Maksymilian Fabian (1891-1969) worked as one of the cinematographers on The Hollywood Revue of 1929, but spent most of his MGM career in the visual effects department, where he specialized in miniatures. It was here that he contributed to the special effects work in The Wizard of Oz.
Category: Cinematographers
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Max Fabian
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Leonard Smith
Leonard Smith (1894-1947) photographed his first film in 1915 and spent most of his career at Metro. He was nominated four times for an Academy Award, finally winning for The Yearling shortly before his death. Smith was best known for his Technicolor work, but most of the thirteen musicals he worked on were in black and white.
In the 1929-30 period Smith shot So This Is College, They Learned About Women and Free and Easy.
After a seven-year break he worked uncredited on A Day at the Races and Rosalie, photographed Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, then shot the Marx Brothers next two pictures, At the Circus and Go West.
There followed Ship Ahoy and uncredited work on I Married an Angel and Seven Sweethearts. Finally, Smith photographed Best Foot Forward and Broadway Rhythm in colour.
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Oliver T Marsh
Oliver Taylor Marsh (1892-1941) was an MGM company man for most of his career, and arguably achieved his greatest successes with some of the nineteen musicals he photographed, most of which were directed by Robert Z Leonard and W S Van Dyke.
Marsh’s earliest efforts were Marianne, In Gay Madrid and The Florodora Girl. He protographed the 1930 New Moon and also worked uncredited on the 1940 remake. He returned to the genre after the 1932 hiatus and shot Dancing Lady. The following year he worked with Lubitsch on The Merry Widow and moved immediately from the sublime to the sublimely ridiculous Laurel and Hardy in Babes in Toyland.
Marsh photographed the Oscar-winning The Great Ziegfeld and the destruction of San Francisco in the film of the same name. Maytime was the first of his five MacDonald-Eddy operettas, and he also worked with MacDonald on The Firefly and with Eddy on Rosalie. The Girl of the Golden West was followed by an Academy Award, with Allen Davey, for their Technicolor work on Sweethearts.
Following the ridiculous Ice Follies of 1939, Marsh was with Jeanette MacDonald again for Broadway Serenade. He rounded off his career with Broadway Melody of 1940, Bitter Sweet (again Oscar-nominated for Technicolor) and Lady Be Good, made shortly before his untimely death.
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Gordon Avil
Hallelujah was the first film photographed by Gordon Avil (1899-1970), who went on to work with King Vidor again on The Champ (1931). These were the most prestigious projects of his lengthy career, much of which was spent in television from 1955 onwards.
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John Arnold
John Arnold (1889-1964) had been photographing films at Metro since 1916 when he was assigned to The Broadway Melody. He followed this up with The Hollywood Revue of 1929, and was soon after kicked upstairs to become head of the studio’s Camera Department.
Arnold was a co-founder and governor of the American Society of Cinematographers, with a particular interest in technical innovation. This bore dividends on The Broadway Melody when he was able to devise the “coffin on wheels,” a soundproof but mobile camera booth that enabled the film to transcend the existing limitations of sound cinema.
Later in his career Arnold won Oscars for two of his inventions: in 1938, for a semi-automatic follow focus device; and in 1940 for a mobile camera crane.
Arnold was also important to the campaign that secured the inclusion of cinematographers in Hollywood credits.
