American Cinematographer - September 2004 - 84

London

Daily Mirror to photograph

the top 20 finalists. His father, Stuart
Elwin Neame, was that prosperous

portrait photographer, who adver¬
his

tised

trade

London

in

Underground stations via photo
enlargements bearing the legend, "If
it's a Neame, it's you at your best."
Close

went on to

become

one

of the

United

Kingdom's first film stars,
Ronnie practically grew
up on a movie set - though he had
no
particular interest in pursuing a
film career. "When I was 10,1 began
to take an interest in photography,"
he recalls. "My father was delighted.
He loaned me a camera and helped
me set up a darkroom under the
stairs. But my father was killed in a
and young

motor

accident when I

was

12. From

the ages

of 12 to 14,1 was able to stay
in school, but then the money ran
out and I was forced to go to work."

Through his mother's connec¬
tions, 15-year-old Ronnie was able to
get a job as a messenger at Elstree
Studios. He was assigned to the
camera department,
working on
Toni (1928), directed by Anthony
Maude and featuring Music Hall star
Jack Buchanan. The cameraman was

George W. Pocknall, who "had
mother from her early
days in pictures," says Neame. "He
was a good cameraman, but today
nobody remembers his work. He
was later blown to pieces while
working in the Home Guard during
known my

the war."

rest to create

the

first

acknowledged British talkie.
After working on Blackmail,
Neame gave up the business to try to
help his uncle keep the Elwin Neame
Photographic Studio afloat. "It was
still limping along after my father
died," Neame says, "and I tried to
revive the business for about

with

a

year

I

finally phoned the
department at
Elstree and got my old job back. I
was working as an assistant to
no success.

head of the

Claude

camera

Friese-Greene,

son

of

rapidly worked his

British

regard

as

the founder of the

much

the Americans

way up from runner to number boy
to assistant cameraman, and in 1928,

cinema

he landed

Lumieres. I worked with Claude for

a

job

in 1928,

Hitchcock was an important

director

that

as an

assistant

on
Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail. Even

Phot s

and dubbed the

William Friese-Greene, whom the

Neame

SBRirococbhaue.rfdrtte.sy

reshot much of the film with sound

-

as

several

crowded

onto

evidenced

by the fact
companies were
one
stage at Elstree

while Hitchcock had

a

whole stage to

himself. Blackmail was

completed

as

silent, but after the release of The
Jazz Singer (1927), English audiences
a

were

just

as crazy

in the U.S.;

for sound as those

Hitchcock therefore

revere

-

as

Edison and the French the
three years.

later killed while

serving as a pilot
during World War II, said, 'You know
you can do it.' I was not given an
increase in pay, but I was promised a
bonus at the end of the picture. My
bonus for six weeks' work

50

was

shot

several

pictures at Elstree
cameraman,

as a

more

lighting

and then left to go to

Wembley to make "quota quickies."
The British market

was

so

domi¬

nated

by foreign films, especially
American pictures, that there was
little room for English product on
U.K. screens, and British production
suffered. Finally, under pressure
from the home industry, Parliament
mandated that 20 percent of British
screen

time had

to

British films. "That

be filled with
real shock

Then, while we
were
shooting Drake of England
[ 1935], he collapsed on the set - the
result of too much drinking. The
studio manager was tight with a
pound and didn't want to hire

of their business could be
taken away," Neame relates. "But the
American firms were very clever.
They all formed British companies

another

and offered £5,000 for

two or

cameraman, so

if I could take
cameraman.

tant

and

I

over

was

not sure

he asked me
as

lighting

somewhat reluc¬

if I

was

ready, but

the director, Arthur Woods, who

was

to

Fox

was a

and MGM, because

in the 1950s, after

giving up his
blue glass for
megaphone.

a

Above: The 1941
film version of

George Bernard
Major

Shaw's

pounds - not much of a bonus!"
Neame

Opposite: Neame

Barbara,

produced and
directed by
Gabriel Pascal
and

photographed by
Ronald Neame,

BSC,

was

shot in

the heaviest

days

of the Nazi Blitz
of London. Left to

right: Penelope
Dudley-Ward
(standing), Marie
Lohr, Rex
Harrison, Wendy
Hiller and Robert

Morley.

20

percent

film, and there

were

a

5,000-foot
of

masses

producers in England who took
them up on it. They made the
pictures for £4,000, in six days, and
American

Cinematographer 71
American Cinematographer - September 2004

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