<p><a href="@RachelThornSub@famichiki.jp">Rachel Thorn</a> wrote <a href="famichiki.jp/@RachelThornSub/1">a thread</a> today about <a href="eggplant.place/movie/1bGJF5KMC"><em>Chandu The Magician</em></a> (1932) mentioning that Wong Howe was the cinematographer, and the <a href="eggplant.place/collection/6x1J"></a> watch party (hosted by <a href="@MatthewTitus88@mastodon.social">LA Sooner</a>) will (probably) show mystery-comedy classic <a href="eggplant.place/movie/1beyBmMxH"><em>The Thin Man</em></a> (1934), on which Howe also worked, on 4th October.</p>
<p><em>(Most links here go to a person's or film's page on the Eggplant instance of <a href="joinfediverse.wiki/NeoDB">NeoDB</a>, Fediverse alternative to Letterboxd, Goodreads etc.)</em></p>
<p>Wong Howe started work in Hollywood by literally hopping the fence at <a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famous_P">Lasky Studios</a> (later renamed Paramount) &amp; talking his way into carrying camera equipment for <a href="eggplant.place/person/15znAsT3">Cecil B. DeMille</a> in the 1910s, &amp; his last film as DP was 1975's <a href="eggplant.place/movie/4pitTdgTb"><em>Funny Lady</em></a> with <a href="eggplant.place/person/6jTfuy46">Herbert Ross</a>.</p>
<p>In between, he worked with directors like:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/person/4HfznAqt">John Frankenheimer</a> (<a href="eggplant.place/movie/52lboiun9"><em>Seconds</em></a>, <a href="eggplant.place/movie/6I3oZXAWK"><em>The Horsemen</em></a>)</li>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/person/6YFqfYCq">Sidney Lumet</a> (<a href="eggplant.place/movie/2bCOZuSyf"><em>Last of the Mobile Hot Shots</em></a>)</li>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/person/3WKGXIyL">John Sturges</a> (<a href="eggplant.place/movie/3X0lxv5zz"><em>The Old Man and the Sea</em></a>)</li>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/person/2SdunVBT">John Cromwell</a> (<a href="eggplant.place/movie/1Q6SChUSP"><em>Algiers</em></a>)</li>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/person/3zYlEvd8">Charles Vidor</a> (<a href="www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1629592"><em>A Farewell to Arms</em></a> (1957))</li>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/person/0lknQSX0">Samuel Fuller</a> (<a href="eggplant.place/movie/2xOdEnhSu"><em>The Baron of Arizona</em></a>)</li>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/person/3FEOdpCZ">Zoltán Korda</a> (<a href="eggplant.place/movie/15ctcEl5w"><em>Counter-Attack</em></a>)</li>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/person/7PtFPXL4">Michael Curtiz</a> (<a href="eggplant.place/movie/1ODHxCyOx"><em>Daughters Courageous</em></a>, <a href="eggplant.place/movie/0EjKWhwoi"><em>Four Wives</em></a>, <a href="eggplant.place/movie/2sdNCkEYA"><em>Yankee Doodle Dandy</em></a> with <a href="eggplant.place/person/5lmLmJfm">James Cagney</a>, a dear friend who wore an &quot;I AM CHINESE&quot; pin in solidarity with Wong Howe when many Chinese-Americans were facing extra bigotry during WWII on the assumption they were Japanese)</li>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/person/5ekJKZSu">Raoul Walsh</a> (<a href="eggplant.place/movie/4WyiTVkpp"><em>The Yellow Ticket</em></a>, <a href="eggplant.place/movie/2j92JfLnr"><em>The Strawberry Blonde</em></a>)</li>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/person/5TJYzWdQ">Howard Hawks</a> (<a href="eggplant.place/movie/1wJDozGgE"><em>The Criminal Code</em></a>, <a href="eggplant.place/movie/7eA7pFg5V"><em>Air Force</em></a>) (Wong Howe &amp; Hawks started on the same day at Lasky, &amp; Hawks gave Wong Howe his first job on a sound movie, when he &amp; many others were having trouble getting hired during the transition from silent film to talkies)</li>
</ul>
<p>(<em>Seconds</em> was already on <a href="eggplant.place/users/klu9/wish">my wishlist</a>, I'll probably add a bunch of these &amp; other Wong Howe films, too.)</p>
<p>He, uhhh, even worked with the President of the United States: <a href="eggplant.place/person/6tedHJhN">Ronald Reagan</a> in <a href="eggplant.place/movie/1stFg1SjM"><em>Kings Row</em></a>.</p>
<p>And Wong Howe was nominated <strong>10 times</strong> for the Oscar for Best Cinematography, winning twice:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/movie/6jz3wjclY"><em>The Rose Tattoo</em></a> (1955, directed by <a href="eggplant.place/person/4w7Arbvb">Daniel Mann</a>)</li>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/movie/3FyDL28vw"><em>Hud</em></a> (1963 directed by <a href="eggplant.place/person/7M1iOvkb">Martin Ritt</a>)</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="youtu.be/Q7fBdmjvjz0">Youtube - Oscar host Jerry Lewis introduces Cantinflas, who introduces the Best Cinematography Oscar for James Wong Howe &amp; <em>The Rose Tattoo</em></a></p>
<p>He was always innovating, for example when he wore roller skates in a boxing ring to shoot a boxing scene, to bring in a close-up feel &amp; realism.
<img src="eggplant.place/m/upload/493760" alt="James Wong Howe on roller skates in a boxing ring, he squats down to get a shot of the two boxers" />
Filming <a href="eggplant.place/movie/7WHt8kpbe"><em>Body and Soul</em></a>. From <a href="theasc.com/article/wrap-shot-j">TheASC.com - Wrap Shot: Body and Soul</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>He won the trust of actors—including major stars like Marlene Dietrich, Kim Novak, and Hedy Lamarr—because he knew how to capture their best features, and he earned a lot of his work this way.
<a href="www.criterion.com/current/post">Criterion.com - James Wong Howe’s Way with Light</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>He built his Hollywood career all while being denied US citizenship simply because he'd been born in China, his marriage going unrecognized by the state of California because of his &quot;race&quot;, and living apart from his wife, as &quot;<a href="en.wiktionary.org/wiki/live_in">living in sin</a>&quot; would be a violation both of his values <strong>and</strong> the <a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morals_c">&quot;morals clauses&quot;</a> then common in Hollywood contracts. (He was also <a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywoo">&quot;graylisted&quot;</a> in the 50s because his wife, novelist &amp; poet <a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanora_B">Sanora Babb</a>, was suspected of communist sympathies.)</p>
<p>Also NeoDB doesn't yet have a field for Cinematographer / Director of Photography (hopefully soon!), so I guess his entry here for now will only have the few films on which he was director, like</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/movie/2n2pACmIH"><em>Go, Man Go!</em></a>, the story of the founder of the Harlem Globetrotters, <a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Sape">Abe Saperstein</a>, featuring a young <a href="eggplant.place/person/4Fs2POuE">Sidney Poitier</a></li>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/movie/2SISaEypQ"><em>Invisible Avenger</em></a>, a film edited together from some pilots for a TV show about mystery hero <a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shad">The Shadow</a> (I've been listening to <a href="eggplant.place/person/7CnlS2nR">Orson Welles</a> as The Shadow via the <a href="eggplant.place/podcast/53fjH77">Choice Classic Radio Detectives</a> podcast.)</li>
</ul>
<p>Some links re James Wong Howe:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="eggplant.place/person/7CBUqt2r">NeoDB/Eggplant - James Wong Howe</a></li>
<li><a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wo">Wikipedia - James Wong Howe</a></li>
<li><a href="www.criterion.com/current/post"><strong>Criterion.com - James Wong Howe’s Way with Light</strong></a> <strong>Great read!</strong></li>
<li><a href="theasc.com/article/aces-of-the">TheASC.com - Aces of the Camera: James Wong Howe, ASC</a> - profile from a 1941 issue of <em>American Cinematographer</em>, the journal of the American Society of Cinematographers, with, uhhh, a lot of the white US attitude &amp; focus on ethnicity prevalent then, but also with a lot of words from the man himself</li>
<li><a href="theasc.com/article/the-surreal">TheASC.com - The Surreal Images of Seconds</a> - How Wong Howe helped birth &quot;New Hollywood&quot; even before <a href="eggplant.place/movie/5NfIaYLnr"><em>Easy Rider</em></a> when he shot <em>Seconds</em> (1966)</li>
<li><a href="theasc.com/article/wrap-shot-j">TheASC.com - Wrap Shot: Body and Soul</a> - Examining Wong Howe's work on the boxing film noir <em>Body and Soul</em> (1947)</li>
</ul>