OBITUARY : Derek York

Derek York was the "nearly man" of his generation, a member of Britain's vital "Free Cinema" movement who never made that quantum leap to directing, unlike his contemporaries and colleagues Lindsay Anderson, Tony Richardson, Karel Reisz and Bryan Forbes. That he did not succeed was a combination of ill-luck, the innate conservatism of the British film industry, and his own stubbornness and intractability.

Brought up in Essex and educated at Leyton Council High School, York was obsessed with "the pictures". After a truncated National Service he was placed by his father in a brokerage job on the London Stock Exchange, but he assiduously sought a career in film and visited all those Film Society forerunners of the National Film Theatre, in London, where he eventually became a well-known regular, haunting the foyer and befriending the staff.

Under the benevolent aegis of the producer Ian Dalrymple he left the City to find work as a second assistant editor on such prestige British features as The Winslow Boy (1948) and Conspirator (1949), and with his earnings co-funded, wrote and directed an acclaimed short drama on 35mm, Saturday Night, featuring a young, broke actor called Bryan Forbes.

On the strength of Saturday Night, York was offered full-time employment as an editor by Leon Clore of Basic Films and at the age of 24 he shaped the official film of the 1951 Festival of Britain. Lindsay Anderson telephoned York to compliment him on the shooting and editing of Festival and so began his involvement in the Free Cinema movement, when angry young men made shorts backed by the British Film Institute's Experimental Film Fund. York co-shot and edited the important historical filmed record March to Aldermaston.

Gradually the British "new wave" began to roll. Richardson, Reisz, Anderson and Forbes all made successful directing dbuts and Forbes as producer- director asked York to edit Seance on a Wet Afternoon for him. Although York was well versed in editing theory, he firmly believed that all short material should be well scrutinised before attempting an edited assembly. The "nodal points" predicating the impulse to cut should be located first and then editing should be begin. This archaic intellectuality was totally inappropriate to the speed of contemporary film-making and was to be both York's strength and his downfall.

He was offered Alexander Mackendrick's High Wind in Jamaica (1965), which emerged, after a tortuous period in the cutting rooms, to classic status. Other editing jobs followed, notably Life at the Top (1965) and the unreleased Two Gentleman Sharing , both for the director Ted Kotcheff, but the failure to direct had embittered York, and despite his shrewdly investing money in Irish property and being among the first to offer Moviolas for hire, York's humourless manner and flagrant disregard for professional timekeeping were making him hard to employ.

In 1969, when Bryan Forbes took over as head of production at Elstree, York was offered the chance to direct his "Spivs" script, now retitled The Grifters, provided that Forbes could make some changes. York replied that the script was "written in blood", and effectively wrote off his directorial career. Roman Polanski, for whom York's longtime companion the former actress Concepta Fennell worked, asked him to salvage a feature- length documentary about the racing driver Jackie Stewart and York's editing ensured that Weekend of a Champion proved good enough to play the Ritz, Leicester Square, unique for a documentary.

He later replaced the editor and shot some second unit on the unshown Apple fiasco Son of Dracula and edited Jean Negulesco's last movie, The Invincible Six, but such jobs were rare and he sought recourse in teaching editing.

Concepta Fennell decamped to Los Angeles to work for the scriptwriter Robert Towne, but York found it hard to make the necessary break and when he tried discovered he had neither the temperament or the patience to "work" LA. Back in England his flat was repossessed, his dog died, and his personal problems multiplied.

Derek York died angry, embittered, and almost forgotten, saved by those few of his acolytes all now pursing careers in the film industry, to whom he showed extraordinary kindnesses many Christmases ago, when we all watched 16mm prints on his wall and discussed the finer points of film-making into the small hours.

Derek Walter York, film editor: born Leyton, Essex 22 June 1927; died Poole, Dorset 23 December 1994.