This article explores the role of film editors within adaptation. Specifically, it looks at the contributions selected British editors made to a range of film adaptations of lowbrow, middlebrow, and highbrow stage plays during the 1930s and 1940s. The films discussed in some detail are Loyalties (1933), Dirty Work (1934), The Face at the Window (1939), and Henry V (1944). This article explores the work of two editors who sought to transform theatrical properties into films that conformed to different notions of the essentially cinematic. It also explores the work of another two editors who were less concerned with medium specificity and more focused on enhancing the qualities of the theatrical source material. It argues that more historical work needs to be done on how filmmakers have brought different understandings of the similarities and differences between cinema and theatre to bear upon their production practices.
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