Wong Tung Jim (1899-1976) moved from China to the USA aged five. In his teens, he found work at Famous Players-Lasky, rising steadily to the position of cinematographer on the Victor Fleming picture To the Last Man (1923). In a career stretching to 1975, the year before his death, he shot around 140 features, reaching the heights of achievement in his profession in the face of racism and the anti-miscegenation that refused to acknowledge his marriage to novelist Sanora Babb.
Howe was an innovative cinematographer, with a particular skill at presenting female stars at their best, and he was an early proponent of deep focus and travelling shots.
Highlights of Howe’s career include The Power and the Glory (1933), The Thin Man (1934), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Body and Soul (1947), Come Back, Little Sheba (1953), The Sweet Smell of Success (1957), The Old Man and the Sea (1958), The Outrage (1964) and Hombre (1967). He was nominated for the Oscar ten times, winning for The Rose Tattoo (1955) and Hud (1963).
James Wong Howe is the only cinematographer credited on MGM’s Hollywood Party but, given the overall piecemeal nature of the film’s production, it is highly likely that others shot parts of it. Howe also shot The Night is Young.
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