---
name: "Peter R. Hunt"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/peter-r-hunt"
roles: ["Editor","Director"]
born: "11 March 1925"
died: "14 August 2002"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 6
average_fi1m_score: 74
average_over: 5
updated: "2026-09-18T11:07:17.909647+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Peter R. Hunt

Editor and director. Born 11 March 1925 in London, England, UK. Died 14 August 2002.

## Details

- **Work:** Editor, Director
- **Born:** 11 March 1925, London, England, UK
- **Died:** 14 August 2002
- **Active:** 1962–1969
- **Also known as:** Peter Hunt
- **Titles on Fi1m:** 6: 1 directing, 5 crew
- **Frequently works with:** [Albert R. Broccoli](https://film.one/person/albert-r-broccoli.md), [Harry Saltzman](https://film.one/person/harry-saltzman.md), [Richard Maibaum](https://film.one/person/richard-maibaum.md), [Sean Connery](https://film.one/person/sean-connery.md), [Terence Young](https://film.one/person/terence-young.md)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 74 to 72 across 5 titles
- **Score spread:** 2 at 80+, 3 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Genres:** Action 5, Adventure 5, Thriller 5
- **Screen time:** 10 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $516m across 5 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_R._Hunt, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q707773, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0402597/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/9868

## Fi1m on Peter R. Hunt

> The man who taught the Bond films to cut a punch in half. Hunt's editing gave the early series its speed, and his one film as director gave it a last half hour nothing since has matched. The later features are not why anyone remembers him.

Two men in a train compartment the size of a wardrobe. Bond and Grant have spent most of *From Russia with Love* (1963) circling each other, and when they finally fight, Peter R. Hunt slices it so fine that you feel every blow without quite seeing one. It lasts perhaps two minutes and has been copied for sixty years. Hunt is the reason the early Bond films are fast, and fast is a good deal of what they are.

He came up as an assistant cutter in the 1940s and was a full editor by the mid-1950s. Then he cut the first five Bonds, from *Dr. No* (1962) to *You Only Live Twice* (1967), and took the second unit on the fifth. His habit was to throw away the connecting shots: a punch, a fall and out. In *Dr. No* it is his pace rather than the script that keeps the Kingston section moving, and it is his hold on Connery's sweating face, with the music gone, that makes the tarantula scene still work. In *Goldfinger* (1964) he does the opposite: he stays on the laser beam a beat longer than is comfortable each time we return to it, so that we tensed at a scene whose ending we knew.

Not all of it holds. In *Thunderball* (1965) the fights underwater happen at the speed of a man in flippers, and Hunt and Ernest Hosler speed up the footage to compensate, so fists arrive before the arms behind them. We were bored, and then cross about it. On land he still had the snap: a dockside brawl in *You Only Live Twice*, shot from a helicopter, is over before we have worked out the geography.

Then he directed. *On Her Majesty's Secret Service* (1969) is the one Bond he made himself. He went back to Fleming's novel and kept a Bond who falls in love and means it. With John Glen he cuts the ski chases into short, hard pieces, the camera down on the slope, black figures on flat white snow. A bobsleigh fight, done with real sleds on a real run and the camera going down with them, made us grip the armrest. The film has a lead who cannot act and a middle that dawdles, and it is still one of the best in the series.

The features that followed, *Gold* (1974), *Shout at the Devil* (1976), *Death Hunt* (1981) and *Assassination* (1987), are the work of a capable director who had already made his best film. His own rule for the Bonds was that "one should make the films seriously, but never take them seriously." Watch the compartment fight and then the ski chase, and notice how little of either is actually on the screen.

## Biography

Peter R. Hunt (also credited as Peter Hunt) was a British film editor and director. He began his career in the film industry as a clapper boy in the late 1940s, progressing to assistant editor and then editor. He edited Sink the Bismarck! (1960) before joining the James Bond series.

Hunt edited the first five Bond films: Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965) and You Only Live Twice (1967), where he also served as second unit director. He developed a fast-cutting style known as "crash cutting". He directed On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), the only Bond film he helmed, and later directed episodes of The Persuaders! (1971) as well as films including Death Hunt (1981). He also edited The Ipcress File (1965).

Hunt died in Santa Monica, California, on 14 August 2002.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, latimes.com, nytimes.com, theguardian.com.*

## On Fi1m (6)

### Directed (1)

- *On Her Majesty's Secret Service* (1969), Fi1m 83, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/on-her-majestys-secret-service.md)

### Crew (5) — the average rests on these

- *You Only Live Twice* (1967), Fi1m 62, Editor, Second Unit Director — [page](https://film.one/film/you-only-live-twice.md)
- *Thunderball* (1965), Fi1m 66, Editor, Supervising Editor — [page](https://film.one/film/thunderball.md)
- *Goldfinger* (1964), Fi1m 82, Editor — [page](https://film.one/film/goldfinger.md)
- *From Russia with Love* (1963), Fi1m 84, Editor — [page](https://film.one/film/from-russia-with-love.md)
- *Dr. No* (1962), Fi1m 77, Editor — [page](https://film.one/film/dr-no.md)

## Complete filmography (40)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Double-O Stunts* (2000), Acting
- *Inside 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'* (2000), Acting
- *Eyes of a Witness* (1991), Director
- *Assassination* (1987), Director
- *Hyper Sapien: People from Another Star* (1986), Director
- *Wild Geese II* (1985), Director
- *The Last Days of Pompeii* (1984), series, Director
- *Death Hunt* (1981), Director
- *Night Games* (1980), Editor
- *The Beasts Are on the Streets* (1978), Director
- *Studentinnen-Report* (1977), Writer
- *Gulliver's Travels* (1977), Director
- *Shout at the Devil* (1976), Director
- *Gold* (1974), Director
- *Shirley's World* (1972), series, Director
- *The Persuaders!* (1971), series, Director, Editor
- *On Her Majesty's Secret Service* (1969), Director — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/film/on-her-majestys-secret-service.md)
- *Chitty Chitty Bang Bang* (1968), Associate Producer
- *You Only Live Twice* (1967), Editor, Second Unit Director — Fi1m 62, [page](https://film.one/film/you-only-live-twice.md)
- *Welcome to Japan, Mr. Bond* (1967), Editor
- *Thunderball* (1965), Supervising Editor, Editor — Fi1m 66, [page](https://film.one/film/thunderball.md)
- *The Ipcress File* (1965), Editor
- *Goldfinger* (1964), Editor — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/goldfinger.md)
- *From Russia with Love* (1963), Editor — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/from-russia-with-love.md)
- *Call Me Bwana* (1963), Editor
- *Dr. No* (1962), Editor — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/film/dr-no.md)
- *H.M.S. Defiant* (1962), Editor
- *On the Fiddle* (1961), Editor
- *The Greengage Summer* (1961), Editor
- *There Was a Crooked Man* (1960), Editor
- *Sink the Bismarck!* (1960), Editor
- *Ferry to Hong Kong* (1959), Editor
- *A Cry from the Streets* (1958), Editor
- *Next to No Time* (1958), Editor
- *The Admirable Crichton* (1957), Editor
- *A Hill in Korea* (1956), Editor, Second Unit Director
- *Doublecross* (1956), Editor
- *Stranger from Venus* (1954), Editor
- *Burnt Evidence* (1954), Assistant Editor
- *The Man Who Watched Trains Go By* (1952), Editor

## Gallery

- ![James Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service": Schilthorn and rail (1968)](https://film.one/media/person/1025237/gallery-85247093d3cf.jpg) James Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service": Schilthorn and rail (1968) — Heinz Baumann – Comet Photo AG (Zürich), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/On_Her_Majesty%27s_Secret_Service_%281%29.jpg/1280px-On_Her_Majesty%27s_Secret_Service_%281%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![James Bond, George Lazenby in Grindelwald. Crew members with director Peter Hunt and actor George Lazenby. (1969)](https://film.one/media/person/1025237/gallery-e103544e5e02.jpg) James Bond, George Lazenby in Grindelwald. Crew members with director Peter Hunt and actor George Lazenby. (1969) — Comet Photo AG (Zürich), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/On_Her_Majesty%27s_Secret_Service_%2827%29.jpg/1280px-On_Her_Majesty%27s_Secret_Service_%2827%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/peter-r-hunt