American Cinematographer - December 1985 - 125

PRECISION SPEED
CONTROL

Floyd Crosby, left,
receiving the Golden
Globe award from

Henry Escobar,
1953.

Floyd Delafield Crosby, ASC, a ver¬
satile cinematographer whose credits in¬
clude Tabu, High Noon and House of
Usher, died September 30 at his home
in Ojai, California. He had been in de¬
clining health for about a year. Crosby
was

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Born December 12, 1899, in
New York City, Crosby worked at the
stock exchange on Wall Street and stud¬
ied at the New York Institute of Photog¬
raphy. A meeting with Prof. William
Beebe, the oceanic explorer, led to a job
as apprentice photographer on the
Beebe Haitian Expedition, photograph¬
ing undersea life. In 1930 he went to
Tahiti with directors Robert Flaherty
and F. W.

Murnau

drama with

to

film

native

Tabu,

a

Crosby
won an Academy Award (1930-31) for
the Paramount release, a masterpiece
despite the incompatibility of the direc¬
tors and the resignation part way
through production of Flaherty.
For two decades Crosby spe¬
cialized in documentary films. He filmed
the Matto Grosso Expedition, the Pratt
Honduras Expedition, the FaVarre Brazilian-Guiana Expedition and an Indian
Expedition for Paramount in rapid suc¬
cession. In 1934 he photographed
Pueblo, a story of Indian life in New
nature

a

cast.

Mexico. He teamed with Pare Forentz

to

make The River and Tight for Life,
with Joris Ivens for The Power and

the Land, and with Flaherty for The
Land. In 1947 he photographed My
Father's House in Israel.
Director Robert Rossen
wanted a realistic but artistic look for
his picture The Brave Bulls (1951), and

Crosby provided it in
ventures

into

one

of his first

mainstream

features.

Shortly afterward he was hired by
Stanley Kramer and Fred Zinneman to
photograph his most celebrated picture
since Tabu, the "adult Western" High
Noon (1952). "Before starting the pic¬
ture, we agreed that we would do noth¬
ing to make the photography pretty,"

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Crosby said. "We wanted the feeling of
hot, stark, small western town. I did
not filter the skies as we felt that white
skies would add to the feeling of heat.
We also had the print made a few
a

points lighter than normal to add to the
effect of heat." Crosby was awarded a
Golden Globe for High Noon.
Ironically, Crosby spent many
years photographing very low budget
pictures for Roger Corman. These in¬
cluded Five Guns West, Apache
Woman, Attack of the Crab Mon¬
sters, War of the Satellites, Machine
Gun Kelly, Bock AH Night, /, Mobster,

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Teenage Caveman. In 1960, Cor¬
announced that he was upgrading
his product beginning with a series of
color films based on stories by Edgar
Allan Poe. These were filmed in grand
style by Crosby and included House of
man

Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum,
The Premature Burial, Tates of Ter¬
ror, The Raven and The Haunted Pal¬
ace.
He had more than 80 feature
credits when he retired in 1965.

Crosby was a member of the
Air Force Transport Command during
World War II with the rank of major. He
flew

more

than 200,000 miles while

making reference films for pilots.
He is survived by his wife,
Betty; two sons, David (well known
rock musician) and Ethan, and his sis¬
ter,

Mrs. John Gregory.

A

A

of

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over

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December 1985

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123
American Cinematographer - December 1985

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - December 1985
