The Silver Screen Oasis

If my movie has two stars in it, I always know it really has three. The third star is the camera. -- Sidney Lumet

Film is, after all, a visual medium. It is my hope that this can be a thread for all matters cinemagraphic. For selfish reasons, I hope that when you know a movie is airing that has noteworthy cinematography or a favorite cinematographer (or, director of photography), then prompt us here. Please tip me off, please, if there's a movie involving any of these:

John Alton (it's an alphabetical list, but funny how he's at the top)
Lucien Ballard
Robert Burks
Jack Cardiff
Stanley Cortez
Raoul Coutard
William H. Daniels
George J. Folsey
Karl Freund
Burnet Guffey
Conrad Hall
Russell Harlan
Sid Hickox
James Wong Howe
Boris Kaufman
Laszlo Kovacs
Milton Krasner
Ernest Laszlo
Joe MacDonald
Rudolph Mate
Russell Metty
Nicholas Musuraca
Sven Nykvist
Eugen Schufftan
John Sietz
Harry Stradling, Sr.
Karl Struss
Gregg Toland
Haskell Wexler
Gordon Willis
Freddie Young
Vilmos Zsigmond

...and anyone I left out.

I'll add Wilton Hoch. (4 years later.)

Archie Stout

William Clothier


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And, what-the-heck, I'll add:

George E. Diskant - KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL, ON DANGEROUS GROUND, THEY LIVE BY NIGHT

Lee Garmes - CAUGHT, NIGHTMARE ALLEY

Paul Ivano - BLACK ANGEL, THE GANGSTER

Benjamin H. Kline - STRANGE ILLUSION, DETOUR, Wagon Train (82 episodes)

Lionel Lindon - THE BLUE DAHLIA, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, Johnny Staccato (10 episodes)

Franz Planer - THE CHASE, CRISS CROSS, 99 RIVER STREET

Now the question to me is, Why don't I know more of these names? I know a good many, probably most of the ones on ChiO's original list - but look at the movies he's listed for those fellows on his second list! Lee Garmes and Paul Ivano I know, but these others? Well I'm embarrassed to say I don't know who they are. We should know these guys, they did outstanding work.

Joseph August

George Perinal

Karl Freund is the first cinematographer I knew as a cinematographer. Seeing his name every morning in the closing credits of I Love Lucy will do that. Discovering years later that, within a two year period, he shot MICHAEL (Carl Th. Dreyer 1924), THE LAST LAUGH (F.W. Murnau 1924), JEALOUSY (E.A. Dupont 1925), and TARTUFFE (F.W. Murnau 1925), and was credited with establishing the moving camera as a technique was revelatory.

Then came Gregg Toland because of some movie he shot in 1941 that really impressed me around the age of 12. It still does.

Eventually -- mostly with the discovery of film noir and John Alton -- it was off to the races, and the cinematographer is now more important to me than anyone, other than the director, who was in involved in a movie (with, perhaps, exceptions for Stanwyck, Ryan and TIMOTHY CAREY).

Karl Freund was the one I just noticed recently on TV, in fact, on an episode of I Love Lucy, which made my jaw drop!

My first was Gregg Toland, thanks to Citizen Kane, The Grapes of Wrath and The Westerner, all of which had a huge effect on me as a kid.

He only did 149 episodes of I Love Lucy in 1951-56. And 126 episodes of Our Miss Brooks in 1952-56.

His list of credits may be the most impressive of them all. Directed two or three goodies as well.

I think it's fair to say if we were ranking them, he'd be one of the first mentioned.

I had to look up Oswald Morris, but when I did, I saw that he did quite a few great movies. including The Entertainer, Oliver (which I love), not to mention Lolita. When I think of sixties Brit drama, I pretty much think of the look he chose for his films, cold, stark and sterile, though obviously he could do other types of work, as shown in the marvelous looking warm-blooded Oliver.

That's a great point, part of the enjoyment of the film was the color, the vibrancy without being overpowering. It simply looked sunny and ever so clear, clean looking when so many at that time now look kind of muddy. It would have been easy to go heavy on the brown, since it was Spain. It was especially nice when Maggie Smith was in the shot, because of her almost Botticelli like coloring. The print was a bit washed out, I think, but it still looked good, made me want to travel there.