JOSEPH LaSHELLE

GREAT CINEMATOGRAPHERS

#2: [Left] with Leonard Greenberg - "Storm Fear" [1955]

JOSEPH LaSHELLE

Born: 9 July 1900, Los Angeles, USA, as Joseph Wellington LaShelle.

Died: 20 August 1989, La Jolla, San Diego County, Calif., USA.

Career: After graduating from Hollywood High School he took a job as asst in the new lab of Paramount West Coast Studio in 1920 in order to earn tuition to attend Stanford University. After being made supervisor of the printing department he decided to remain in the film industry. In 1925 doph Charles G. Clarke convinced him he should be a cameraman. He went to work with Clarke. After 3 months he advanced to 2nd cameraman and worked for various doph at the Hollywood Metropolitan Studios [later Hollywood General Studios and Zoetrope Studios]. He invested in a new Bell & Howell studio camera and soon was sent to Alaska with dir George Melford. Transferred from Metropolitan to Pathé where he began a long [14 years] association with doph Arthur Miller. Went with Miller to Fox Films. Became a doph in 1943.

Was a member of the ASC.

Awards: 'Oscar' AA [1944; b&w] for 'Laura'; 'Oscar' AA nom [1949; b&w] for 'Come to the Stable'; 'Oscar' AA nom [1952; b&w] for 'My Cousin Rachel'; 'Oscar' AA nom [1955; b&w] for 'Marty'; 'Oscar' AA nom [1959; b&w] for 'Career'; 'Oscar' AA nom [1960; b&w] for 'The Apartment'; 'Oscar' AA nom [1963; color; shared] for 'How the West Was Won'; 'Oscar' AA nom [1963; color] for 'Irma la Douce'; 'Oscar' AA nom [1966; b&w] for 'The Fortune Cookie'.

One of the enviably large band of cameramen who enriched the black-and-white style from the 40s to the 60s, Joseph LaShelle's great gift was for a kind of stylized sleaziness - a feeling for low-life settings which never degenerated into naturalistic 'graininess'. His work for the great Fox directors of the 40s (notably Preminger) testifies to this, but he also responded to elegant settings as in 'The Foxes of Harrow' and 'Laura'. After a period when he just coasted along, he entered a second rich stage in the late 50s and 60s, making some of the best b&w Scope films by Ritt and Wilder, in particular. He was also adept in retaining a b&w feeling even in his color films when the script demanded, as in Ford's '7 Women' and parts of 'How the West Was Won'. It seems likely that he learned much from his years as operator to Arthur Miller. That cameraman's lucid, rather spare style can be seen in LaShelle's enviable flair for pictorially balanced compositions, often with harshly lit close-ups for dramatic emphasis, and invariably composed of textures which contributed to the 'lived-in' quality of the noir-ish subjects he often photographed. [John Gillett in 'Film Dope', #33, November 1985.]

FILMS
1943	Happy Land [Irving Pichel] b&w; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1943	The Eve of St. Mark [John M. Stahl] b&w; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1943	Bermuda Mystery [Benjamin Stoloff] b&w; 65m; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1944	Take It or Leave It [Benjamin Stoloff] b&w; spec pfx: Fred Sersen

[Left] with dir Otto Preminger [partly covered] - "Laura"

1944	Laura [Otto Preminger (replaced Rouben Mamoulian 2 weeks into prod)] b&w; replaced doph Lucien Ballard; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1944	Hangover Square [John Brahm] b&w; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1944	A Bell for Adano [Henry King] b&w
1945	Fallen Angel [Otto Preminger] b&w; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1945	Doll Face/Come Back to Me [Lewis Seiler] b&w

1945	Cluny Brown [Ernst Lubitsch] b&w; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1946	Claudia and David [Walter Lang] b&w
1946	If I'm Lucky [Lewis Seiler] b&w; uncred ph 'La Batacada' number; ph: Glen MacWilliams
1946	The Late George Apley [Joseph L. Mankiewicz & (uncred add scenes) Ernst Lubitsch] b&w; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1946	Captain from Castile [Henry King] c; uncred cph; ph: Charles G. Clarke & Arthur Arling
1947	The Foxes of Harrow [John M. Stahl] b&w
1947	Deep Waters [Henry King] b&w; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1948	The Luck of the Irish [Henry Koster] b&w

[Top/right] with [bottom] actor Cornel Wilde and Jean Negulesco

"Road House"

1948	Road House [Jean Negulesco] b&w
1948	The Fan/Lady Windermere's Fan [Otto Preminger] b&w; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1948	Come to the Stable [Henry Koster] b&w
1949	Everybody Does It [Edmund Goulding] b&w
1949	Mother Didn't Tell Me [Claude Binyon] b&w; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1949	Under My Skin/The Big Fall/My Old Man [Jean Negulesco & (uncred; European seq) Otto Lang] b&w; uncred European ph (Summer 1949): Dewey Wrigley & Norbert Brodine; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1950	Where the Sidewalk Ends [Otto Preminger] b&w
1950	Mister 880 [Edmund Goulding] b&w
1950	The Jackpot [Walter Lang] b&w; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1950	The 13th Letter/The Scarlet Pen [Otto Preminger] b&w
1950	The Guy Who Came Back [Joseph M. Newman] b&w; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1951	Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell/Mr. Belvedere Blows His Whistle [Henry Koster] b&w; spec pfx: Fred Sersen
1951	Elopement [Henry Koster] b&w
1951	The Outcasts of Poker Flat [Joseph M. Newman] b&w
1952	Les Miserables [Lewis Milestone] b&w
1952	Something for the Birds [Robert Wise] b&w
1952	My Cousin Rachel [Henry Koster] b&w
1953	Dangerous Crossing [Joseph M. Newman] b&w
1953	Mister Scoutmaster [Henry Levin] b&w
1953	River of No Return [Otto Preminger & (uncred retakes) Jean Negulesco] cs/c
1954	Tournament of Roses [Otto Lang] cs/c; doc/17m; ep of the series 'CinemaScope Specials' in Technicolor that 20th Century-Fox prod and released in a hurry to get them booked with their CinemaScope features to make a full bill of CinemaScope in theatres; covers the January 1, 1954 'Tournament of Roses' parade in Pasadena, Calif.
1954	Jet Carrier [Otto Lang] cs/c; doc/17m; ep #9 of the series 'CinemaScope Specials'
1954	The First Piano Quartette [Otto Lang] cs/c; music film/10m; ep #10 of the series 'CinemaScope Specials'
1954	The Motion Picture Stunt Pilot/Movie Stunt Pilot [Otto Lang] cs/c; doc/10m; ep #11 of the series 'CinemaScope Specials'
1954	Piano Encores [Otto Lang] cs/c; music film/?m; ep #? of the series 'CinemaScope Specials'

[Center] with dir Dick Powell & actor Thomas Gomez

"The Conqueror"

1954

The Conqueror/Conqueror of the Desert [Dick Powell] cs/c; cph: William E. Snyder, Leo Tover & Harry J. Wild

[L>R] Prod Harold Hecht - dir Delbert Mann - J. LaShelle - art dir Edward S. Haworth

actress Betsy Blair actor Ernest Borgnine - ? - "Marty"

1954	Marty [Delbert Mann] b&w
1955	Storm Fear [Cornel Wilde] b&w
1955	Our Miss Brooks [Al Lewis] b&w
1955	Run for the Sun [Roy Boulting] Superscope/c
1956	Crime of Passion [Gerd Oswald] b&w
1956	Fury at Showdown [Gerd Oswald] b&w
1956	The Bachelor Party [Delbert Mann] b&w; addph: Frank J. Calabria
1956	The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown [Norman Taurog] b&w
1957	The Abductors [Andrew V. McLaglen] Regalscope/b&w
1957	I Was a Teenage Werewolf [Gene Fowler Jr.] b&w
1957	No Down Payment [Martin Ritt] cs/b&w; spec pfx: L.B. Abbott
1957	The Long, Hot Summer [Martin Ritt] cs/c; spec pfx: L.B. Abbott
1957	The Naked and the Dead [Raoul Walsh] WarnerScope/c; filmed 1957-58
1959	Career [Joseph Anthony] b&w
1959	The Apartment [Billy Wilder] p/b&w
1960	All in a Night's Work [Joseph Anthony] c; spec pfx: John P. Fulton; process ph: Farciot Edouart
1961	The Honeymoon Machine [Richard Thorpe] cs/c; spec vfx: Robert R. Hoag & Lee LeBlanc
1961	The Outsider [Delbert Mann] b&w
1961	How the West Was Won [seg 'The Civil War' dir by John Ford & 'The Railroad' dir by George Marshall] cr (+ cs & up70)/c; 5 seg + transitional seq; other ph: William H. Daniels, Milton Krasner & Charles Lang Jr.; 2uc: Harold Wellman; pick-up ph: Dale Deverman & Robert Surtees; spec vfx: A. Arnold Gillespie & Robert R. Hoag

1962	A Child Is Waiting [John Cassavetes] b&w
1962	Irma la Douce [Billy Wilder] p/c
1963	Wild and Wonderful [Michael Anderson] c
1964	Kiss Me, Stupid [Billy Wilder] p/b&w
1965	The Chase [Arthur Penn] p/c; uncred cph: Robert Surtees (started film, fell ill and was replaced by J. LaShelle); Arthur Penn couldn't hire his own cameraman. Instead producer Sam Spiegel had given him Robert Surtees, a three-time Oscar-winner who got sick on the job and had to be replaced. Without notifying Penn, Spiegel then hired Joseph LaShelle, another legendary cinematographer, who was a bad match for the younger director. "It should have been a close relationship," said Penn, "but I found him to be difficult and slow. For the night scenes, he would be lighting until midnight. And, in 'The Chase' we had a lot of night scenes."
1965	7 Women/Seven Women [John Ford] p/c; spec vfx: J. McMillan Johnson
1965	The Fortune Cookie/Meet Whiplash Willie [Billy Wilder] p/b&w
1966	Barefoot in the Park [Gene Saks] c; spec pfx: Paul K. Lerpae; process ph: Farciot Edouart
1969	80 Steps to Jonah [Gerd Oswald] c

TELEVISION
1955	My Friend Flicka [pilot (shot as ep #13) 'The Phantom Herd' dir by James B. Clark] 39-part adventure series, 1956-57 (CBS-tv; filmed in color, aired in b&w) & 1957-58 (NBC-tv; reruns in color); first filmed series from 20th Century-Fox; pilot released theatrically outside USA

1957	Alfred Hitchcock Presents [ep #68 'Vicious Circle' dir by Paul Henreid & #70 'The Night the World Ended' dir by Justus Addis] 268-part suspense anthology series/b&w, 1955-60 (CBS-tv) & 1960-62 (NBC-tv); 2nd season, 1956-57
1959	The Twilight Zone [pilot 'Where Is Everybody?' dir by Robert Stevens] 151-part science fiction anthology series/b&w, 1959-64 (CBS-tv)
1967	Kona Coast [Lamont Johnson] pilot; released theatrically in 1968
1969	U.M.C./Operation Heartbeat [Boris Sagal] tvm; followed by series 'Medical Center' (CBS-tv, 1969-76)

FILMS AS CAMERA OPERATOR [Selection]
Was c.op on most, if not all, of the films ph by Arthur Miller between 1929 and 1943.
1925	Rocking Moon [George Melford] 2nd cam; ph: Charles G. Clarke
1926	Whispering Smith [George Melford] 2nd cam; ph: Charles G. Clarke
1926	The Flame of the Yukon [George Melford] 2nd cam; ph: David Kesson
1929	The Pagan [W.S. Van Dyke] ph: Clyde De Vinna
1930	The Painted Desert [Howard Higgin] ph: Edward Snyder
1930	Cimarron [Wesley Ruggles] ph: Edward Cronjager
1932	Me and My Gal [Raoul Walsh] ph: Arthur Miller
1933	Sailor's Luck [Raoul Walsh] ph: Arthur Miller
1933	Hold Me Tight [David Butler] ph: Arthur Miller
1933	The Man Who Dared [: An Imaginative Biography] [Hamilton MacFadden] ph: Arthur Miller
1933	The Last Trail [James Tinling] ph: Arthur Miller
1933	My Weakness [David Butler[ ph: Arthur Miller
1934	Charlie Chan's Courage [Eugene Forde & George Hadden] ph: Hal Mohr
1934	The White Parade [Irving Cummings] ph: Arthur Miller
1934	The Little Colonel [David Butler] ph: Arthur Miller
1935	It's a Small World [Irving Cummings] ph: Arthur Miller
1935	Black Sheep [Allan Dwan] ph: Arthur Miller
1936	White Fang [David Butler] ph: Arthur Miller
1937	Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm [Allan Dwan] ph: Arthur Miller
1937	The Baroness and the Butler [Walter Lang] ph: Arthur Miller
1938	Submarine Patrol [John Ford] ph: Arthur Miller
1939	The Rains Came [Clarence Brown] ph: Arthur Miller
1939	Here I Am a Stranger [Roy Del Ruth] ph: Arthur Miller
1940	Brigham Young [- Frontiersman] [Henry Hathaway] ph: Arthur Miller
1940	Tobacco Road [John Ford] ph: Arthur Miller
1941	How Green Was My Valley [John Ford (replaced William Wyler)] ph: Arthur Miller
1943	The Song of Bernadette [Henry King] ph: Arthur Miller
1944	Thunderhead - Son of Flicka [Louis King] member camera crew; ph: Charles G. Clarke