 As both assistant and fully fledged editor, Reginald Mills worked with some of the most highly regarded figures within British film history. He assisted David Lean on films including As You Like It (d. Paul Czinner, 1936) and Dreaming Lips (d. Czinner, 1937). After this Mills worked for Publicity Films at Merton Park Studios, directing and editing sponsored and advertising films. During the war he served with the Army Kinematograph Unit. Mills then enjoyed a long stint as editor of all the classic post-war films directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Mills' love of music, ballet and opera made him well suited to experiment with them on the idea of the 'composed' film. Like many directors of that period, Powell was rarely seen in the cutting rooms while Mills was preparing his first cut. According to Mills' long-term assistant Noreen Ackland, Powell "respected him a lot". This is corroborated by the praise given to Mills' editing in Powell's volumes of autobiography. Mills returned to directing and editing commercials in the latter part of the 1950s prior to renewing a fruitful collaboration with Joseph Losey on films including The Servant (1963) and King and Country (1964). Friction with Harold Pinter after editing The Servant contributed to a parting of the ways before the next Losey-Pinter collaboration. Mills' most sustained collaboration towards the end of his career was with Franco Zeffirelli. He finally realised a long-held ambition to direct a feature with the ballet film Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971). As an editor Mills insisted upon the paramount importance of the perfect timing of cuts. Although in certain respects a traditionalist who disliked some of the innovations of the 1960s, his editing, in the words of his obituarist, "often had a great force and energy, almost a violence, that added a new element to the films concerned". Mills was also a pioneer of the trend towards eliminating opticals from editing. Roy Perkins/Martin Stollery, British Film Editors: The Heart of the Movie (BFI Publishing, 2004)
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FILM & TV CREDITS
