Ferris Webster
American film editor
title: "Ferris Webster" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["american-film-editors", "1912-births", "1989-deaths", "usc-trojans-men's-track-and-field-athletes", "american-men-middle-distance-runners", "track-and-field-athletes-from-washington-(state)"] description: "American film editor" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferris_Webster" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary American film editor ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Ferris Webster |
| birth_name | Ferris Maynard Webster |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
| death_date | |
| death_place | San Luis Obispo, California, U.S. |
| occupation | Film editor |
| years_active | 1939–1982 |
| :: |
| name = Ferris Webster | birth_name = Ferris Maynard Webster | birth_date = | birth_place = Seattle, Washington, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = San Luis Obispo, California, U.S. | occupation = Film editor | years_active = 1939–1982
Ferris Maynard Webster (April 29, 1912 – February 4, 1989) was an American film editor with approximately seventy-two film credits. He was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Film Editing for his work on Blackboard Jungle (1955), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), and ''[[The Great Escape (film)| The Great Escape]]'' (1963).
Webster was raised in the state of Washington, Webster was an All-American at 880 yards for the USC Trojans track and field team, finishing 4th at the 1933 NCAA Track and Field Championships. He was trained as an editor at the MGM Studios, and received his first feature-film credit in 1943 for Harrigan's Kid. At MGM, Webster edited six films with director Vincente Minnelli: Undercurrent (1946), Madame Bovary (1949), Father of the Bride (1950), Father's Little Dividend (1951), The Long, Long Trailer (1954), and Tea and Sympathy (1956). Film critic Bruce Eder has written of Madame Bovary that, "the cutting of the film in the gala ball sequence, in particular, was a marvel of the editor's art in the service of old Hollywood's restrained, elegant storytelling." In the mid-1950s, he edited three films with director Richard Brooks: Blackboard Jungle (1955), Something of Value (1957), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958); Webster received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Blackboard Jungle. His last film at MGM was Key Witness (1960).
Bruce Eder has written, "If ever a film editor deserved public recognition in the 1960s, it was Ferris Webster." Webster edited the three films of director John Frankenheimer's "paranoia trilogy": The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Seven Days in May (1964), and Seconds (1966). Eder writes that The Manchurian Candidate was "the editor's magnum opus. The shooting, cutting, and intercutting of one extended brainwashing sequence, seen from multiple points-of-view, is still striking decades later, and the movie earned Webster his second Academy Award nomination." Frankenheimer cast Webster in his only appearance as a film actor, as Air Force Gen. Bernard "Barney" Rutkowski in Seven Days in May.
Webster was nominated for an Academy Award for the editing of The Great Escape (1963), which was directed by John Sturges. Webster and Sturges' notable collaboration included fifteen films between 1950 and 1972, which is about half of Sturges' films in that period. It started with The Magnificent Yankee and Mystery Street (1950), and included The Law and Jake Wade (1958), The Magnificent Seven (1960), and Ice Station Zebra (1968). The final film of their collaboration was Joe Kidd (1972), which was near the end of Sturges' career.
Joe Kidd starred Clint Eastwood. In the last phase of his career, Webster edited and co-edited eight films that were directed by Eastwood, starting with High Plains Drifter (1973), which was Eastwood's second film as a director. Webster edited Breezy (1973), The Eiger Sanction (1975), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), The Gauntlet (1977), Bronco Billy (1980), Firefox and Honkytonk Man (both 1982). These latter two films with Eastwood concluded Webster's career as an editor, apparently after a falling-out between the two men. Malpaso staffers believed Clint had been spoiled by Webster’s ability to piece together footage so that the sequence always made sense. Clint the actor was as notorious for doing as few camera takes (usually only a couple) as he was for not repeating his scripted dialogue -- and if they hadn't filmed with multiple cameras running (offering more footage to cutaway to), this time-consuming/unproductive process could wear down a film cutter. Around the time of The Enforcer (1976), Eastwood's (on-camera) anti-post-production idiosyncrasies supposedly became more, and more, time consuming for Webster.
Nevertheless, Webster reportedly had started out "liking" Clint enormously, had spent much of his career working exclusively for the star. He had even moved up near Burney, CA (where Clint purchased a "forever home," in late-1978) thinking he would edit Malpaso films for the rest of his life. ‘He died brokenhearted,’ according to Malpaso producer, Fritz Manes.
Additional credits include The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Lili (1953), Forbidden Planet (1956), Les Girls (1957), Divorce American Style (1967).
Selected filmography
::data[format=table title="Editor"]
| Year | Film | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1943 | Harrigan's Kid | Charles Reisner | |
| Swing Fever | Tim Whelan | ||
| 1944 | Rationing | Willis Goldbeck | |
| 1945 | The Picture of Dorian Gray | Albert Lewin | |
| Dangerous Partners | Edward L. Cahn | ||
| 1946 | The Hoodlum Saint | Norman Taurog | First collaboration with Norman Taurog |
| Undercurrent | Vincente Minnelli | First collaboration with Vincente Minnelli | |
| 1947 | Living in a Big Way | Gregory La Cava | |
| If Winter Comes | Victor Saville | ||
| 1948 | On an Island with You | Richard Thorpe | First collaboration with Richard Thorpe |
| Words and Music | Norman Taurog | Second collaboration with Norman Taurog | |
| 1949 | Madame Bovary | Vincente Minnelli | Second collaboration with Vincente Minnelli |
| The Doctor and the Girl | Curtis Bernhardt | ||
| 1950 | Please Believe Me | Norman Taurog | Third collaboration with Norman Taurog |
| Father of the Bride | Vincente Minnelli | Third collaboration with Vincente Minnelli | |
| Mystery Street | John Sturges | First collaboration with John Sturges | |
| Watch the Birdie | Jack Donohue | ||
| The Magnificent Yankee | John Sturges | Second collaboration with John Sturges | |
| 1951 | Father's Little Dividend | Vincente Minnelli | Fourth collaboration with Vincente Minnelli |
| Kind Lady | John Sturges | Third collaboration with John Sturges | |
| 1952 | Lone Star | Vincent Sherman | |
| The Girl in White | John Sturges | Fourth collaboration with John Sturges | |
| 1953 | Lili | Charles Walters | First collaboration with Charles Walters |
| Scandal at Scourie | Jean Negulesco | ||
| All the Brothers Were Valiant | Richard Thorpe | Second collaboration with Richard Thorpe | |
| 1954 | The Long, Long Trailer | Vincente Minnelli | Fifth collaboration with Vincente Minnelli |
| 1955 | Blackboard Jungle | Richard Brooks | First collaboration with Richard Brooks |
| The Glass Slipper | Charles Walters | Second collaboration with Charles Walters | |
| 1956 | Ransom! | Alex Segal | |
| Forbidden Planet | Fred M. Wilcox | ||
| The Fastest Gun Alive | Russell Rouse | ||
| Tea and Sympathy | Vincente Minnelli | Sixth collaboration with Vincente Minnelli | |
| 1957 | Something of Value | Richard Brooks | Second collaboration with Richard Brooks |
| Les Girls | George Cukor | ||
| 1958 | The High Cost of Loving | José Ferrer | |
| The Law and Jake Wade | John Sturges | Fifth collaboration with John Sturges | |
| Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Richard Brooks | Third collaboration with Richard Brooks | |
| 1959 | Green Mansions | Mel Ferrer | |
| Never So Few | John Sturges | Sixth collaboration with John Sturges | |
| 1960 | Key Witness | Phil Karlson | |
| The Magnificent Seven | John Sturges | Seventh collaboration with John Sturges | |
| 1961 | By Love Possessed | Eighth collaboration with John Sturges | |
| A Thunder of Drums | Joseph M. Newman | ||
| 1962 | Sergeants 3 | John Sturges | Ninth collaboration with John Sturges |
| The Manchurian Candidate | John Frankenheimer | First collaboration with John Frankenheimer | |
| 1963 | The Great Escape | John Sturges | Tenth collaboration with John Sturges |
| 1964 | Seven Days in May | John Frankenheimer | Second collaboration with John Frankenheimer |
| 1965 | The Satan Bug | John Sturges | Eleventh collaboration with John Sturges |
| The Hallelujah Trail | Twelfth collaboration with John Sturges | ||
| 1966 | Seconds | John Frankenheimer | Third collaboration with John Frankenheimer |
| 1967 | Divorce American Style | Bud Yorkin | First collaboration with Bud Yorkin |
| Hour of the Gun | John Sturges | Thirteenth collaboration with John Sturges | |
| 1968 | Ice Station Zebra | Fourteenth collaboration with John Sturges | |
| 1970 | Start the Revolution Without Me | Bud Yorkin | Second collaboration with Bud Yorkin |
| A Walk in the Spring Rain | Guy Green | ||
| Zig Zag | Richard A. Colla | ||
| 1971 | Le Mans | Lee H. Katzin | |
| My Old Man's Place | Edwin Sherin | ||
| The Organization | Don Medford | ||
| 1972 | Joe Kidd | John Sturges | Fifteenth collaboration with John Sturges |
| 1973 | High Plains Drifter | Clint Eastwood | First collaboration with Clint Eastwood |
| Breezy | Second collaboration with Clint Eastwood | ||
| Magnum Force | Ted Post | ||
| 1974 | Thunderbolt and Lightfoot | Michael Cimino | |
| 1975 | The Eiger Sanction | Clint Eastwood | Third collaboration with Clint Eastwood |
| 1976 | The Outlaw Josey Wales | Fourth collaboration with Clint Eastwood | |
| The Enforcer | James Fargo | First collaboration with James Fargo | |
| 1977 | The Gauntlet | Clint Eastwood | Fifth collaboration with Clint Eastwood |
| 1978 | Every Which Way but Loose | James Fargo | Second collaboration with James Fargo |
| 1979 | Escape from Alcatraz | Don Siegel | |
| 1980 | Bronco Billy | Clint Eastwood | Sixth collaboration with Clint Eastwood |
| Any Which Way You Can | Buddy Van Horn | ||
| 1982 | Firefox | Clint Eastwood | Seventh collaboration with Clint Eastwood |
| Honkytonk Man | Eighth collaboration with Clint Eastwood | ||
| :: |
::data[format=table title="Editorial department"]
| Year | Film | Director | Role | Notes | Other notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1954 | The Student Prince | Richard Thorpe | Editor: Widescreen | Third collaboration with Richard Thorpe | |
| 1970 | Cannon for Cordoba | Paul Wendkos | Editorial advisor | ||
| :: |
::data[format=table title="Actor"]
| Year | Film | Director | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1964 | Seven Days in May | John Frankenheimer | Gen. Bernard 'Barney' Rutkowski | |
| :: |
TV series
::data[format=table title="Editorial department"]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 | The Rat Patrol | Supervising film editor | 1 episode |
| :: |
References
References
- Birth and death dates and place-of-death obtained from a search of the [[Social Security Death Index]].
- {{IMDb name. 0916883
- Rapf, Maurice. (1999). "Back Lot: Growing Up with the Movies". Rowman & Littlefield.
- "USC All-Americans (outdoors)".
- Eder, Bruce. "Ferris Webster > Biography". [[Allmovie]].
- McGilligan, Patrick. (2002). "Clint: The Life and Legend". MacMillan.
- McGilligan, Patrick. (1999). "Clint: The Life and Legend". HarperCollins.
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