2013 Essays

Cutting Women: Margaret Booth and Hollywood’s Pioneering Female Film Editors

Hatch, Kristen

In 1926, the Los Angeles Times informed readers that “one of the most important positions in the motion-picture industry is held almost entirely by women” whose job it was to assemble “thousands of feet of film so that it tells an interesting story in the most straightforward manner” (B7). Assembling reels and cutting negatives was tedious work that often fell to young working-class women. However, out of the ranks of these film joiners and negative cutters emerged a handful of women who would help to develop the editing techniques that would become the hallmark of Hollywood’s visual style.