1946 - BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
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- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Additional Crew
Cinematographer Russell Metty, a superb craftsman who worked with such top directors as John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg and Orson Welles, was born in Los Angeles on September 20, 1906. Entering the movie industry as a lab assistant, he apprenticed as an assistant cameraman and graduated to lighting cameraman at RKO Radio Pictures in 1935. Metty's ability to create effects with black-and-white contrast while shooting twilight and night were on display in two films he shot for Welles, The Stranger (1946) and the classic Touch of Evil (1958), the latter showing his mastery of complex crane shots. (Metty shot additional scenes for Welles' second masterpiece, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), whose lighting cameraman was Stanley Cortez but had the look of Citizen Kane (1941), which was shot by Gregg Toland). At Universal in the 1950s, he enjoyed a productive collaboration with director Douglas Sirk on ten films from 1953-59, including Sirk's masterpieces Magnificent Obsession (1954) and Imitation of Life (1959), a remake of the 1934 classic (Imitation of Life (1934)). However, his collaboration with Kubrick on Spartacus (1960) proved troublesome.
A union cinematographer himself who had been an accomplished professional photographer, Kubrick exerted control over the look of his films. Kubrick gave far less leeway to his directors of photography than did traditional directors, even directors such as Welles and noted bizarre-camera-angle freak Sidney J. Furie (The Appaloosa (1966)), men who were extraordinarily active partners in crafting the look of their films. Kubrick was not deferential to his directors of photography, even to such top cameramen as Lucien Ballard and future Academy Award winners Oswald Morris and Geoffrey Unsworth. Metty and Kubrick clashed over the filming of "Spartacus," as Kubrick--with his extraordinary sense of light and effect--considered himself to be the director of photography on the film.
Ironically, it was "Spartacus" that won Metty his sole Academy Award, for color cinematography (he received his second nomination for the color cinematography on Flower Drum Song (1961)). Metty continued to work on top productions into the 1970s, including The Misfits (1961), That Touch of Mink (1962), Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), Madigan (1968), and The Omega Man (1971). Metty also worked extensively on television, including Columbo (1971) and The Waltons (1972).
Russell Metty died on April 28, 1978, in Canoga Park, California. He was 71 years old.- Cinematographer
- Director
Ted Tetzlaff was born in 1903 in Los Angeles, the son of racecar driver and movie stuntman Teddy Tetzlaff, Sr. The elder Tetzlaff appeared in a number of silent star Wallace Reid's famous racing movies like The Roaring Road (1919), Double Speed (1920), Excuse My Dust (1920), Too Much Speed (1921) and Across the Continent (1922). Young Tetzlaff was born Dale H. and lived with his mother after her 1915 divorce from Ted, Sr. Ted, Jr. became a well-known and well-respected studio cameraman who worked on over 100 films using the name "Teddy Tetzlaff, Jr."- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Hickox started out as assistant cameraman at the Manhattan Biograph Studios in 1915, followed by two years of wartime photographic work with the U.S. Naval Air Service. He joined First National after 1919, graduating to director of photography by 1927. When Warner Brothers absorbed that company in 1930, he stayed the course for the bulk of his career (until 1954), then worked primarily in television until his retirement in 1971.
Hickox was best known as an action photographer, who excelled shooting the gritty, moody crime films and melodramas, in which Warners tended to corner the market. He collaborated particularly well with another action specialist, the director Raoul Walsh. Hickox had the uncanny ability to make productions, shot on a modest budget, look a lot classier. His best films cover the period from 1942 to 1954. They include the boxing drama Gentleman Jim (1942); the films noir To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947) and White Heat (1949); and, finally, the sci-fi cult classic Them! (1954).- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Indiana-born, son of stage actress Mary Palmer Nields and silent screen actor Val Paul (1886-1962), 'Woody' Bredell began his career in films as a lab technician. He worked as a still photographer at RKO and Paramount (1931-34), later joining Universal, as director of photography, 1937-46; then under contract to Warner Brothers, 1947-49. Having served his apprenticeship under the tutelage of veteran cinematographers Arthur C. Miller and Charles Lang, he became an expert at using shadows and diffuse lighting to create expressionist-inspired, darkly sinister imagery for thrillers and films noir. Of particular note are Robert Siodmak's Phantom Lady (1944) and The Killers (1946); and Michael Curtizs The Unsuspected (1947). These films are rightly hailed as among the best examples of the genre. Bredell also effectively captured the seedy side of life for Female Jungle (1955).
In stark contrast, Bredell was equally adept at painting richly textured romantic frames for big budget technicolor musical (Romance on the High Seas (1948)), or comedy (The Inspector General (1949)). One of his best films was the charismatic and cheerful Errol Flynn swashbuckler Adventures of Don Juan (1948). Bosley Crowther of the New York Times described Bredell's lighting and color-photography as "technically superb" (December 25,1948).
'Woody' Bredell has been variously (and incorrectly) cited as English-born and deceased, but according to his granddaughter, he lived most of his life in or around Los Angeles. He was an avid fisherman, owner of a cabin cruiser moored near his home in Newport Beach. He died, aged 66, and is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Versatile Mexico City-born cinematographer Joseph Patrick MacDonald was initially trained as a mining engineer at the University of Southern California. He served a lengthy apprenticeship, starting as assistant cameraman at First National in the early 1920's before eventually graduating to first camera operator by the beginning of the following decade. He became a full director of photography only after joining 20th Century Fox in 1941, staying at this studio until 1959. He was equally adept working with black-and-white or with colour film and was skilled in every genre, from films noir, to westerns, to musicals.
Most representative of his work are the gritty films noir Call Northside 777 (1948) and Panic in the Streets (1950); and two of the most sumptuous-looking films with Marilyn Monroe at her very peak: Niagara (1953) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) (incidentally, the first picture shot in CinemaScope). In stark contrast, MacDonald also shot one of the most visually evocative westerns of the period, John Ford's seminal My Darling Clementine (1946)and Elia Kazan's sweeping outdoor biopic Viva Zapata! (1952), partly filmed on location in Durango, Mexico.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Versatile Mexico City-born cinematographer Joseph Patrick MacDonald was initially trained as a mining engineer at the University of Southern California. He served a lengthy apprenticeship, starting as assistant cameraman at First National in the early 1920's before eventually graduating to first camera operator by the beginning of the following decade. He became a full director of photography only after joining 20th Century Fox in 1941, staying at this studio until 1959. He was equally adept working with black-and-white or with colour film and was skilled in every genre, from films noir, to westerns, to musicals.
Most representative of his work are the gritty films noir Call Northside 777 (1948) and Panic in the Streets (1950); and two of the most sumptuous-looking films with Marilyn Monroe at her very peak: Niagara (1953) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) (incidentally, the first picture shot in CinemaScope). In stark contrast, MacDonald also shot one of the most visually evocative westerns of the period, John Ford's seminal My Darling Clementine (1946)and Elia Kazan's sweeping outdoor biopic Viva Zapata! (1952), partly filmed on location in Durango, Mexico.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Wilkie Cooper was born on 19 October 1911 in Wandsworth, Surrey, England, UK. He was a cinematographer, known for Jason and the Argonauts (1963), The Avengers (1961) and Stage Fright (1950). He was married to Peggy Bryan. He died on 15 December 2001 in Worthing, Sussex, England, UK.