Ralph Rosenblum

Who was Ralph Rosenblum?

Ralph Rosenblum was an American film editor who worked extensively with the directors Sidney Lumet and Woody Allen. He won the 1977 BAFTA Award for Best Editing for his work on Annie Hall, and published an influential memoir When the Shooting Stops, the Cutting Begins: A Film Editor's Story.

Towards the end of the Second World War, Rosenblum worked as a filmmaking apprentice in the U. S. Office of War Information; among his mentors there were Sidney Meyers and Helen van Dongen. Following the war he became van Dongen's assistant while she was editing Robert Flaherty's film Louisiana Story. Much of Rosenblum's work in the 1950s and early 1960s was in television; he worked on shows such as The Search, Omnibus, The Guy Lombardo Show, and The Patty Duke Show. With Sid Katz and Gene Milford, he formed a company, MKR Films, that provided editorial services for television shows, spots, and corporate films.

In the 1960s, Rosenblum edited five films directed by Sidney Lumet, starting with Long Day's Journey into Night. These films, which were all serious dramas, were very important to Rosenblum's career; as John Gallagher has noted,