ABSTRACT
The use of the word cutter in the previous sentence was intentional. In the 1920s and early 1930s, a cutter who called himself a fi lm editor would have been considered a snob. Then came the Wagner Labor Relations Act and unionization. In an attempt to raise the status of the craft, which was considered by the less knowledgeable executives of Hollywood to be five or six rungs from the top of the filmmaker's ladder, it was decided that film editor had a more imposing sound than film cutter, and henceforth that became the official terminology.*
However, most film editors, at least in each other's company, still use the down-to-earth term cutter to define themselves and their profession.
