Harry W. Gerstad

Harry W. Gerstad, born Harry Donald Gerstad (June 11, 1909 – July 17, 2002) was an American film editor who sometimes directed films. The Academy Award-winning editor also worked on television. He edited as well as directed for the 1950s program Adventures of Superman. In the 1960s he worked for Bing Crosby productions and Batjac Productions. Gerstad retired to Palm Springs, California in 1973.

Noteworthy films

Gerstad's editing work spanned more than 40 films, including The Spiral Staircase (1946), Crossfire (1947), Rocketship X-M (1950), Batman (1966), The War Wagon (1967) and Walking Tall (1973).

Awards and nominations

He won the Academy Award for Film Editing (the "Oscar") twice: for the boxing drama Champion in 1949 and for Fred Zinnemann's seminal Western High Noon in 1952. Although Elmo Williams, who was co-editor of High Noon, indicated in his autobiography that Gerstad's credit was a nominal one. However, in that time-frame, the editorial supervisor/supervising film editor (Gerstad's title in "High Noon", and other films in that time-frame) was usually and very often contractually given superior credit to his subordinate editor(s) (in this case, Williams, who consequently received subordinate credit), and one significant responsibility of Gerstad's superior position was in selecting and hiring his subordinate editor(s), in this case Williams, who had not previously worked on a Stanley Kramer production, and would not work on a subsequent Kramer production.

In 1997, Gerstad received the American Cinema Editors Career Achievement Award.

Gerstad was honored with a Palm Springs Walk of Stars Golden Palm Star in 2003.

Selected filmography

• Tough Assignment (1949)
• 13 Fighting Men (1960)