Michael Luciano (May 2, 1909 – September 15, 1992) was an American film and television editor with about forty feature film credits and many additional credits for television programs.Luciano's birth and death dates are taken from the Social Security Death Index; see From 1954 to 1977, Luciano edited 20 (nearly all) of the films directed, and often produced, by Robert Aldrich.In his 1995 monograph, Alain Silver published a complete filmography for Aldrich's films that includes crew credits. Luciano is credited as an editor on 20 films directed by Aldrich; see Aldrich was a prolific and independent maker of popular films "who depicted corruption and evil unflinchingly, and pushed limits on violence throughout his career." Their early collaboration, the film noir Kiss Me Deadly (1955), was entered into the US National Film Registry in 1999; the unusual editing of the film has been noted by several critics. Luciano's work with Aldrich was recognized by four Academy Award nominations, for Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and The Longest Yard (1974).

Early career Nothing appears to have been published about Luciano's early career and education. In the era of the Hollywood studio system and the "Big Five" studios, Luciano's credits are for films produced by smaller companies. His first credit is as the editor of The Luck of Roaring Camp, a 1937 film produced by Monogram Pictures, which was a "Poverty Row" studio. He edited Gang War (1940), which was produced by Million Dollar Productions. His last credit before the US entry into World War II was apparently for Meet the Chump (1941).

Luciano's first postwar credit was for The Return of Rin Tin Tin (1947), which was the 41st feature film that starred the German shepherd dog Rin Tin Tin and his successors.. Also in 1947, Luciano was the assistant to editors Robert Parrish and Francis D. Lyon on the boxing film Body and Soul, which was directed by Robert Rossen. The film won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing. Luciano worked for Parrish again as the "montage editor" on the 1949 film, Caught, and then co-edited the 1951 documentary Of Men and Music with Parrish and two others. Parrish subsequently moved into directing, and Luciano was the editor for Parrish's 1959 western, The Wonderful Country.

The Aldrich collaboration

Robert Aldrich was an assistant director on Body and Soul, Chase, and Of Men and Music. He asked Luciano to edit the 1954 film World for Ransom, which was the first film he produced and directed. Joseph F. Biroc was the cinematographer, and Frank De Vol composed the music. Luciano, Biroc, and De Vol became Aldrich's "informal repertory company" for the next two decades. In 1955 Luciano edited Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly, which is an important film noir that is now in the National Film Registry. Luciano edited almost all of Aldrich's films that followed Kiss Me Deadly, including three in the following year.

Aldrich enjoyed particular success with the 1962 film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and its offspring Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). The latter film won Luciano his first major recognition with a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing, which was just one of the seven "Oscar" nominations for the film. The following year, Luciano's editing of The Flight of the Phoenix was nominated both for the Oscar and for the Eddie Award of the American Cinema Editors. The American Cinema Editors does not provide an archive of Eddie awards, referring instead to the Internet Movie Database. See The film that was Aldrich's greatest commercial success was The Dirty Dozen (1967), which had the fifth largest US ticket sales in 1967. Luciano won the Eddie award for the picture, and was again nominated for the Oscar. The Longest Yard (1974), again directed by Aldrich, garnered Luciano his second Eddie Award and a fourth Oscar nomination.The winner of an Eddie award is selected by a vote of the membership of the American Cinema Editors, whereas Oscars are decided by the voting members of the entire Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, including actors, writers, producers, and practitioners of many of the other film crafts. See

The final film of the long Aldrich-Luciano collaboration was Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977). For about 23 years, Luciano had been a member of Aldrich's "informal repertory company", which also included cinematographer Joseph F. Biroc and composer Frank De Vol.Alain Silver has written that "Like many producers and directors, Aldrich preferred working with the same group of people and considered these writers, crew members, and actors as part of his extended family." See Ben Sachs has written of Aldrich's motivations in maintaining a core group of collaborators over more than two decades. He notes that Aldrich admired the studio system, which could keep teams of filmmakers together for decades. Aldrich's career saw the collapse of that system, but "Aldrich sought to preserve the team of collaborators — which included cinematographer Joseph Biroc, composer Frank De Vol, editor Michael Luciano, and production designer William Glasgow — with whom he'd regularly worked since his second feature, World for Ransom (1954). ... In interviews he presented himself as an organizer of creative talents who encouraged his casts and crews to help shape the material at hand."

Other works Luciano edited several more features before his retirement around 1982, including Stripes (1981), which was directed by Ivan Reitman. In addition to his editing of feature films with Aldrich and other directors, Luciano was a prolific editor of television programs in the 1950s and 1960s, with credits for episodes of Gunsmoke, Have Gun – Will Travel, The Donna Reed Show, and other series. In 1956, Luciano edited one episode of Gunsmoke that was directed by Charles Marquis Warren, and over the next two years Luciano edited three feature films directed by Warren.The films were Unknown Terror (1957), Copper Sky (1957), and Blood Arrow (1958); see Luciano was nominated for an Eddie for a 1964 episode of the television program Bewitched. Luciano's last film project was Kidnapped (1987), for which he is credited as a supervising editor and an associate producer.

Luciano's legacy Luciano's editing has been noted in several books and articles. In his book Film Noir, William Luhr notes the editing of Kiss Me Deadly as part of the film's "disorienting, even disturbing, formal strategies." J.P. Telotte writes that, "one of the pillars of classical narrative, continuity editing, often disappears - or to be more precise, repeatedly fails, as in a later work like Breathless, so that we see the seams in the narrative, the manipulations in our point of view, the mismatched fragments of the story constructed for us."

In their 2002 text, Robert Goodman and Patrick McGrath recommend study of Luciano's editing of The Dirty Dozen and The Longest Yard. In his study of films with sports themes, Randy Williams discusses the influence of The Longest Yard (1974): "Aldrich uses split-screen and slow motion techniques to help convey the tension and drama as the game progresses. The real key is the pinpoint timing of Michael Luciano's editing...The Longest Yard is still one of the more influential movies in sports cinema."

Glenn Erickson has discussed the split-screen editing of Twilight's Last Gleaming, which was Luciano's final film with Aldrich, "In this show Aldrich and Luciano make effective use of split screens to show multiple parallel actions simultaneously. Actions that play out in real time seem more immediate, when we see all the information all at once: a pair of commandos set a nuclear device on one side of a steel door, while on the other side General Dell and his fellow gunmen begin to guess that just such a commando sneak attack might be taking place." Ben Sachs notes that the clearly visible editing that characterized Kiss Me Deadly was toned down in later films by Aldrich and Luciano, "Intriguingly, Aldrich's style grew more modest as his content grew more provocative. Where his 1950s and 1960s work teems with hopped-up editing and Wellesian camera angles, his later films are comparatively straightforward...The filmmaking privileges content over style, pushing to the foreground the contradictions inherent in the material."

Luciano had been selected as a member of the American Cinema Editors. Reprinted copies of the newsletter.

Selected filmography + Editor Year Film Director Notes Other notes1937 Luck of Roaring CampIrvin Willat1938 Man's CountryRobert F. Hill1939 The Adventures of the Masked PhantomCharles Abbott1940 Gang WarLeo C. Popkin1947 The Return of Rin Tin TinMax Nosseck1951 Stop That CabEugenio de Liguoro1954 World for Ransom Robert AldrichFirst collaboration with Robert Aldrich 1955 Kiss Me DeadlySecond collaboration with Robert Aldrich The Big KnifeThird collaboration with Robert Aldrich 1956 Autumn LeavesFourth collaboration with Robert Aldrich AttackFifth collaboration with Robert Aldrich 1957 The Halliday BrandJoseph H. Lewis The Ride BackAllen H. Miner The Unknown Terror Charles Marquis WarrenFirst collaboration with Charles Marquis Warren Copper SkySecond collaboration with Charles Marquis Warren1958 Blood ArrowThird collaboration with Charles Marquis Warren1959 The Wonderful CountryRobert Parrish 1961 AtlasRoger Corman The Last Sunset Robert AldrichSixth collaboration with Robert Aldrich1962 What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?Seventh collaboration with Robert Aldrich 1963 Black ZooRobert Gordon 4 for Texas Robert AldrichEighth collaboration with Robert Aldrich1964 Hush...Hush, Sweet CharlotteNinth collaboration with Robert Aldrich1965 The Flight of the PhoenixTenth collaboration with Robert Aldrich1967 The Dirty DozenEleventh collaboration with Robert Aldrich 1968 The Legend of Lylah ClareTwelfth collaboration with Robert Aldrich The Killing of Sister GeorgeThirteenth collaboration with Robert Aldrich1970 Too Late the HeroFourteenth collaboration with Robert Aldrich1971 The Grissom GangFifteenth collaboration with Robert Aldrich 1972 Trap on Cougar MountainKeith LarsenFirst collaboration with Keith Larsen Ulzana's Raid Robert AldrichSixteenth collaboration with Robert Aldrich1973 Emperor of the North PoleSeventeenth collaboration with Robert Aldrich1974 The Longest YardEighteenth collaboration with Robert Aldrich1975 HustleNineteenth collaboration with Robert Aldrich 1976 Bobbie Jo and the OutlawMark L. Lester ScorchyHoward AvedisFirst collaboration with Howard Avedis 1977 Twilight's Last GleamingRobert AldrichTwentieth collaboration with Robert Aldrich Empire of the AntsBert I. Gordon1978 The One Man JuryCharles Martin1979 Young and FreeKeith LarsenSecond collaboration with Keith Larsen1980 Hardly WorkingJerry Lewis1981 StripesIvan Reitman

+ Editorial department Year Film Director Role Notes1947 Body and SoulRobert RossenAssistant editor1949 CaughtMax OphülsMontages1969 What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?Lee H. KatzinSupervising editor1981 TapsHarold BeckerAdditional editor1987 KidnappedHoward AvedisSupervising editorSecond collaboration with Howard Avedis

+ Producer Year Film Director Credit1987 KidnappedHoward AvedisAssociate producer

Documentaries

+ Editor Year Film Director1951 Of Men and Music

TV documentaries

+ Editor Year Film Director1981 High Hopes: The Capra Years

TV movies

+ Editor Year Film Director1979 Gold of the Amazon WomenMark L. Lester1982 American EagleWilliam A. Graham

TV series