 The first film Peter Tanner assisted on was Lorna Doone (1934), directed by Basil Dean during his time as head of Ealing Studios. Tanner returned to Ealing in the late 1940s and 50s to edit some of the most outstanding films produced under Michael Balcon's leadership. Prior to that he served his apprenticeship as assistant to Reginald Beck at Fox's Wembley Studios. Thanks to a training programme negotiated between Fox and the ACT, he went to Hollywood for several months and worked with editor Robert Simpson on Always Goodbye (US, 1938). Although Tanner was young enough to be called up for active service during the war, producer Sydney Box secured him exemptions to work on various documentary projects. He edited We Serve (d. Carol Reed, 1942), a film designed to recruit women to the army, and Failure of a Strategy (d. David Lean, 1944), a newsreel compilation intended for exhibition in countries recently liberated by the Allies. With fellow editor Stewart McAllister, Tanner helped put together the first British documentary record of the newly liberated concentration camps for the German War Atrocities project. Tanner joined Ealing for Scott of the Antarctic (d. Charles Frend, 1948), where he was closely involved in "matching [Ralph Vaughan Williams'] music to the rhythm of the cutting of the film". The project he enjoyed most was Kind Hearts and Coronets (d. Robert Hamer, 1949). During production Alec Guinness often visited the cutting rooms to remind himself, by listening to sound loops, of the different voices of the nine characters he was playing. Tanner spent ten years at Ealing, assisted initially by Seth Holt and later by John Jympson. Most of Tanner's subsequent career was spent freelancing on various features, interspersed with occasional television work. One regret was never working with Hamer again: "I was going to do Lady Windermere's Fan with him just before he died, which would have been fascinating, because he would have been perfect for Wilde." John Cassavetes' Husbands (US, 1970) was a challenge because of its long, improvised shots where the conception of a scene might change from take to take. Tanner's favourite film of the later part of his career was the little-known Stevie (d. Robert Enders, 1978). He occasionally published and lectured on his experiences as an editor, and emphasised that "you should never be too old to learn, as well as never too old to experiment... If it doesn't come off, nothing is lost, it just didn't come off. But there is always the chance that it will". Roy Perkins/Martin Stollery, British Film Editors: The Heart of the Movie (BFI Publishing, 2004)
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FILM & TV CREDITS
