While attending Scripps College in Claremont, California, Dede Allen drove into nearby Los Angeles on a warm day in 1943. She came to meet with a friend of her grandfather, the theatrical director and producer, Elliott Nugent, Jr., who was in Hollywood to direct his first feature film, Up In Arms. She wanted to explore the possibility of becoming a film director -- a lifelong dream of hers. At that fateful meeting, Elliott Nugent, Jr. told her, "Young lady, if you want to be a director, get a job in the cutting room." Ms. Allen never forgot that piece of advice. She never became a director, but she spent most of her life in cutting rooms.
Ms. Allen began her film career in Hollywood, as an apprentice, assistant editor, and then a sound editor. In 1950, she moved to New York where she became a film editor. Among other films, she has edited six pictures for Arthur Penn, three for Sidney Lumet, two for George Roy Hill, two for Paul Newman and one each for Elia Kazan, Robert Rossen and Robert Wise. "In New York, there is no studio system, no post-production departments," Ms. Allen says. "The editor does it all, supervising sound editing, ADR, foley, re-recording, labs, prints, all elements of post-production. You're lucky if you have an accountant to help you with the books," she comments.
THE CUTTING EDGE
A stylistic innovator, Ms. Allen remembers that when she began pre-lapping sound in the 1950s -- the sound track coming in ahead of the picture on a cut -- "I had to say to my sound editors, 'Don't change that, it's not out of sync. That's the way I want it.'" The startling transitions of her energetic cutting on Bonnie and Clyde, with unmatched cuts, fadeouts and cut-ins, have been much imitated ever since. "Someone used to say," Ms. Allen remembers, "'You've got to know the rules to break the rules.' I knew my craft well. I knew my tools. I knew the rules. I liked to try a lot of things. I was never afraid of breaking the rules."
Robert Wise gave Ms. Allen her first big break on a major motion picture, Odds Against Tomorrow. After that came The Hustler with Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason, directed by Robert Rossen. In 1966, she edited Bonnie and Clyde, directed by Arthur Penn and produced by Warren Beatty. It was during the making of that film that Ms. Allen, dining with Warren Beatty one night in a Chinese restaurant in Dallas, was asked, "Do you know who John Reed is?" Ms. Allen replied, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do." "I'm going to do his story," Mr. Beatty said. Neither ever forgot that conversation. Fifteen years later, Allen would edit Beatty's Reds. She worked on that film for two and a half years, in London and New York, longer than she had worked on any other film, and received an executive producer credit as well as editor.
Ms. Allen has also edited films for other prominent actors-turned directors - Rachel, Rachel for Paul Newman and The Milagro Beanfield War for Robert Redford.
In 1992, Ms. Allen returned to Los Angeles to become a creative executive in theatrical production for Warner Bros., where she consulted on films from dailies to post-production for over 6 years. Now, back in the cutting room, she is currently editing Wonder Boys, a film directed by Curtis Hanson and starring Michael Douglas.
FILMOGRAPHY
Because of Eve (1948)
Terror from the Year 5000 (1958)
Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
The Hustler (1961)
America, America (1963)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Rachel, Rachel (1968)
Alice's Restaurant (1969)
Little Big Man (1970)
Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)
Serpico (1973)
Night Moves (1975)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
The Missouri Breaks (1976)
Slap Shot (1977)
The Wiz (1978)
Reds (1981)
Harry and Son (1984)
Mike's Murder (1984)
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Off Beat (1986)
The Milagro Beanfield War (1988)
Let It Ride (1989)
Henry & June (1990)
The Addams Family (1991)
Wonder Boys (1999)
AWARDS
CRYSTAL AWARD: Women in Film (1982)
BAFTA: Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
NOMINATIONS
ACADEMY AWARD: Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
ACADEMY AWARD: Reds (1981)
ACE EDDIE: The Hustler (1961)
ACE EDDIE: Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
ACE EDDIE: Reds (1981)
(August 1999)
