The Great Cinematographers of Hollywood’s Golden Age
Hal Mohr** is the only person to have won a competitive Academy Award without being nominated for it. Mohr was allowed to keep his Oscar and won a second.
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Category: Cinematographers
Douglas Slocombe: Master Cinematographer
England’s master cinematographer of the sixties, his black and white lensing on Bryan Forbes’ “The L-Shaped Room” and Joseph Losey’s “The Servant” marks one of the high points of British cinema.
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Nicholas Musuraca: Master of Chiaroscuro
Nicholas Musuraca was a master of chiaroscuro. “The Spiral Staircase” was influenced the German Expressionist Cinema of the early 1920s. He photographed William Holden in Rouben Mamoulian’s adaptation of Clifford Odets “Golden Boy” with Barbara Stanwyck and Adolphe Menjou (above). It was Holden’s first starring role.
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The Seventh Victim (1943) Queer Film D+
Despite a loyal cult following, The Seventh Victim is a pale imitation of Cat People with numerous queer-coded characters, again, courtesy of queer screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen. The plot oscillates between the baroque and the faintly ridiculous, with Tom Conway reprising his role as the psychiatrist Dr. Judd and after a while, you begin to realize that The Seventh Victim is a weird sort of prequel to Cat People.
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Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) Queer Film A+
In “Kind Hearts and Coronets”: Alec Guinness has fun playing all eight (or nine) of the unfortunate D’Ascoynes, including Lady Agatha D’Ascoyne. The photograph shows Dennis Price with Joan Greenwood who plays that little minx Sibella.
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The L-Shaped Room (1963) Queer Film (B)
Leslie Caron’s greatest performance. The Lavender Switch: In the book Johnny is queer and Mavis is straight. In the movie it’s vice versa.
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The Servant (1963) Queer Film (A)
A savage indictment of the waning British class system, it’s one of the most chilling films ever made. Winner of Best Screenplay of 1964 from the NYFCC.
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A Lion in Winter (1968) Queer Film B-
The dialogue and the performers carry it, although it is basically a filmed play with little directorial input.
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The Music Lovers (1971) Queer Film (F)
The honeymoon sequence, set to the “1812 overture,” a delirious mix of sexual frustration and nationalistic bombast, may be for Russell freaks only!
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The Great Gatsby (1974) Queer Film (B)
Directed by Jack Clayton, from an adaptation by Francis Ford Coppola, this was the third film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age masterpiece.
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Nijinsky (1980) Queer Film C-
“Nijinsky” asks the question: Why does a great artist go crazy? Ross and Wheeler, however, take a reductive approach and blame the woman.
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