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Name: Frank Mazzola
Born and raised in the heart of Hollywood, Frank Mazzola has been surrounded by the film business for as long as he can remember. His father, Al Mazzola, was the first contract player at Fox Studios, Teaming up with Al St. John, in a series of two reelers called 'Sunshine Comedies'. Growing up, Frank worked as a child actor, juggling normal school life with the studio life, appearing in such films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), starring Charles Laughton, Always in My Heart (1942) with Walter Huston, Casablanca (1942) and Joseph Losey's The Boy with Green Hair (1948). Frank went on to study acting with Stella Adler and Jeff Corey, and did theater at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. He also had the part of a high school student in Elia Kazan's East of Eden (1955), before being accepted into the University of Oregon on an athletic scholarship. Frank left Hollywood behind; but only briefly. On a school break he auditioned for a part and was cast in Rebel Without A Cause (1955), directed by Nicholas Ray and starring then unknown James Dean. Because of his reputation from his days in the Hollywood High club/gang The Athenians, Frank was approached by Nick Ray and David Weisbart, Rebel'S Producer, to help them recreate a reality about rebellious teens from middle class families. Frank was given an office at Warner Brothers and according to Rolling Stone magazine, "he ended up helping director Nick Ray and screenwriter Stewart Stern shape Rebel into an accurate piece of 1955 sociology." Frank was instrumental in selecting Jimmy's '49 Merc and his famous red jacket, which was not unlike the original Athenian club jackets; and one of the Nick Ray biographies quotes, "...the knife duel between Jim and Buzz (Corey Allen) was staged with the aid of Frank Mazzola." Nick also signed a Rebel poster with a personal note of thanks, "For Frank Mazzola who helped so much to make the texture of Rebel into a living realty."
Frank's story was based on events that revolved around Hollywood in the early 50's: his High School club the Athenians, his brother's sixteen piece jazz band, hot rods dueling in suicidal drag races, and girlfriends caught in the middle of major rumbles with rival gangs. One fight with a motorcycle gang was so brutal that the gang's leader and Frank's lives hung in the balance. The raw reality of this kind of story is what Nick Ray and James Dean wanted to capture on the screen in Rebel Without A Cause.
To Frank it became clear that the truly creative aspects of film making were behind the camera. Inspired by Nick Ray and David Weisbart, who had edited A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Frank decide to pursue editing and learn the process of film making. While working as an assistant at Universal Studios, he was involved with Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960). Following assisting jobs at Fox studios and The Mirish Corp., Frank learned some of his most valuable lessons from working with Ralph Winter's as the first assistant on Blake Edwards' The Party (1968). After the creation of several complicated montages that received excellent reviews, Frank moved to New York and AVCO Embassy and began his career as an editor on films such as Macho Challahan (1970), Stiletto (1969), and a re-edit of La Piscine (1969), starring Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. Acquiring the reputation for doctoring films, Frank was sought out by film director Donald Cammell to create montages and re-edit Performance (1970), a film that was sitting on the shelf at Warner Brothers. Frank's work with Donald on Performance (1970) lead to the film's release. It has now received cult classic status and according to The British Film Institute, "Performance is one of the most extraordinary British films, and arguably the greatest." Frank's career as an editor excelled from this point forward with films such as Peter Fonda's directorial debut, The Hired Hand (1971), Donald Cammell's Demon Seed (1977), and A Woman called Moses (1978) starring Cicely Tyson with narration by Orsen Welles. Also Michael Barry's The Second Coming of Suzanne (1974), which Frank co-produced and edited, won three of the top ten awards at The Atlanta Film Festival including the gold medal for editing. "The exhilarating beauty of the color cinematography and visual wizardry of the many montage sequences establish cinematographer Isadore Mankofsky and editor/montage artist Frank Mazzola as two of the worlds finest artists in their respective fields." (Stratford Film Festival) Stanley Kauffman of The New Republic wrote, "Mazzola has used almost the whole contemporary editing vocabulary." Other reviewers have written that Frank is, "a master craftsman at film editing," he "creates a perfect sense of pacing," and his "montage sequences rate spontaneous audience applause." As Rex Reed wrote in The New York Daily News, "Frank Mazzola, the excellent film editor, has attempted to do something different with film." Even to date, he continues to dedicate his time and creative energy as an independent force in maintaining film as an art form. In 1999 Frank completed production on restoring and editing a Donald Cammell short, The Argument (1999). Video Watchdog's wrote "the film is a surreal gem...abandoned, once lost, now found, The Argument, like the Phoenix, has been reborn." The screening of the short became the catalyst for Tartan Films and London's Channel 4, to join forces with Frank on the restoration of The Director's Cut of Donald Cammell's Wild Side (2000), after the original producers had taken it from his control. Following the Wild Side premiere at The Edinburgh International Film Festival, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote: "Perhaps the most remarkable event of the festival has been Wild Side, the last film by the late Donald Cammell, presented in a radically new director's cut, lovingly prepared by editor and long time associate Frank Mazzola...Under Mazzola's microsurgery, it emerges as classic cinema..." Most recently, Frank has just returned from The Venice Film Festival, where he and Peter Fonda attended a special event for the beautifully restored and remastered version of The Hired Hand. In cooperation with Universal Studios, Pando Productions and Tartan Films, Frank produced the restoration, for re-release next year. (sources: The Mazzola Film Co)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955) - Crunch
The Mazzola Film Co |
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