KLEINERMAN, ISAAC

(b. 1916)

The editor of STANLEY KUBRICK’s second documentary short,“FLYING PADRE,” Kleinerman worked in film and television for roughly half of the 20th century. During World War II, he served with the U. S. Army Signal Corps, working on training films and some of theWhy We Fightseries, which were produced in Astoria, Queens. After the war, he worked as an editor, alongside producer BURTON BENJAMIN, on a number of documentary series for RKO-Pathé, includingScreenliner(of which “Flying Padre” is a segment) andThis is America—the company’s answer to RICHARD DE ROCHEMONT’sThe March of Time.(Although Kubrick’s previous short, “DAY OF THE FIGHT,” was part ofThis is America,Kleinerman had no hand in that film.)

In the 1950s, Kleinerman was hired by the NBC television network to produce a new series,Victory at Sea,a compilation of wartime footage shot primarily by the U. S. Navy, comprising 26 episodes. Kleinerman left NBC in 1957 to join longtime colleague and “very good friend” Burton Benjamin at CBS, where they developed the seriesTwentieth Century,which aired until 1966.

One of the most challenging aspects of Kleinerman’s duties onTwentieth Centurywas tracking down footage that had been suppressed by various governments or was believed to be destroyed. For example, through underground contacts, Kleinerman located footage of Juan and Eva Perón that the revolutionary junta in Argentina had thought destroyed; he obtained films, shot by Communist regimes in China and the USSR, that had to be smuggled out; and he was able to air documentary footage of the actual street fighting in Budapest during the Hungarian uprising against the Russians.

Kleinerman continued to produce CBS news specials-among themHarvest of Mercy(1966),Hitler and his Henchmen(1970), andThe Great Depression(1976)—until he left to form his own company, Elkar 190nKlein, Michael Productions, in 1976. That company has been responsible for such programming as the seriesThe Unknown War(1980) andHello China(1982).

■ Hogenson, Barbara, “Who’s Who in Filmmaking: Isaac Kleinerman,”Sightlines17, no. 2 (fall/winter 1983/84): 19–22;

■ Mishkin, Leo, “Sight and Sound:‘Twentieth Century’ Preparation Unique,”New York Morning Telegraph,April 24, 1959, p. 2;

■ Scheuer, Steven H. , ed. ,Who’s Who in Television and Cable(New York: Facts On File) 1983.