BUD SMITH AN APPRECIATION WITH ANECDOTES
Bud Smith started his career at Four Star Television, a company formed by Dick Powell, Charles Boyer, David Niven and Joel McRae (hence the name). Four Star proved fortuitous for Bud. There he met Steve McQueen, star of “Wanted Dead or Alive” they were both avid motorcyclists, racing around the desert with their pal Bud Ekins. I believe Bud’s love of speed, adrenaline and the thrill of racing informed his visceral style of editing.
In the mid 1960’s Bud met David Wolper who would take Bud to his production company and introduce him to his biggest filmmaking ally, William Friedkin. There they collaborated on ” The Bold Men”, the start of a long creative relationship.
After leaving Wolper, Bud was in NYC cutting the featurette of “Goodbye Mr. Chips” when Bob Downey walked by his cutting room. Downey looked in and liked what he saw. “You want to edit my film?” he asked and Bud wound up cutting “Putney Swope” an underground megahit about a black advertising agency. Bud and Bob would go on to make “Pound,” “Greaser’s Palace” and “Sticks and Bones,” based on the David Rabe play produced by Joe Papp. It was one the of the first anti-Vietnam War films to show on network television and thanks to their mutual friend Jack Nitzsche, it had music by the Rolling Stones.
In the early 70’s, Bud re teamed with Friedkin for “The Exorcist,” a film that caused a major sensation. One of the scariest movies ever made – lines formed around the block everywhere. It was a huge box office hit. Bud told me they were under such a tight deadline and were working so many hours that the studio had a nurse come to give them B12 injections to keep going.
Friedkin and Smith’s follow up was the underappreciated (at the time) “Sorcerer,” now recognized as a masterpiece. Bud was a producer and shot 2nd Unit as well as other footage for this film. He proved himself a brilliant 2nd Unit Director as is evident by the counterfeiting scene in “To Live and Die in LA” and the scene where Ed Begley Jr gets his arm ripped off by the panther in “Cat People.” Pure cinema.
Bud loved to experiment creatively with film. He used subliminal cuts in “The Exorcist” and “Cruising,” (another Friedkin collaboration that was unfairly boycotted during production). Once again it is now considered a classic. Recently I told Bud how much I liked that movie – how well it was made and this made him very, very happy to hear. I think he considered it some of his best work and the bad treatment the film received (by people who hadn’t seen it) upset him.
In “Cruising” Bud used subliminal cuts of hardcore 8mm films during the murders to unsettle the audience. In “Sorcerer” he was inspired while looking at Cynex strips on the Kem. A Cynex strip was an optical element created from a frame of a shot to judge exposure, each frame was half a stop lighter than the previous, from black to white. He cut them into the film during Roy Schieder’s hallucinnatory drive through an eerie landscape. He also scored that scene with an album he had called “The Wind Harp,” adding to the mind altering atmosphere.
In “Zoot Suit” he told me he mixed the film in Sensurround, a process that added powerful bass frequencies to emphasize the tap dancing. He was always coming up with new techniques to make films more expressive. The soundtrack of “The Exorcist” is another example where he used so many creative cutting edge ideas to make the film more powerful and to make it work on a subconscious, primal level.
Bud edited “Flashdance” for which he won a BAFTA award. It was another giant hit and a big cultural influence. In the final audition dance scene in “Flashdance”, Bud seamlessly combined the moves of Jennifer Beals with three different dancers (one of which was a male breakdancer in a wig) to create the beloved dance sequence.
A few years later Bud struck gold again with “The Karate Kid,” another mega hit.
Bud was the recipient of an ACE Career Achievement Award in 2008.
If you spent any time with Bud you were gifted with some great stories, like when some mafiosi showed up at the cutting room of Friedkin’s “The Brinks Job,” tied the crew up at gunpoint and kidnapped a few reels of dailies. Luckily Bud was not there at the time and what they stole was the work print which could easily be reprinted at the lab.
If you look at the poster for “Sorcerer,” you’ll see a truck on a primitive rope and plank bridge leaning at an impossible angle. This image is a frame enlargement from the film. In the next frame the truck toppled over into a raging river below. In the cab of that truck, in real life, was Bud Smith and his old pal Bud Ekins.
Besides his great accomplishments as an editor and 2nd Unit Director, Bud directed the film “Johnny Be Goode,” starring Anthony Michael Hall, his friend Robert Downey’s son, Robert Downey Jr. and Uma Thurman in her first film. I wish he had directed more films, but soon thereafter he took a job at Universal as their “film doctor,” recutting films as needed to improve their chances at the box office.
Bud was a very generous person. He gave a lot of people a leg up or a big break. He helped me as well. I was assisting him on a Downey film called Moonbeam. Bud agreed to edit it as long as he was free but then he had to leave to edit Flashdance. Downey asked who should take over and Bud replied “Joe can do it.” Bud Smith gave me my first editing job.
Renowned Director of Photography Bob Yeoman was shooting 2nd Unit for Bud on “To Live and Die in L.A.” when Robbie Muller the 1st Unit D.P. “got sick.” Bud proposed to Friedkin that Bob take over and Bob will tell you that it made his career.
Bud was blessed with a 33-year relationship with his lovely wife Lucy, a former dialog editor. They loved each other dearly and Lucy took amazing care of him in his last years. She is an angel.
Bud Smith is survived by three children from a previous marriage sons Scott, Steven,daughter, Jill as well as a granddaughter, __________
Farewell dear friend. You will be deeply missed by the people who know and love you and all of those who were thrilled and moved by your brilliant work.
As we all know by now the great artist known as David Lynch passed on to the next realm a few days ago. I can’t believe it, I felt he would always be at his compound on Outpost creating word stuff. It was reassuring if he posted a weather report or a strange short film or whatever else he did. Furniture making, painting, photography. He was such a quintessential part of Los Angeles, a City that he loved so much.
And he wound up making what many people believe to be his masterpiece. Now this is what I am referring to as the Triumph of David Lynch. He goes from abject failure to a masterpiece with the same project! His creativity did not bow to Hollywood convention, it overcame it and surpassed it in an incredible way. The story of Mullholland Drive has similar dynamics vis a vis the Hollywood Experience. A young woman comes here, she’s full of hopes and dreams to make it as an actress. She gets an audition, she nails it, showing tremendous talent, in what I feel is the best scene of the film. Then the unfair mechanisms of Hollywood grind away and she is passed by, This is the essential Hollywood dynamic and Lynch expresses it and explores it in such an amazing creative way.
