hartl directed the original Austrian film that was adapted by Bushell and Beck for The Angel with the Trumpet. The Beggar's Opera (Brook-1953). A musical produced by and starring Laurence Olivier. Island in the Sun (Rossen-1957). This was a "prestigious" film, produced by Darryl F. Zanuck as his first film that was independent of the Hollywood studios, Accident (Losey-1967) Boom! (Losey-1968) Secret Ceremony (Losey-1968) The Go-Between (Losey-1971) The Assassination of Trotsky (Losey-1972) Galileo (Losey-1974) The Romantic Englishwoman (Losey-1975) Mr. Klein (Losey-1976; as "direction consultant") Despair (Fassbinder-1978). Unusually for Fassbinder, Despair involved some highly notable collaborators including Tom Stoppard (screenplay) and Dirk Bogarde (starring), as well as Beck. Beck's editing was largely redone by Fassbinder and Juliane Lorenz. Roads to the South (Losey-1978) Don Giovanni (Losey-1979) Steaming (Losey-1985)