The fact that the quality of their work varied sharply from picture to picture can probably be attributed to the technical caliber of their collaborators—that is to say, the cameraman and director on the specific film.
It is a fact, for instance, that Cecil B. DeMille, for all his skill as a director and his greatness as a showman, did not have an eye for such details as the quality of process work. Indeed, one would think that a director of DeMille’s stature would simply shoot on location when certain scenes were necessary; but instead, one repeatedly finds the most flagrant use of interior sets and process shots for the most elementary sequences in DeMille’s films. THE PLAINSMAN (1936) is full of unconvincing process work that puts a damper on the action sequences of that film (to make matters worse, the footage was reused by Paramount three years later for their film GERONIMO. It was just as bad as ever—one simply cannot get excited about a group of cowboys fighting against a tribe of Indians who are riding on a fuzzy screen behind them).
Then, for contrast, examine the work of Alfred Hitchcock from this same period. In FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (1940), a key sequence takes place at sea, with a dozen survivors of a plane crash sitting on the detached wing of the submerged aircraft in a stormy sea. The scene was shot in a studio tank, with the waterline blending into the process screen just behind the airplane. Yet only the most meticulous examination of the sequence would reveal this procedure—most assuredly, few people in a typical audience would be able to detect how it was done. The film was photographed by Rudy Maté, designed by William Cameron Menzies, with special effects by Lee Zavitz. A year later, in Hitchcock’s MR. AND MRS. SMITH, Carole Lombard and Gene Raymond are stranded at the top of a parachute jump. In reviewing the film, the American Cinematographer magazine praised Vernon L. Walker’s achievement: “His work here is excellent, for although you know it must be a process shot, you are never forceably reminded of the fact.”
That phrase captures the essence of special effects: really good effects should make you forget that they are effects. Take, for example, the case of an actor playing a dual role. If the optical work is skillful, you may forget that you’re watching one man photographed twice. If the work is below par, you won’t be able to think of anything but.
Double exposure scenes are usually the work of the cameraman himself, or, in some instances, a collaboration between the cameraman and the special effects expert. One of the earliest examples of great double exposure work was in Mary Pickford’s LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY (1921), photographed by Charles Rosher. Wid’s Daily (the forerunner of Film Daily) said in its review of the film, “The double exposures are the finest that have ever been made in the history of the business. When Mary Pickford kisses herself as ‘Dearest,’ and hugs herself, and when both characters walk off together, one ahead of the other—well, it’s almost uncanny.”
Rosher explained to Kevin Brownlow in The Parade’s Gone By how he built a special camera stand to ensure perfection. “Steel girders formed the framework; the base was lined with sandbags, and a huge, hollow block of steel supported the pan and tilt head. The contraption could be moved around on casters, but when I’d lined the shot up, packs secured it to the floor. Jacks held the pan head rigid, too, once it had been positioned. In front of the camera was the matte frame, and I moved the matte as Mary moved. The whole setup was so solid that you could jump around the floor without shifting it a thousandth of an inch!”
Many years later, James Wong Howe dazzled audiences with his work in the exquisite PRISONER OF ZENDA (1937). A film replete with visual splendor, one of its many highlights was a scene where Ronald Colman, as a happy-go-lucky vacationer, shakes hands with his look-alike, the future king of a Ruritanian country. Howe told Jack Jacobs how he did it: “Split screen was used, of course, but not the usual straight line split. I placed a three-by-four-foot optical glass three feet in front of the camera. Ronald Colman shook hands with a double. The double’s head and shoulders were matted out with masking tape on the glass. The scene was photographed, the camera shutter was closed, and the film was wound backward to the beginning of the scene. We then masked out everything but Colman’s head and shoulders and rephotographed the scene. This required great accuracy on the part of everyone involved, especially on Ronald Colman’s part as he spoke and reacted to himself. We did all this fourteen times. The third try was the best.”
Technicians prepare to film a process shot of Dick Powell and Lizabeth Scott at sea in PITFALL (1948). The sea will be projected from behind onto the screen in back of them.
William Cameron Menzies checks a camera angle against one of his preliminary compositional sketches for THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES (1941).
Not as famous, but equally beautiful, was Harry Stradling’s work on THE CORSICAN BROTHERS in 1941, with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., playing twin brothers. Once again, the double exposure scenes were amazingly real. For an idea of how the same idea can be ruined, one need only turn to another Dumas swashbuckler, THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK, filmed in 1939. Producer Edward Small (who also did CORSICAN) was pinching pennies throughout the production, but with the skill of director James Whale, the finished product showed few signs of its economic background. One exception was a scene where Louis Hayward confronts his look-alike: the feat was accomplished by having Hayward step in front of a process screen of himself and conduct a conversation. It was an idea that probably looked good on paper, and done with fine process work, it could have been effective. Unfortunately, it was not.
Some cameramen had to be engineering geniuses to calculate certain devices, and in an age before there were scores of experts to handle any problem that might arise, the cameraman had to be a one-man edition of Popular Mechanics. Almost every veteran cinematographer can tell you at least one unique gimmick he had to dream up to meet a certain situation. It was a case of not having any precedent to follow; these men had to devise a solution to every problem, and in doing so, they blazed new trails in cinematography.
Consider this newspaper account of a difficult shot that was needed for D. W. Griffith’s THE SORROWS OF SATAN (1926): “Fred Waller, trick camera expert . . . was to photograph the figure of Satan, falling as a tiny figure out of Paradise, down through space, increasing to enormous proportions as he falls, and splashing into Hades. The camera was placed on a truck that moved forward on a long track to create the effect of the figure’s increase in size. The figure itself dropped in a slanting line across a large white drop. Waller had to make exact mathematical calculations coordinating the movement of the camera with that of the falling figure and allowing for dimensions of height, width, and thickness. Also—and here is where the fourth dimension comes in—he had to allow for the retarded speed of the falling body as it increased in size. This made necessary what appears to be a fourth dimensional calculation. He used to be a professor of differential and integral calculus and molecular physics, and anybody familiar with these subjects can figure it out for himself and see just how simple it all is.” Unfortunately, this prodigious effort was for naught; the shot described did not appear in the final print of the film.
Or take the famous MGM picture THE LADY IN THE LAKE (1946), Robert Montgomery’s first directorial effort, photographed by Paul C. Vogel, in which he decided to shoot the whole movie with the camera as hero. Superficially, it sounds simple, but it required much experimentation and many difficult setups. For instance, when Montgomery wanted the “hero” to light a cigarette, it required three men: one to act as left hand, one to act as right hand, and one man lying under the camera puffing smoke upward in front of the lens. Breakaway sets were used so the “hero” could walk around at will. When leading lady Audrey Totter was to kiss the hero, she had to kiss upward, so it would look natural on screen.
While many men were specializing in these unusual areas of photography, others in the 1920s and 1930s were concentrating on another seemingly less complicated, but actually equally exacting field: color photography. From the 1920s through the 1950s, color in movies was someth
ing special; it was not taken for granted, as it is today. It was an expensive process, and studios used it only for special films.
The chief exponent of color in Hollywood was the Technicolor company. Founded by Daniel F. Comstock and Herbert T. Kalmus, who had been experimenting with a color-film process since 1915, the firm was incorporated in 1922 after achieving its first success in a Metro picture called TOLL OF THE SEA. Technicolor at this time was a two-color process (red and green) made possible by the exposure of two negatives, which were combined on the finished print. The novelty of color, especially this pleasing early color (which, although it excluded blues, did have a pleasant effect, and particularly appealing flesh tones) enabled Kalmus, who became president of Technicolor, to convince various studios to let him film portions of their most important films in color. Most of the companies took advantage of this system and used Technicolor inserts in such major productions as BEN HUR, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, THE MERRY WIDOW, and THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Features filmed entirely in Technicolor included Douglas Fairbanks’ THE BLACK PIRATE, but these full-color features were still rare.
When a studio wanted a color sequence, they contracted with Technicolor, which assigned one of its own cinematographers to join the production staff, with a special Technicolor camera. Often the Technicolor cameraman would shoot the sequence himself, but just as often he would serve as “consultant” to the cameraman on the feature, checking to see that there was enough light, that the colors would not clash, that there would be separation (i.e., making sure the color of a man’s suit would not blend into the color of the background), etc. Arthur Miller’s interview in this book provides a first-hand account of working under these conditions.
One of the principal Technicolor cameramen was Ray Rennahan. He filmed the landmark picture TOLL OF THE SEA, the first three-color Technicolor film, a short subject called LA CUCARACHA, and the first three-color Technicolor feature, BECKY SHARP, in 1935. Three-color Technicolor opened new horizons for Kalmus and Company, as well as for the motion picture industry, which had been tiring of the two-color process. Three-color produced a lush, vivid (and, some modern critics contend, unreal) result, covering the entire color spectrum in a dazzling array. The popularity of the new process could be seen in Technicolor’s record books: their laboratory processed five million feet of film in 1932 (just before three-color was introduced) —and in 1946 it developed over one billion feet.
Ray Rennahan became one of the busiest men in Hollywood. In 1941 he said, “There’s a definite advantage to working as we Technicolor cinematographers do. We do get around! I think we get a greater variety of work and experience than almost any other group of cinematographers. It’s not only that we’re constantly working in different studios, on different pictures, and with different production cinematographers as partners. We also run the fullest possible range of production conditions and subject matter. One day, for instance, I may be working on a really big major production, like GONE WITH THE WIND or my present assignment, BLOOD AND SAND; a few days after that assignment closes, I may be sent to some other studio to direct the photography of a little three- or four-day short subject, or even a commercial film, in either of which instances time and resources are likely to be as limited as they were abundant on the major studio ‘special’ . . . and the results on the screen have still got to be good.”
The experience paid off for Rennahan, however. After having collaborated with most of the top cameramen in Hollywood, he left Technicolor and became a solo cinematographer, almost concurrently with the development of Monopack Technicolor, which employed one negative instead of three, eliminating the need for a special Technicolor cameraman. With his unusual background, Rennahan naturally specialized in color films, and his first endeavor, FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS (1943. on which he was assisted by Karl Struss), was an auspicious debut, followed by such films as LADY IN THE DARK, DUEL IN THE SUN, CALIFORNIA, THE PALEFACE, A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT, and THE WHITE TOWER. Rennahan remained active through the late 1950s, and has served as president of the American Society of Cinematographers.
After Hollywood accustomed itself to the talking picture, in the early 1930s, imagination and creativity returned to filmmaking, and a new crop of outstanding cameramen established themselves. Chief among these was Gregg Toland, who had started in the silent era, and by the late 1920s was assistant cameraman to George Barnes, working at the Samuel Goldwyn studio. Eventually he became a chief cinematographer, collaborating with Barnes on several films, and working on his own for both Goldwyn and other studios. But in 1934, Toland started to display the qualities that were to separate him from the ranks of competent cameramen and make him stand out as one of the greats. This development was made possible largely by Sam Goldwyn. Goldwyn was a rarity among producers in Hollywood; he owned his own studio and personally supervised every film made there. Naturally, he was interested in making money, but more than most of his colleagues, he was also interested in quality, and would go to any lengths to achieve the finest results possible. In addition, he admired and fostered talent; he knew how good Toland was, and eventually signed him to the most lucrative contract awarded any cameraman in Hollywood.
The first three-color Technicolor camera is seen filming the first live-action three-color film, the short subject LA CUCARACHA (1934). Cameraman Ray Rennahan talks with director Lloyd Corrigan; in the background are cast members Paul Porcasi, Steffi Duna, and Don Alvarado.
The Technicolor camera goes outdoors for RAMONA (1936), with specialty cameraman William V. Skall checking a light reading; his camera operator Arthur Arling is behind him, while the man in the straw hat is assistant director Robert Webb.
1934 was the turning point, for it was that year that Goldwyn brought a Russian actress named Anna Sten to America, determined that she should rival such continental stars as Garbo and Dietrich. The producer let it be known that nothing would be spared in the making of Miss Sten’s films. Thus, NANA, WE LIVE AGAIN, and THE WEDDING NIGHT were incredibly sumptuous productions, affording Toland the opportunity to create pictorial beauty as he never had before. Historian George Mitchell called Toland’s work in WE LIVE AGAIN “some of the most breathtaking photography ever recorded by a motion picture camera.”
On loan-out to 20th Century Fox, Toland shot such beautiful films as LES MISÉRABLES (1935) and THE ROAD TO GLORY (1936), but most of his great work was done for Goldwyn, in collaboration with director William Wyler. The films are among the all-time classics of Hollywood: THESE THREE (1936), DEAD END (1937), WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939), THE WESTERNER (1940), THE LITTLE FOXES (1941), and THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946).
The creative spark of this team was best captured by Richard Griffith in his monograph on Samuel Goldwyn. Discussing WUTHERING HEIGHTS, he wrote of a photographic problem the film posed for Wyler and Toland: “The setting for the film was not the moors of Yorkshire, but a wilderness of the imagination. To have reproduced on the screen any large expanse of landscape would have been to chain the story and its characters to the actual. Instead, Toland and Wyler devised a close-in camerawork which, in every shot, seemed to show only a small part of the whole scene, in which roads, crags, housetops, and human figures were revealed in outlines against dense grays or blacks. Thus was created a chiaroscuro country of the mind in which the passionate Brontë figures can come credibly alive. It was a daring experiment, owing something to the example of the once-admired German studio films of the twenties, and like them it might have seemed today to exude a faint odor of plaster and machinery. That the spell holds is due to the fact that cameraman and director were aware of the peril in which they stood; instead of proudly parading their artifice, they make all vague, moony, nebulous; each shot is whisked away and replaced by its reverse angle as quickly as the action allows.”
Setting up an overhead shot for the grand finale of FOOTLIGHT PARADE (1933) is cameraman George Barnes, as Busby Berkeley, director of the dance sequences, gives instructions.
Gen
ius at work: Orson Welles and Gregg Toland set up one of the warehouse scenes in CITIZEN KANE (1941).
Every film Toland shot during this period is worthy of detailed discussion—indeed, it seems sacrilegious to omit mention of any—yet one film stands out, reasserting its brilliance and significance year after year: CITIZEN KANE (1941). Orson Welles has said that Toland came to him when the film was being prepared and asked to work on it. The astounded Welles asked him why. “It’s your first film,” Toland replied, “and you won’t know what you can’t do.” Indeed, the film attracted much attention for doing what had been considered tabu: showing ceilings on sets (many setups were lit upward), for example. Welles received acclaim for his work as director, co-scenarist, and principal actor, but Toland was not lost in the shuffle. Astute observers realized the importance of the step he had taken in using depth of field, or as Toland called it, forced focus. This involved shooting scenes from a considerable distance—certainly farther back than one normally would go—achieving the effect of keeping both foreground and background of the scene in focus, and letting the eye take in much more than it would be able to in a conventionally filmed sequence. Forced focus was not a gimmick; it was a cunning device that worked particularly well in this film. CITIZEN KANE stands as one of Toland’s great achievements.
He worked with John Ford on two of that director’s finest films, THE GRAPES OF WRATH and THE LONG VOYAGE HOME, and during World War Two distinguished himself in the field of combat photography, as well as with a documentary film, DECEMBER 7TH, that won an Academy Award when released theatrically. He continued to work for Goldwyn after the war, but for the most part his films were glossy star-vehicles and soap operas, fine as entertainment but not particularly challenging for the cameraman. (One notable exception was Walt Disney’s SONG OF THE SOUTH.) Toland hoped to go on to greater things when heart disease struck him down at the age of forty-four; he died on September 28, 1948. Now, some twenty years after his death, he is still revered and studied by film buffs and students alike, who realize the greatness of his work.
The Art of the Cinematographer Page 4
